Banco Ambrosiano
Banco Ambrosiano was an
Italian bank which collapsed spectacularly in 1982. At the centre of the bank's failure was its chairman,
Roberto Calvi and his membership in the illegal
masonic lodge Propaganda Due (more commonly known as "P2") involved in
Gladio's "
strategy of tension" starting from the 1969
Piazza Fontana bombing.
Vatican Bank was Banco Ambrosiano's main shareholder, and the death of
Pope John Paul I in 1978 is rumoured to be linked to the Ambrosiano scandal, giving one of the subplots of
The Godfather Part III. Vatican Bank was accused of funneling US covert funds to
Solidarity and the
Contras through Banco Ambrosiano.
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Franco Ratti, chairman.
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Carlo Canesi, senior manager then chairman of Banco Ambrosiano Holding starting from 1965.
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Roberto Calvi, general manager of
Ambrosiano since 1971, appointed chairman from 1975 to his death in
June 1982.
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Paul Marcinkus, president of
Vatican Bank (aka
"Istituto per le Opere di Religione", had been a director of
Ambrosiano Overseas, based in
Nassau, Bahamas.
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Carlo De Benedetti became deputy-chairman for less than two months, after Roberto Calvi's trial.
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Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano is under
Giovanni Bazoli.
The Banco Ambrosiano was founded in
Milan in
1896 by Monsignor
Giuseppe Tovini, and was named after
Saint Ambrose, the fourth century
archbishop of the city. Tovini's purpose was to create a Catholic bank as a counter-balance to Italy's "lay" banks, and its goals were "serving moral organisations, pious works, and religious bodies set up for charitable aims." The bank came to be known as the "priests' bank"; one chairman was
Franco Ratti, nephew to
Pope Pius XI. In the 1960s the bank began to expand its business, opening a holding company in
Luxembourg in 1963 which came to be known as Banco Ambrosiano Holding. This was under the direction of
Carlo Canesi, then a senior manager, and from 1965 chairman.
In 1947 Canesi had brought
Roberto Calvi into Ambrosiano. In
1971 Calvi became general manager, and in 1975 he was appointed chairman. Calvi expanded Ambrosiano's interests further; these included creating a number of off-shore companies in the Bahamas and South America; a controlling interest in the
Banca Cattolica del Veneto; and funds for the publishing house
Rizzoli to finance the
Corriere della Sera newspaper (giving Calvi control behind the scenes for the benefit of his associates in the P2
masonic lodge). Calvi also involved the Vatican Bank,
Istituto per le Opere di Religione, in his dealings, and was close to Bishop
Paul Marcinkus, the bank's chairman. Ambrosiano also provided funds for political parties in Italy, and both the
Somoza dictatorship in
Nicaragua and its
Sandinista opposition. There are also rumours that it provided money for
Solidarity in
Poland (it has been widely alleged that the
Vatican Bank funded Solidarity).
Calvi used his complex network of overseas banks and companies to move money out of Italy, to inflate share prices, and to secure massive unsecured loans. In
1978 the
Bank of Italy produced a report on Ambrosiano that predicted future disaster and led to criminal investigations. However, soon afterwards the investigating Milanese magistrate,
Emilio Alessandrini, was killed by a left-wing terrorist group, while the Bank of Italy official who superintended the inspection,
Mario Sarcinelli, found himself imprisoned on charges that were later dismissed.
In
1981 police raided the office of Propaganda Due masonic lodge
Worshipful Master Licio Gelli, and found further evidence against Roberto Calvi. Calvi was imprisoned, put on trial, and sentenced to four years in jail. However, he was released pending an appeal, and he kept his position at the bank. Other alarming developments followed:
Carlo De Benedetti of
Olivetti bought into the bank and became deputy chairman, only to leave two months later after receiving
Mafia threats and lack of co-operation from Calvi. His replacement, a longtime employee named
Roberto Rosone, was wounded in a Mafia shooting incident.
In
1982 it was discovered that the bank could not account for $1.287 billion. Calvi fled the country on a false passport, and Rosone arranged for the
Bank of Italy to take over. Calvi's personal secretary,
Graziella Corrocher, left a note denouncing Calvi before jumping from her office window to her death. Calvi himself was found hanging from
Blackfriars Bridge in
London on June 18.
During July 1982, funds to the off-shore interests were cut off, leading to their collapse, and in August the bank was replaced by the
Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano under
Giovanni Bazoli. There was much argument about who should take responsiblity for losses incurred by the Old Ambrosiano's off-shore companies, and the
Vatican eventually agreed to pay out a substantial sum without accepting liability.
Just before the media revealed the Ambrosiano scandal,
Gérard Soisson, manager of transaction clearing company
Clearstream, was found dead in
Corsica, two months after
Ernest Backes's dismissal from Clearstream in
May 1983. Banco Ambrosiano was one of the many banks to have un-published accounts in Clearstream. Backes, formerly the third highest ranking officer of Clearstream and a primary source for
Denis Robert's book on Clearstream's scandal,
Revelation$, claims he "was fired because (he) knew too much about the Ambrosiano scandal. When Soisson died, the Ambrosiano affair wasn't yet known as a scandal. (After it was revealed) I realized that Soisson and I had been at the crossroads. We moved all those transactions known later in the scandal to
Lima and other branches. Nobody even knew there was a Banco Ambrosiano branch in Lima and other South American countries." [
1] As of 2005, while the Italian justice has opened up again the investigation concerning the murder of Roberto Calvi, Ambrosiano's chairman, it has asked the support of Ernest Backes, and will investigate Gerard Soisson's death, according to
Lucy Komisar. Licio Gelli, headmaster of P2 masonic lodge, and mafioso
Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò, are being prosecuted for the assassination of Roberto Calvi.
Journalist
David Yallop believes that Calvi, with the assistance of P2, may have been responsible for the untimely death of
Albino Luciani, who, as
Pope John Paul I, was planning a reform of Vatican finances. However, Calvi's family maintain that he was an honest man manipulated by others. Their perspective informs Robert Hutchison's 1997 book
Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei. According to the magistrates who indicated Licio Gelli, P2's headmaster, and Giuseppe Calò for Calvi's murder, Gelli would have ordered his death to punish him for embezzlement of his and the mafia's money, while the mafia wanted to stop him from revealing the way Calvi helped it in
money laundering.
Rupert Cornwell,
God's Banker: The Life and Death of Roberto Calvi, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1984.
David Yallop,
In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, Corgi, 1987
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Clearstream scandal
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Licio Gelli, headmaster of
Propaganda Due ("P2") masonic lodge, involved in
Gladio's "
strategy of tension" (which included terrorist acts, such as the 1969
Piazza Fontana bombing)
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Roberto Calvi, Banco Ambrosiano's chairman
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Lucy Komisar about "Revelation$" by Denis Roberts & Ernest Backes*
Links to several newsarticles about the scandal
