What happened to “God’s Banker”?
November 5, 2008

We still do not know who killed “God’s banker”. Roberto Calvi had a very close financial relationship with the Vatican and so he was known as “God’s banker”. He was the head of the failed Italian bank Banco Ambrosiano, one of the country’s biggest. One of his clients was the Vatican’s Institute of Religious Works. The Vatican denied any legal responsibility for the bank’s financial problems but it did agree to pay US$241 million to the bank’s creditors.

A court in Rome has now acquitted two Italian mobsters and three others for the murder. We are back to square one.

At the time of his death, the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, owing around US$2 billion, was being investigated by Italian authorities. Calvi was no small-time bank manager. His family alleged that some people would like to see him dead to prevent his giving any evidence to that financial enquiry.
This was not an ordinary death. He was found hanging from a noose underneath Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London – Britain’s financial centre – on the morning of June 18 1982.

His pockets contained the equivalent of US$15,000 in different currencies. The cash in his pockets and the presence of a very expensive Swiss watch suggested that he had not been the victim of a robbery.
Coincidentally I was in the City of London when the murder was announced and I had to pass the area where the body was found. I could not work how the body had got there. I was back on that bridge a few weeks ago and I still remain mystified – 25 years later.

If Calvi had been murdered, how did the murderers manage to get a body over the side of the bridge without being seen? Getting there by boat would also have been difficult. This is one of the busiest bridges in London, with plenty of people and cars passing over it. The River Thames flowing underneath is also very busy and so people on the boats would have seen a group of people tying a body to the bridge.

On the other hand, if it were suicide, how did Roberto Calvi do it? He was aged 62, over-weight and not particularly nimble. Authorities extracting the partly submerged body themselves had difficulty getting down there – and so it is not clear how he managed to it. We know that he was scared of heights and so he would have been scared of climbing over the side of the bridge to kill himself.

He was staying in Chelsea in west London and so why travel four miles east to the City of London to do it? Why didn’t he just throw himself under a train? Why travel to Britain to commit suicide when he could have done it back in Italy?

He had fled to London around June 10 from Italy where he was out on bail. He had travelled under an assumed name. He was staying at an inexpensive hotel. This was not the sort of accommodation that such a senior banker would stay at (unless he wanted to avoid being spotted by his colleagues). The police could not locate any one who had seen Calvi during his stay in London.

There were no signs of foul play on the body. There were no traces of poison in his system. But there were also no traces on his clothes or shoes of the stonework or metal scaffolding from which he was suspended. If he had clambered over the side of the bridge he would have left some residues on his clothing and shoes.

In 1981, he was convicted of corruption and currency violations. He was out on bail with the appeal pending when he fled the country in June 1982.But fleeing the country meant only that he travelled to his death.
On present indications, his death may well remain unexplained.