Word: ambrosiano
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...Calvi's luck soon ran out. In the late 1970s, suspicious of the way in which he was operating in the international money market, the Bank of Italy ordered him to put his confusing array of banks under the single name of Ambrosiano. Some Italians also became nervous about another Calvi acquisition: his purchase of 40% interest in Italy's 73-year-old Rizzoli publishing company and with it a piece of the Milan-based Corriere della Sera, Italy's largest, most respected daily newspaper. Businessmen who were already uneasy about Calvi's connections with...
...Sindona's fortunes fell (his Banca Privata Italiana collapsed in 1974, the same year that his American operation fell apart), Calvi's rose. He was named president of Banco Ambrosiano, and acquired more and more companies. The press dubbed the publicity-shy Calvi "God's banker" for his ties to the I.O.R. He became known as the man who had taken over the disgraced Sindona's role as the Vatican's lay financial partner...
Calvi's real problems had begun in 1978, when the Bank of Italy conducted an extensive audit of his financial empire. The examiners noted unorthodox operations and complained that Ambrosiano affiliates were carrying out "all types of operations outside of controls." Ominously enough, the investigators also noted that they could not separate Ambrosiano holdings from Vatican holdings because of the complex interlocking relationships between them...
That audit proved to be inconclusive, but it led to a second, completed earlier this year, that uncovered $1.2 billion in unsecured lending. Calvi was buying up Ambrosiano stock, possibly using money borrowed on international financial markets by Ambrosiano and its subsidiaries, in an attempt to strengthen his grip on the parent bank. During 1978-79 and in 1981, Ambrosiano and its subsidiaries raised about $1.2 billion. In these years the banks lent at least $800 million to low-capitalized shell companies in Panama, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. The shell companies, in turn, used about $400 million to buy stock...
...sought ways to help pay off the outstanding loans made by his shell companies. Though he had been convicted of a financial crime, Calvi was still made welcome at the Vatican bank and other banks. Marcinkus' defense is that he was newly reconfirmed as president of Banco Ambrosiano, and the bank's balance sheet was approved at the end of 1981 by the Bank of Italy...