Calvi is arrested on a banking technicality, but after his release, he becomes paranoid. When his deputy is shot in the street, Nicolo uncovers secret tapes revealing Calvi’s mounting fear. The Bank of Italy finds a $1.2 billion hole in Calvi’s accounts—money meant for the Vatican, the Mafia, and P2. Now, it's gone. Friends of the Pod get early access to the entire first season of Shadow Kingdom: God's Banker before it drops for everyone else—ads included. Get early access to the full season now by joining Crooked’s Friends of the Pod at crooked.com/friends. Hear this episode in Italian by subscribing to Il Banchiere di Dio wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What led to Roberto Calvi's arrest and prison experience?
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. In the middle of a hot summer night in 1981, Roberto Calvi sat in a prison cell and began to cry. He'd been arrested just a week after the assassination attempt on John Paul II, and had spent two months wasting away in his cell.
Calvi's stubble was beginning to show. His eyes were red from lack of sleep. His beige prison jumpsuit stunk of BO. Calvi had been stripped of his designer clothes right down to his shoelaces, and he hadn't had a good night's sleep in months. His cellmates would play cards, and they'd listen to music all night, keeping him from sleeping. Calvi was charged with breaking currency export laws.
Basically, Italy wanted to protect its economy by forcing people to keep their money in the country. Yeah, it's illegal to export a certain amount of capital abroad in Italy. Everybody was doing that. I asked Francisco Pacienza, the former spy who worked for Calvi, about Calvi's arrest. And he said what I heard from lots of people, which is, everybody ignored this law.
To be clear, Calvi was up to a bunch of financial shenanigans. But it's also pretty normal for bankers to work internationally, sending cash outside of their country. So arresting Calvi for this kind of felt like arresting a pedestrian for jaywalking. It seemed like prosecutors were going after Calvi to send a political message. Some reporters claimed this was a left-wing vendetta against Calvi.
Others suggested that prosecutors wanted to send a message to tax cheats, to other rich Italians who were shadily trying to conceal money abroad. Either way, Patienza said this was a shock to Calvi's world.
Well, when Calvi was arrested, I was just in my office in Rome, and my secretary said, listen, listen, listen, listen. I heard the television. I saw that he was arrested. Roberto Calvi cannot leave Italy legally because his passport was withdrawn a few months ago.
You're the Calvi family creative fixer at this point. Are you helping him now that he's in jail? Are you giving him strategies?
I organized a contact with the chaplain of the jail. I told the chaplain to say that we are very close to him, don't worry, and so on.
Why did you want Calvi to know that you're with him and everything's okay?
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