UNITED KINGDOM
Money Week
By: Chris Carter
18/06/2015
The discovery of the body of Roberto Calvi dangling from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge by a passer-by on the morning of 18 June 1982 had all the hallmarks of a Hollywood thriller.
Nicknamed ‘God’s banker’, Calvi was the chairman of Italian bank Banco Ambrosiano, in which the Vatican bank was a major shareholder. But the bank had been engaged in some very unholy activities, and by 1982, it was on the verge of collapse. The bank was £800m in the red, and owed money to the Sicilian mafia among others.
Calvi was “a brilliant financier”, The Independent wrote in 2005. “And though shy and socially gauche, he combined a lightening accountant’s brain with recklessness in a very Italian fashion”.
It was while in custody for illegal foreign currency dealings that Calvi tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists and taking an overdose. But he lived to be released on appeal, and on 11 June, a week before his death, he fled to London, taking with him a briefcase stuffed with incriminating documents.
Clearly not wanting to be found, he shaved off his moustache and checked into a nondescript £40-a-night hotel in Chelsea. Meanwhile, back in Italy, his secretary threw herself from a fourth-floor window. In her suicide note, she blamed Calvi for the bank’s demise, and Calvi was relieved of his duties as chairman.
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