Cold Open

A Listener Note: This episode contains references to a suicide and may not be suitable for all audiences.

It’s the morning of June 18th, 1982, in London, England.

A motorboat powers its way through the dull waters of the River Thames. On its deck, a police officer tries to keep his balance as he stares over the bow. Ahead is Blackfriars Bridge, a major river crossing in the center of the city. And as the boat gets closer, the officer waves his hand, directing the pilot to slow down. He can see something beneath the bridge.

At 7:30 this morning, a postman called the police to report a grisly discovery. As he was walking along the path that leads underneath the bridge, the postman spotted someone hanging from a rope. It looked like a suicide. And now, this police officer’s job is to recover the body.

The boat pilot kills the engine and they float gently alongside the corpse. The dead man is half-submerged in the river, and the expensive suit he’s wearing is glistening in sodden.

The officer snaps a few photographs for evidence before putting down the camera and taking hold of the rope around the man’s neck.

The officer pulls on the rope, trying to lift the body out of the water—but it’s far too heavy and barely moves. So, the officer asks the boat pilot for help and together, they grab the dead man and, on the count of three… heave the body into the boat.

As the officer rolls the dead man onto his back… a brick falls out of the man's suit and onto the deck. The officer searches the body and discovers four more bricks in the dead man’s pockets. He frowns in confusion. Because the man might have used them to hasten his death—but it seems unnecessary.

As the pilot starts the motorboat’s engine to return to base, the police officer looks at the body, the expensive suit, the rope and the bricks, and can't help but think, there’s more to the story than a simple suicide.

The police officer’s suspicions are soon proven correct. The body belongs to Roberto Calvi —an influential Italian financier and convicted fraudster known as “God’s banker” for his close links to the Vatican. But after detectives identify the victim, they’ll be plunged into a shadowy world of organized crime, corruption and violence as they try to unravel the mystery of how and why Roberto Calvi ended up hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London on June 18th, 1982.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is June 18th, 1982: The Mysterious Death of “God’s Banker”.

Act One

It’s early one morning in March 1981 in Arezzo, a city in central Italy, more than a year before Roberto Calvi is discovered dead in London.

An Italian detective checks that his bulletproof vest is securely strapped on as he quietly makes his way to the front door of a villa. There’s no sign of movement inside, so the detective turns and gives the signal to the rest of his team waiting behind him. One of them hurries forward with a large battering ram. He swings it hard against the door, which shatters around the lock. Then, the rest of the team storm inside the villa with weapons drawn.

The house belongs to a man named Licio Gelli. Licio is a former Fascist revolutionary and was implicated in a failed coup eleven years ago. Now he's suspected of being a major player in the Italian criminal underworld. Today, the police officers are here to execute a search warrant - they’re looking for evidence linking Licio to an ongoing investigation into bank corruption.

After the armed police confirm that Licio is not home, the detective sets to work searching the house. Licio is involved in so many shady schemes that it’s difficult for the detective to work out what’s relevant to his investigation and what's not. But he hits the jackpot when he finds a secret compartment hidden within a wall. Inside are papers that list members of a secret society named Propaganda Due. Licio is listed as the organization’s leader, but its other members aren’t crime bosses like him. Instead, they’re powerful figures from across Italian society. Among the 961 names on the list are high-ranking military officers, prominent politicians, wealthy businessmen—and the banker Roberto Calvi.

Roberto has come up on the radar of investigators before. For the last six years, he’s been the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, Italy’s second-largest bank. But three years ago, Roberto came under suspicion when a convicted fraudster implicated him in illegal dealings. Roberto was accused of using his influence in the banking industry to run up huge unsecured loans. It was also alleged that he had illegally funneled money out of Italy using a complex network of international banks, including the notoriously secretive Vatican Bank. Now, with this list in their possession, prosecutors have evidence that Roberto is part of a far larger conspiracy, an underground criminal organization that reaches right into the heart of the Italian government.

Two months after the raid on the villa, in May 1981, 61-year-old Roberto is arrested for illegal currency trading. Roberto’s fall from grace is swift - and spectacular. His appearance in court is front page news in Italy, where pundits speculate that Roberto was involved in nefarious activities like funding the Mafia, paying bribes to corrupt politicians, and making shady profits for the Catholic Church.

At his trial, Roberto is found guilty and he’s sentenced to four years in prison while Banco Ambrosiano is fined the equivalent of almost 20 million US dollars. But Roberto doesn’t remain in custody long. When his lawyers announce his intention to appeal, Roberto is allowed out on bail. He even gets to keep his job at the bank—but with conditions. The court insists on a new deputy chairman to keep an eye on operations and ensure that no more illegal trading takes place.

So, Roberto resumes work—but he has no intention of cooperating with the court-appointed supervisor. Instead, Roberto does all he can to make the deputy chairman's job impossible, and when the chairman starts receiving death threats from the Mafia, he decides it's not worth the trouble and quits. He’s replaced with another court appointee, but the new deputy is then forced off work when he’s wounded in a targeted shooting.

The Mafia’s intervention is probably designed to take the heat off Roberto—but it has the opposite effect. Media reports of the shooting and Roberto’s high-profile trial cause public confidence in Banco Ambrosiano to plummet. Customers start closing their accounts and taking their business elsewhere. And the crisis only deepens when the bank’s value drops 20 percent in a single day’s trading on the Milan Stock Exchange.

But thanks to his membership in Propaganda Due, Roberto has links to prominent figures in the business, media, political, and judicial worlds. But no matter how many strings Roberto tries to pull, he can’t secure enough money to stop the run on his bank. So, if Roberto is to avert catastrophe, he will need divine intervention, and luckily, he knows just the man to call.

Act Two

It’s June 5th, 1982, at the Banco Ambrosiano head office in Milan, Italy, thirteen days before Roberto Calvi’s body is found in London.

Roberto sits at his desk and reads through a letter that’s just been typed up by his private secretary. This isn’t the first draft. Roberto and his secretary have already been through several versions of the letter. They’ve been trying to get the tone just right, because the letter's recipient is the only person Roberto thinks has the power and wealth to stop his bank going under: Pope John Paul II.

Roberto isn’t known as “God’s banker” for nothing. Over the years, he’s helped fund countless Catholic initiatives and conducted many deals on behalf of the Vatican Bank. So, in his letter to the Pope, Roberto writes that Banco Ambrosiano's impending collapse is a “catastrophe” that he says will “damage” the Catholic Church. But the letter still treads a fine line. As well as emphasizing his bank’s usefulness to the Pope, Roberto also wants to imply a subtle threat—that if Banco Ambrosiano goes down, the Vatican Bank might be implicated in criminal activities.

Finally satisfied with the language of the letter, Roberto signs his name and asks his private secretary to send it immediately. Then, Roberto settles back to await the Pope’s response.

But after five days, Roberto still hasn’t got an answer. The Pope has chosen to ignore Roberto’s threats and stay out of the Banco Ambrosiano crisis. This leaves Roberto out of options. So, he decides to flee Italy. It means breaking his bail conditions. But he doesn’t think he has a choice anymore. He throws together a bag of clothes and fills a briefcase with cash in various currencies worth more than 14,000 US dollars in total. He also packs a fake passport made by one of his dubious associates. And then, just before leaving, he shaves off his mustache to further conceal his identity. Then, he arranges a car to drive him away from his home, his work, and his entire life.

Over the next few days, Roberto flees Italy and makes his way to Switzerland. From there, he charters a private plane to Britain. And six days after leaving Italy, he arrives at the London home of a fellow member of the criminal organization Propaganda Due. The next day, word reaches him that he has been fired by Banco Ambrosiano. Worse news soon follows. Back in Italy, Roberto’s private secretary commits suicide by jumping from her office window. She leaves behind a note blaming Roberto for the bank’s problems. But he’ll never read it because the following day, Roberto himself is discovered hanging from Blackfriars Bridge - in another apparent suicide.

British investigators initially draw a blank as to who the body under the bridge belongs to. The only clue they have is the fake passport. But after Italian authorities put out a warrant for Roberto’s arrest, the body’s true identity is revealed. And as detectives in London investigate, they soon find out that Roberto skipped bail and was due in court in Italy to appeal his conviction for fraud. Two weeks after Roberto’s death, Banco Ambrosiano finally collapses with debts worth up to 1.5 billion US dollars. With all this evidence, the British coroner rules Roberto’s death was a suicide and suggests that he was simply unable to cope as his bank collapsed and his reputation was left in tatters.

But not everyone agrees. Roberto’s family insists that the physical evidence does not match a suicide. To hang himself from Blackfriars Bridge, Roberto would have had to climb down a ladder, cross some scaffolding, and shimmy across a narrow ledge before tying a rope to an iron arch—all while apparently carrying several heavy bricks.

It doesn't add up for them, and many suggest that the Mafia may have killed Roberto as punishment because the bank’s failure stopped their money laundering operation. Still, others theorize that Roberto may even have been killed on the orders of the Catholic Church to cover up the Vatican’s knowledge of Roberto’s illegal currency trading.

But one prime suspect stands out above all others: Licio Gelli, the organizer of the secretive Propaganda Due. Soon, Roberto’s family are convinced that Licio ordered Roberto’s murder to prevent him speaking out about the criminal underworld they both moved in.

But for Robert’s family to convince prosecutors of the need to reopen the complex case, they'll require hard, physical evidence—and for that, they’ll need to return to the body of Roberto Calvi.

Act Three

It’s December 1998, at a cemetery in Drezzo, a small town in northern Italy, sixteen years after the death of Roberto Calvi.

American private investigator Jeff Katz stands by the side of a grave, a little unsure how to act. It’s a solemn location, but Jeff isn’t here to see a body lowered into the ground. Instead, he’s here to witness the exhumation of the cemetery’s most notorious resident: Roberto Calvi.

Ever since Roberto’s death, his family has contested the original conclusion of the British coroner that Roberto killed himself. A second inquest in Britain concluded that the exact cause of death could not be established. But that was still not enough for Roberto’s family. They suspected foul play—so they hired Jeff to investigate on their behalf.

After the gravediggers retrieve Roberto’s coffin, Jeff escorts it to forensic pathologists for a series of tests. They soon uncover the evidence Jeff was hoping for. Roberto’s fingers have no trace evidence of the bricks that were found in his pockets, meaning that he didn’t put them there himself. And Roberto’s neck shows no sign of the injuries usually associated with death by hanging. And that means he was probably already dead before his neck was put in the noose. This allows forensic experts to come to a new conclusion: Roberto did not commit suicide. He was murdered.

It will take years for Jeff Katz to persuade British and Italian prosecutors to reopen the case. But eventually, five members of the Mafia will be charged with Roberto’s murder—but the prosecutors will fail to convince a jury of their guilt thanks to limited evidence.

Meanwhile, Licio Gelli will never be formally charged over the conspiracy to kill Roberto, although he will spend most of his later years under house arrest at his villa in Arezzo on other charges. So, the death of Roberto Calvi remains open today, the exact fate of “God’s banker” as much a mystery now as it was when his body was first discovered hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London on the morning of June 18th, 1982.

Outro

Next on History Daily. June 19th, 1968. Over 50,000 people march on Washington, DC, to protest economic injustice in an event called “Solidarity Day.”

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.