The Roberto Calvi Murder

By Albert Jack

From the best selling author of Red Herrings & White Elephants, Pop Goes the Weasel, Ten Minute Mysteries and many more...

The Mysterious Death of God’s Own Banker - Did Roberto Calvi, head of a bank with close connections to the Vatican, take his own life or was there a more sinister reason why he was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge?

Early in the morning of 18 June 1982, in a scene redolent of a real-life Da Vinci Code, the body of Roberto Calvi, chairman of one of Italy’s most influential financial establishments, the Banco Ambrosiano, was found hanging from scaffolding under London’s Blackfriars Bridge by a passing postman.

Calvi’s pockets were full of stones and, bizarrely, a brick had been pushed into the zip of his trousers. The smartly dressed banker was carrying nearly £10,000 in cash in three different currencies in his jacket pocket – lire, Swiss francs and pounds sterling. The man who provided banking facilities for the Vatican, earning him the media nickname of ‘God’s Banker’, had, apparently taken his own life. 

It seemed pretty clear to most people that he had committed suicide, but had he? Others were far more doubtful, especially on discovering that Calvi was supposed to have been in Milan at the time. Indeed his passport was back there, and he had made no plans to travel to London at all.

Milan was where Roberto Calvi had been born, on 13 April 1920, just as Europe was recovering from the aftermath of the Great War. It was at the end of the Second World War that Calvi joined the Banco Ambrosiano, becoming gradually promoted within the organization and, in the mid 1960s, acquiring the patronage of an important shareholder,  Sicilian-born Michele Sindona, known to his associates as ‘the Shark’.

Sindona had begun his working life as a tax accountant, but he soon switched to less law-abiding pursuits and began to assist his Sicilian associates in their smuggling operations.

When he moved to Milan, he quickly impressed Mafia bosses with his tax-avoidance skills and in 1957 started work with the Gambino family by managing their growing profits from heroin smuggling. 

By the end of the first year, Sindona had not only actually bought his first bank, but he had also become firm friends with Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, who was among those who grew to rely upon the Sicilian’s financial acumen, profiting considerably from it.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Albert Jack
• Release date: Feb 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386720027

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Table of Contents

Crime | Unsolved Murders: The Pope's Banker: The Roberto Calvi Murder | (2018 eBook Edition) | Albert Jack | Albert Jack Publishing

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Further Reading: Mysterious World

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About the Author

Crime

Unsolved Murders: The Pope's Banker: The Roberto Calvi Murder

(2018 eBook Edition)

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Albert Jack

Albert Jack Publishing

Copyright Page

Crime

Unsolved Murders: The Pope's Banker: The Roberto Calvi Murder

(2018 eBook Edition)

Extracted from They Laughed at Galileo

Copyright ©December 2015 Albert Jack

Cover Art: Albert Jack Publishing

Cover Design: Albert Jack Publishing

All rights are reserved to the author. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of non-fiction

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About the Author

Albert Jack, is a writer and historian. His first book, Red Herrings and White Elephants explored the origins of well-known idioms and phrases and became an international bestseller in 2004.

It was serialised by the Sunday Times and remained in their bestseller list for sixteen straight months. He followed this up with a series of bestsellers including Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep, Pop Goes the Weasel and What Caesar did for My Salad.

Fascinated by discovering the truth behind the world’s great stories, Albert has become an expert in explaining the unexplained, enriching millions of dinner table conversations and ending bar-room disputes the world over.

He is now a veteran of hundreds of live television shows and thousands of radio programmes worldwide. Albert lives somewhere between Guildford in England and Cape Town in South Africa.

Other Books

Red Herrings and White Elephants

Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep

Phantom Hitchhikers

Loch Ness Monsters and other Mysteries Solved

Pop Goes the Weasel

The Old Dog and Duck

What Caesar did for My Salad

It's a Wonderful Word

Money for Old Rope - Part 1

Money for Old Rope - Part 2

The Jam: Sounds from the Street

Want To Be a Writer? Then Do it Properly

New World Order

9/11 Conspiracy

Introduction