On this day: “God’s Banker” found dead, suicide or murder?

cityam

Jun 18

Portrait of Italian banker Roberto Calvi (1920 - 1982), late 1970s. Known as 'God's Banker,' Calvi was chairman of the Italian bank Benco Ambrosiano, one of the primary financial institutions ...

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Known as 'God's Banker,' Calvi was chairman of the Italian bank Benco Ambrosiano, one of the primary financial institutions ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.cityam.com/on-this-day-gods-banker-found-dead-suicide-or-murder/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"cityam_highlight","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>On this day: “God’s Banker” found dead, suicide or murder?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nOn this day: “God’s Banker” found dead, suicide or murder?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-06-18 12:21 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.cityam.com/on-this-day-gods-banker-found-dead-suicide-or-murder/><strong>cityam</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Portrait of Italian banker Roberto Calvi (1920 - 1982), late 1970s. Known as 'God's Banker,' Calvi was chairman of the Italian bank Benco Ambrosiano, one of the primary financial institutions ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.cityam.com/on-this-day-gods-banker-found-dead-suicide-or-murder/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BK4195","symbol_name":"互助储蓄与抵押信贷金融服务","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://www.cityam.com/on-this-day-gods-banker-found-dead-suicide-or-murder/","article_id":"2644717447","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":{"source":"cityam_highlight","url":"https://www.cityam.com/on-this-day-gods-banker-found-dead-suicide-or-murder/","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2644717447","pubTimestamp":1781756460,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"cityam_highlight","name":"cityam"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Banco Ambrosiano was already in trouble. In 1978, the Bank of Italy found it had illegally exported several billion lire; in 1981, Calvi had been convicted and fined for breaking Italian currency laws, though he retained his position at the bank. Held in prison during his trial, he had attempted suicide by taking barbitures and slitting his wrists, but opinion was divided over whether it had been a genuine attempt or part of a bid for sympathy.Get weekly sparky insight and expert commentary on markets, entrepreneurship and innovation from CityAM’s Opinion Editor, delivered every Saturday.These were Italy’s Anni di piombo, the Years of Lead, scarred by violence from the far-left and far-right as well as from organised crime. Calvi seemed to link every totem of the era: not only was Banco Ambrosiano tied to the Church and to financial corruption, but his new Deputy Chairman, Carlo de Benedetti, resigned after two months having been threatened by the Mafia; his successor, Roberto Rosone, ","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"cityam.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BK4195":"互助储蓄与抵押信贷金融服务","BK4229":"商业和住宅抵押贷款融资","IOR":"Income Opportunity Realty Investors"},"translate_title":"这一天：“上帝的银行家”被发现死亡，自杀还是谋杀？","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"IOR":1},"content_text":"Portrait of Italian banker Roberto Calvi (1920 - 1982), late 1970s. Known as 'God's Banker,' Calvi was chairman of the Italian bank Benco Ambrosiano, one of the primary financial institutions associated with the Vatican. In the early 1980s, he was convicted of fraud, but had been released on appeal when his body turned up hanging under Blackfriar's Bridge in London. (Photo by Express Newspapers/Getty Images) On 18th June 1982, Roberto Calvi, a banker with close ties to both the Vatican and the Mafia was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge. Eliot Wilson asks what happenedThe temperature was climbing by 7.30am on Friday 18 June 1982 and had reached 14°C, but London remained cloudy and wet. A postal clerk was walking to work along the riverside path underneath Blackfriars Bridge when he saw scaffolding in the river. On it, under the span of the bridge, the body of a man in a grey suit and white waistcoat was hanging by the neck from an orange nylon cord.The dead man had five pieces of brick, 12lbs in total, in his pockets, and $13,000 in dollars, schillings, lire and Swiss francs. His passport, which was forged, bore the name Gian Roberto Calvini, but he was Roberto Calvi, a 62-year-old financier and Chairman of Banco Ambrosiano in Milan. He had been missing for a week.Calvi had been a banker for 35 years, all but two of those at Banco Ambrosiano where he had become general manager in 1971 and chairman in 1975. The bank had been established in 1896 as an explicit counterweight to Italy’s Jewish-owned banks, “serving moral organisations, pious works, and religious bodies set up for charitable aims”. It had very close connections to the Catholic Church – one post-War Chairman was Count Franco Ratti, was the nephew of Pope Pius XI – and one of its major shareholders was the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), commonly known as the Vatican Bank.\n\nBanco Ambrosiano was already in trouble. In 1978, the Bank of Italy found it had illegally exported several billion lire; in 1981, Calvi had been convicted and fined for breaking Italian currency laws, though he retained his position at the bank. Held in prison during his trial, he had attempted suicide by taking barbitures and slitting his wrists, but opinion was divided over whether it had been a genuine attempt or part of a bid for sympathy.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFree Thinking - City AM Opinion Newsletter\nGet weekly sparky insight and expert commentary on markets, entrepreneurship and innovation from City AM’s Opinion Editor, delivered every Saturday.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThese were Italy’s Anni di piombo, the Years of Lead, scarred by violence from the far-left and far-right as well as from organised crime. Calvi seemed to link every totem of the era: not only was Banco Ambrosiano tied to the Church and to financial corruption, but his new Deputy Chairman, Carlo de Benedetti, resigned after two months having been threatened by the Mafia; his successor, Roberto Rosone, was shot and badly wounded in both legs near Milan Central Station in April 1982.‘A wall of rubber’Benedetti and Rosone had both been pressing the neurotically secretive Calvi for information about the bank’s finances, but the Chairman was uncooperative: Benedetti said he “met a wall of rubber”. That was hardly surprising. Not only was it his nature to hoard information, but by the spring of 1982,  $1.29bn were missing for which the bank could not account.Calvi had made a series of unsecured loans to ghost companies in South America to buy shares in Banco Ambrosiano, the loans made in dollars and the purchases in lire, but as Italy’s currency weakened, servicing the loans became more expensive – and they were due to be repaid on 13 June 1982. Late the previous year, Calvi was assisted by “letters of patronage” in support of the ghost companies from a canny, Illinois-born operator, Paul Marcinkus.","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":false,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"isVideo":false,"video":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"need_login_tip":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"}}}