God’s Banker I 3. The Grandmaster
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What led to the raid on the Italian warehouse?
Friends of the Pod subscribers can listen to the full season of Shadow Kingdom right now. Join Friends of the Pod at crooked.com slash friends or on Apple Podcasts. As the sun rose on a spring day in 1981... Police officers in unmarked cars drove south from Milan, past fields, farms, and small towns, until they arrived at a mattress factory and knocked on the door. These men were working with Judge Giuliano Turone. Turone was famous for investigating the mafia in Milan, Calvi's hometown. He was convinced Calvi was involved with the mob. Turone retold the story to me.
Roberto Calvi was the money laundry man of the Corleonesi, Luciano Liggio, Salvatore Irina, etc.
But on this day, Torona wasn't actually investigating Calvi. No, instead, he'd received a tip that bordered on conspiracy theory. That in this factory town, there could be evidence linking the mafia with an illegal underground branch of the Freemasons. He took the tip seriously, hand-picking officers for his team and keeping the raid confidential, even from other cops. Turone was worried that local police would tip off the Masonic group.
I wrote down an order. You have to go in complete secret.
The police pushed open the factory doors and were greeted by a secretary who led them to the second floor. As the officers climbed upstairs, they weren't quite sure what to expect. They were hoping to find a paper trail of where the mafia was moving its money, so they scoured desk drawers and bookshelves for documents, all while a secretary kept a close and silent watch on them. It didn't take long until they found a briefcase belonging to the factory's owner, Licio Gelli.
We knew that Licio Gelli was a powerful person. We knew that he was protected. And we did not know the names, but we knew that he had faithful persons among the Carabinieri. Even the finance police
When police opened Gelli's briefcase, they were in for a shock. Inside were documents that looked like a sprawling blueprint for a new world order. They were all about bringing Italy back to its glory days under fascism. Gelli had written a manifesto wherein Freemasons would carefully infiltrate the government, buy up all the major media outlets, destroy unions, silence journalists, take over the military, and eliminate communism. Turone's men looked back and forth at each other and then at the papers. What the hell had they just stumbled upon? At best, they thought they'd find a mafia-linked safe house or where dirty money was stashed, but cryptic documents about a shadowy government takeover, they definitely didn't see that coming. And they still had more of the factory to search. Meanwhile, the secretary just kept watching and waiting.
They had asked the lady whether there was a safe. And the lady said, yes, that is the safe, but I have not the keys.
Gelli had a safe there. Great. But Gelli's secretary didn't have the keys. Not so great. It didn't take long, though, before Turone's men noticed the secretary fiddling with her purse.
And the lady said, I have to go for a phone call.
As the secretary made her way down the stairs, she pulled something shiny from her bag. It looked like she was going to pass a set of keys to someone who had just arrived. One of the cops, though, snuck down the steps, rushed behind the secretary, and actually grabbed the keys out of her hand. She was stunned for a moment. then recovered and said, be careful about what you're doing. My commander is a very powerful person. Turone's men ran back up the stairs, found the safe, jammed the key in the lock. Inside were what looked like loyalty oaths to a branch of Freemasons called Propaganda Due. signed documents that declared each member would obey the Masonic Lodge and the Grand Master.
You could find carabinieri, guardia di finanza, parlamentari.
The safe held oaths from the country's most powerful military officers, from journalists, diplomats, professors, judges. There were at least 30 members of Italian parliament, two undersecretaries, government ministers, even future Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. According to these oaths, they had all joined Propaganda Due.
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