God’s Banker I 8. The Train Station
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What led to the investigation of Roberto Calvi's murder?
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. Over two decades after Calvi's death, the Italian state was finally ready to prove who killed Roberto Calvi. Forensic expert Angela Gallup had put together a stunning report. Calvi hadn't killed himself, he was murdered. Gallup's report made its way very slowly into the Italian halls of justice, where eventually, five years later, a young prosecutor grabbed it. Gallup's report showed how Calvi had died, and the prosecutor was now ready to ask who had killed him. And so, once again... The world turned its attention to one of the most confounding cold cases on the planet, as the Italian state charged five people with the murder of Roberto Calvi.
The questions remain. What exactly did happen here at Blackfriars Bridge on that June night in 1982? Almost exactly 25 years on from Roberto Calvi's body being found hanging from this bridge. The examination of his body only confirmed what his family had suspected all along, that the original verdict of suicide returned by a London inquest was probably wrong.
When I first heard the prosecutor's theory of the case, I thought it sounded ridiculous, like a 70s pulp novel. But I have to say now, two years into the story, it actually sounds far less ludicrous. Prosecutors alleged that the mafia and the P2 masons teamed up to organize Calvi's killing because the banker had lost money that he was supposed to launder. Among the five defendants were Silvano Vitor, the smuggler, and Flavio Carboni, the fixer. Prosecutors said they were hired by the mafia to gain Calvi's trust and divert him to London. There, a hitman drugged God's banker and hanged him to make it look like a suicide. The other defendants were Carboni's girlfriend, who was with the men in London, and finally a mafioso and a gangster who were alleged to be involved with the planning. Early in my reporting, I used the trial mainly as a map, a way to suss out what names and events to research.
But this past year, I became obsessed with the idea that this trial, which spanned almost two years, could tell me something I'd been missing, something hidden in plain sight on Italy's version of Court TV. So I just started listening.
And at this point, I've listened to hundreds and hundreds of hours of that trial.
It was sort of like watching an old family reunion. I recognized most of the crew, though they were 20 years younger here at the trial. I mean, I listened to the trial while exercising, while doing the dishes, when I went on long trips. As I made lunch and dinner, I watched bankers and mobsters and members of Calvi's family testify.
The prosecution called 600 witnesses, including Calvi's relatives, co-workers, bank liquidators, priests,
And actually, anyone with an Ambrosiano connection in the 1980s who still had a pulse in 2005. There were experts from around the world. English scientists, Swiss-French accountants. It was a bit of a circus. But as I watched hour after hour of testimony, I noticed that the news cameras started to disappear. The crowds started to peter out. Even the defendants played hooky from the trial, which is legal in Italy. The case became unwieldy. Part of the trial just devolved into screaming matches. The prosecution tried to tie the mafia and the masons and the church and even the Italian CIA into this vast web of murder. But a lot of the evidence was hearsay. A former mafioso heard a story from another mafioso, or financial liquidators found payments that they suspected may have been used for criminal activity, but there was no smoking gun, no rock-solid piece of evidence implicating any of the living defendants.
And the verdict? All five defendants were found not guilty.
Despite 25 years of waiting for the truth for Roberto Calvi... We're really no closer to knowing how Roberto Calvi came to be found hanging here. The list of people with method and motive so long, it appears that his murderers may never be brought to book.
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