The mysterious murder of Roberto Calvi, the 'banker of God' who was found hanged on a London bridge

43 years ago, the BBC reported the death of Roberto Calvi, an Italian banker whose body was found in strange circumstances in central London. His bank had links to the Vatican, a Masonic group and the Mafia, and his murder left many questions unanswered.

Roberto Calvi was the chairman of the prestigious Banco Ambrosiano, Italy's largest private bank. His ties to the Catholic Church were so close that he became known as "God's banker."

But on June 18, 1982, Calvi, 62, was found dead, hanged beneath Blackfriars Bridge in central London.

"Calvi was at the centre of an incredibly complex web of international fraud and intrigue," the BBC's Hugh Scully reported.

'It involved the Italian banking system, the Mafia, the Freemasons and, above all, the Vatican.'

The banker's death triggered a huge political and financial scandal in Italy, involving the disappearance of millions of dollars and leaving behind a mystery that persists to this day.

Strange circumstances

Calvi had been missing for nine days when he was found hanging from scaffolding beneath a bridge over the River Thames in London.

The strange circumstances of his death left British police suspicious.

His pockets were full of bricks, and he was carrying around US$14,000 (R$77,000 at current exchange rates) in cash, in different currencies.

In addition, he carried a false passport with the name Gian Roberto Calvini.

Despite this, the initial forensic report from July 1982 found no signs on his body that suggested foul play. The official conclusion was that the banker had taken his own life.

But even then, there was a suspicion that something much darker was behind his death.

"Calvi's final journey was not that of a man contemplating suicide," Scully said. "In fact, he had devised a well-conceived plan to leave Italy in secret."

The banker shaved off his mustache so as not to be recognized and disguised his route out of Italy, first passing through other countries and hiring a private plane to take him to London.

"He had a one-month lease on an apartment in Chelsea, a fake passport and an airline ticket," Scully said.

Inside the passport was a valid visa for Brazil and the ticket was a one-way ticket to Rio de Janeiro.

Why would anyone plan to go so far only to end up hanging under Blackfriars Bridge?

Calvi's death was not the only one at Banco Ambrosiano. The day before his body was found, his personal secretary, Teresa Corrocher, apparently threw herself from the fourth floor of the bank's Milan headquarters.

She left a note condemning her boss, saying he should be "punished twice for the damage done to the bank and all its employees."

Calvi and his bank operated in a shadowy world where finance, organized crime, politics and religion overlapped.

Founded in 1896, Banco Ambrosiano had a long relationship with the Catholic Church, and the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), better known as the Vatican bank, had become its main shareholder.

The IOR manages the bank accounts of the pope and clergy, as well as the church’s financial investments. Because the Vatican is a sovereign state, Italian regulators have no control or oversight over the IOR.

Mafia connections

"The Vatican is completely free from currency controls and other government regulations; secrecy is everything," Scully said.

The Vatican did not have to account to anyone for its financial operations, and huge sums of money could be sent anywhere in the world without anyone knowing except those directly involved.

As head of Banco Ambrosiano, Calvi built close ties with his counterpart at the IOR, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus.

This American priest, in turn, had financial connections and associates that raised many suspicions.

"The best known was Michele Sindona, a banker with Mafia connections who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud in the US," Scully said.

Sindona, known in banking circles as "the shark", would later be transferred to a prison in Italy, where he would die in 1986 after drinking coffee contaminated with cyanide.

Sindona had Calvi as a mentor in his banking career since the late 1960s, and both belonged to an obscure Masonic lodge called Propaganda Two (P2).

The group was linked to far-right organizations and was led by the multimillionaire and famous Italian fascist Licio Gelli. Its members included prominent figures from the military, political, business and journalism spheres.

An Italian journalist, Count Paolo Filo della Torre, told the BBC in 1982 that although P2 was theoretically a Masonic lodge, "in practice it was something very much associated with the Mafia and all sorts of dirty dealings".

In March 1981, Italian police raided Gelli's offices and discovered a list of hundreds of alleged P2 members, including politicians, military officers, and media mogul and future Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The revelation sparked a political scandal. Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his entire cabinet resigned, a police chief shot himself and a former minister was rushed to hospital after suffering an overdose.

Police operations managed to find compromising documents that implicated Calvi in ​​fraudulent practices and illegal operations on the high seas.

In May 1981, the banker was arrested and found guilty of currency violations. He was sentenced to four years in prison but was released on bail pending an appeal.

Calvi took the opportunity to leave the country with a briefcase full of documents about the illicit activities of Banco Ambrosiano. A few days after his arrival in London, his bank went bankrupt, leaving behind huge debts.

Missing money

"Before Roberto Calvi disappeared, investigators discovered that $1.5 billion was missing from his bank," Scully said.

"It is believed that this money was sent abroad through the Vatican Bank, which avoids Italian exchange controls. Some of this money was sent to South American countries with low interest rates, as determined by the Catholic Church. The rest was invested in shell companies in Luxembourg and South America, returning to Europe to buy Calvi's shares in Banco Ambrosiano."

Marcinkus was also sought for questioning, but was granted immunity because he was a Vatican employee and has always maintained his innocence regarding any wrongdoing.

The Vatican has never admitted legal responsibility for the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, but in 1984 it said it had a moral responsibility for the failure and made a voluntary contribution of $406 million (more than R$2 billion at today's exchange rate) to the bank's creditors.

Investigators believed that shell companies set up by Calvi had been used to move money both to support covert political activities in other countries and to launder money for clients such as the mafia.

"Police investigations into Calvi's business dealings threatened many powerful people in Italy and some believe this became a motive for his murder," Scully said.

Filo della Torre, who knew Calvi, told the BBC in 1982 that the banker had been murdered and that the fact that his body was dumped under Blackfriars Bridge had Masonic symbolism.

He stated that P2 members wore black robes to their meetings and referred to themselves as frati neri , meaning "black friars".

Calvi's family also refused to accept the conclusion of suicide, which was overturned in 1983 when a second inquest returned an inconclusive verdict on the death.

But his family, including his widow, Clara Calvi, kept up the pressure on police and hired private investigators and forensic experts to look into the banker's death.

After Calvi's body was exhumed in 1998, new evidence was obtained against the suicide hypothesis.

Forensic analysis showed that the neck injuries were not consistent with death by hanging and that Calvi's hands never touched the bricks found in his pockets. In October 2002, Italian judges concluded that the banker had been murdered.

Italian police opened an investigation and in October 2005 five people were charged in Rome with Calvi's murder.

Prosecutor Luca Tescaroli argued that the banker was murdered for stealing Mafia money for his own benefit, and that Calvi planned to blackmail influential figures, including politicians.

In June 2007, after a 20-month trial, banker Flavio Carboni, his ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig, businessman Ernesto Diotallevi, Calvi's bodyguard and driver Silvano Vitor, and Cosa Nostra treasurer Pippo Calo — who was serving two life sentences for Mafia crimes — were acquitted of any involvement in Calvi's death.

To this day, there is still speculation about who ordered and carried out the murder of the Italian banker. No one has ever been convicted.

*This is an English adaptation of a story originally published by BBC Culture. To read it in English, click here. .