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'God's banker': the Roberto Calvi case

On Sky One this week:

Conspiracies

WEDNESDAY 15th MAR, 21:00

Danny Wallace examines the death of Roberto Calvi, known as `God's Banker' he was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge after one of Italy's largest private banks went bankrupt
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11 Pounds of Bricks

I suspect that Roberto Calvi was a victim of murder rather than of suicide, but that's not the point of this post. It is, rather, one of the pieces of "evidence" used to establish the likelihood of that murder.

The argument runs that Calvi could not have climbed up London's Blackfriars Bridge on his own because he toted 11 pounds of bricks along with him.

"How," asks Mark Pilkington in FORTEAM TIMES for September, 2002 (Issue 161), "could a small, rotund man in his sixties have climbed up the bridge with 11 lbs of bricks in his pockets?"

For heaven's sake, where could you find a man in his 60s, 70s or even 80s, ambulatory and in decent health, who COULDN'T carry 11 pounds of ANYTHING up a flight of stairs or a ladder? (One of my best friends served as an Ohio River body-rescue skindiver until his late 70s.)

I am approximately the age Calvi was when he died, am shorter than average (5'7 1/2') and am arguably rotund. Yet I regularly attend book and media sales and return home by bus and by foot carrying 35 - 50 pounds of materials, then easily carry them up two flights of stairs to my apartment.

I surely could carry eleven pounds up a bridge!
 
The Vatican Bank is in trouble again.

Vatican bank in the spotlight over money laundering claim
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/fro ... 35168.html
PADDY AGNEW in Rome

Wed, Sep 22, 2010

THE UGLY ghosts of Roberto Calvi, Archbishop Marcinkus, P2 and the Banco Ambrosiano hovered uneasily in the Roman air yesterday as it was revealed that the Vatican bank, IOR (Istituto per le Opere di Religione) is currently under investigation for possible violations of Italian money laundering regulations.

Ever since it emerged that Archbishop Marcinkus had, wittingly or unwittingly, involved the Vatican Bank in the affairs of Roberto Calvi’s Banco Ambrosiano, a bank that collapsed spectacularly in 1982 with debts of $1.3 billion (€980 million), the very name IOR prompts controversy.

The Holy See yesterday found that IOR is once again in the eye of the storm with both Banca d’Italia and state investigators expressing reservations about two Vatican bank transactions which do not appear to have complied with anti-money laundering requirements.

At the heart of this investigation are two transfers – one for €20 million to JP Morgan Frankfurt and the other for €3 million to the Italian Banca del Fucino – about which IOR is alleged to have failed to provide enough information, thus prompting the Bank of Italy to automatically suspend the transactions.

Not surprisingly, the Vatican secretariat of state issued a communique in which it expressed its “perplexity and bewilderment”at the case.

Furthermore, the Holy See expressed its “full confidence” in IOR president Etorre Gotti Tedeschi, who is now on the list of those under investigation: “It is well known that the Holy See authorities have often expressed their desire for full transparency regarding the financial operations of IOR . . . for that reason, IOR authorities have for some time been in close contact both with the Bank of Italy, as well as with competent international organisations such as the OECD and the Financial Action Taskforce on Money Laundering with a view to having IOR included in the so-called white list .”

While the Holy See expressed its “perplexity” and while director Gotti Tedeschi described himself as “deeply humiliated” by the probe, independent analysts suggest the current investigation comes as no surprise. “ is the most secret bank in the world”, money laundering expert Jeffery Robinson told CNN.

Furthermore, Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of Vaticano Spa , a 2009 analysis of IOR, commented yesterday: “The Bank of Italy’s focus on IOR activities shows that the wall of silence that has long existed between Italy and the pope’s bank has now broken down.”
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And the Vatican spin on. Not fooling anybody though.

Vatican Bank funds retained in court money-laundering inquiry
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wor ... 19091.html
PADDY AGNEW in Rome

Fri, Oct 22, 2010

A ROME tribunale di riesame, a sort of fast-track appeals court, this week refused to release €23 million of Vatican Bank funds, sequestered last month by Rome prosecutors within the context of a investigation into possible money-laundering.

To the discomfort of the directors of the Holy See and Vatican Bank, formally known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), the tribunal this week essentially ruled that the prosecutors had been fully entitled to sequester the funds “because of omitted and incomplete information to controlling authorities with regard to the nature of the operation”.

Banca d’Italia inspectors and state prosecutors had expressed reservations about two Vatican Bank transactions that may not have complied with anti-money-laundering requirements, namely the transfer of €20 million to JP Morgan Frankfurt and of €3 million to the Italian Banca di Fucino.

At the time, IOR president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi claimed the “incomplete information” had been the result of a simple mistake, due to a bureaucratic oversight, adding that IOR had been transferring its own funds.

Furthermore, the Vatican secretariat of state quickly issued a communiqué in which it expressed its “perplexity and bewilderment” about the inquiry, expressing its full confidence in Gotti Tedeschi.

This week’s ruling, however, would suggest the IOR still has a case to answer. In justifying their sequester of the IOR funds, Roman magistrates Nello Rossi and Stefano Rocco Fava pointed to at least three other “suspect” operations from 2009, which had completely ignored Italian money-laundering regulations.

Furthermore, media speculation suggests the IOR may have been used to transfer money, subsequently used as bribes within the ambit of the “Grandi Appalti” scandal over the awarding of public contracts for major events. These included last year’s G8 summit in La Maddalena, Sardinia (later moved to L’Aquila), the 2009 World Swimming Championships and next year’s 150th anniversary celebrations of the Unity of Italy
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