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Death of Roberto Calvi

Roberto Calvi found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge, London, 18 June 1982.

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Dates
18 Jun 1982
Place
Blackfriars Bridge

Roberto Calvi was found dead on 18 June 1982, a day after his secretary fell to her death at Banco Ambrosiano. A British inquest first returned suicide; a second returned an open verdict. A Rome court later acquitted the men tried for murder but, on appeal, wrote that he was killed.

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  • Roberto Calvi a popular reading: Blackfriars, and P2 members calling each other "friar"; no court found this Scholarship & press 1

    TIME reported the reading as what "some Italians" saw. Reuters (2007) says prosecutors argued the staging suggested "Mafia or Masonic ritual". Neither court found who staged anything.

  • Roberto Calvi found dead Scholarship & press 1

    Reports differ on the details: other accounts give about $14,000 and five bricks.

  • Flavio Carboni travelled with Calvi to London; later a defendant, acquitted Scholarship & press 2
  • Roberto Calvi fled Italy on a false passport via Austria to London Scholarship & press 1
  • Roberto Calvi attempted suicide during a short spell in jail in 1981, according to a BBC News text Scholarship & press 3

    Reported in a BBC News text; no court or inquest source read confirms it.

  • Roberto Calvi October 2002: experts appointed by Italian judges concluded he was murdered (an expert finding, not a court's) Scholarship & press 3
  • Roberto Calvi British police reopened the case in 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported Scholarship & press 4

    The City of London Police's own statement was not read.

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  1. 18 Jun 1982 Death of Roberto Calvi
Proof 6 sources
  1. Italy: The Great Vatican Bank Mystery (8 pages), TIME, 13 Sep 1982. Scholarship & press Archived copy
    But some Italians saw sinister significance in the fact that he was dangling from Blackfriars Bridge: members of P2 dress in black and address each other as "friar."
    The dead man's pockets contained some $13,000 in various currencies, as well as 12 lbs. of bricks and stones.
    Calvi fled Italy with a false passport, flying first to Austria, then to England.
    In the absence of evidence to the contrary, British authorities ruled Calvi's death a suicide.
    when the body of a man was found hanging from London's Blackfriars Bridge, his toes just touching the surface of the muddy Thames
  2. Five acquitted of killing 'God's banker', The Irish Times, 7 Jun 2007. Scholarship & press
    a Sardinian property developer who accompanied Calvi on the secret trip that he made from Italy to the UK, using a false passport, just days before his death in June 1982
    Lawyers for the main defendants argued that he had probably committed suicide or, at least, that there was no proof he had been murdered.
    Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò, a Sicilian mafia boss who is serving multiple life sentences for crimes.
    Prosecutors in Rome started a new investigation in 1998 and concluded that Calvi had been killed at Blackfriars Bridge.
  3. 1982 'God's banker' found hanged (BBC News text, "Courtesy BBC News"), Macau Daily Times (BBC News text). Scholarship & press
    During his short spell in jail he attempted suicide.
    In October 2002 forensic experts appointed by Italian judges concluded that the banker had been murdered.
    They said his neck showed no evidence of the injuries usually associated with death by hanging and his hands had never touched the stones found in the pockets of his clothes.
  4. Former Vatican bank chief Paul Marcinkus, 84, dies, The Seattle Times (Los Angeles Times), 22 Feb 2006. Scholarship & press
    British police reopened the case in 2003.
  5. God's Godfather (review), London Review of Books, 6 Oct 1983. Scholarship & press Archived copy
    On 27 June 1983 the original verdict of suicide was replaced by an open verdict.
  6. All acquitted in 'God's banker' murder trial, The Associated Press (via NBC News), 6 Jun 2007. Scholarship & press
    London investigators first ruled that Calvi committed suicide, but his family pressed for further investigation and eventually murder charges against the five defendants.
    Prosecutors had alleged that Calo had ordered that Calvi be murdered so that he would not talk to investigators
    None of the defendants in the trial was ever accused of physically killing Calvi.
    New forensic tests in 2003 on Calvi's shoes found no traces of paint or metal from the scaffolding under the bridge, indicating he did not scramble across it but was killed elsewhere and his body later hung from the bridge.
    Calvi was laundering money for mobsters who believed the banker had taken some of the money for himself.
    He noted that the jury had ruled that that the defendants hadn't committed "the deed."
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