Word: ambrosiano
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Dates: during 1982-1982
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...from London's Blackfriars Bridge, his toes just touching the surface of the muddy Thames. The dead man's pockets contained some $13,000 in various currencies, as well as 12 lbs. of bricks and stones. He was identified as Roberto Calvi, 62, the president of Banco Ambrosiano of Milan, the largest private banking group in Italy, with operations in 15 countries. Authorities in Italy, in the Vatican and throughout the international banking community were stunned by the news. Calvi, who had disappeared mysteriously from Italy a week earlier, was the architect of a financial house of cards...
Italian authorities have since ordered the liquidation of Banco Ambrosiano and declared the institution bankrupt. The government has also been pressing the Holy See for a fuller disclosure of its role in the bank's affairs, thus rekindling the age-old tension between Italy and the Vatican, an independent entity that occupies 108.7 acres in the center of Rome. The Bank of Italy, the nation's central bank, has agreed to cover only part of Banco Ambrosiano Group's $1.2 billion shortfall, and is suggesting that the I.O.R. may have to come up with at least some...
Noting the pending investigations, Marcinkus has declined to discuss the Ambrosiano affair in detail. After contacts with top Vatican officials and conversations with Marcinkus, TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn reports that the Vatican claims its relationship with Calvi and Banco Ambrosiano involved only normal banking operations. As for Marcinkus, he is still at his Vatican bank post, expressing confidence that the storm will pass. Says he: "The old archbishop is tranquil. His conscience is clear...
Calvi began spinning his web in 1971, shortly after he became director-general of Banco Ambrosiano. An employee of the bank for 24 years, Calvi was determined to transform it into a major international financial institution from a relatively small regional bank with strong religious overtones (until ten years ago, would-be shareholders had to present baptismal certificates to prove their Catholicism). One of his initial steps was to form a Luxembourg holding company, Compendium, which later became Banco Ambrosiano Holding. The advantage of a foreign subsidiary: it is not subject to Italy's banking regulations. Calvi...
...introduced Calvi to Marcinkus. Sindona and Calvi hoped to use Marcinkus for their own purposes, and the bankers and the churchman obviously found it advantageous to do business together. Although the Vatican bank denies it had much to do with either Sindona or Calvi, the I.O.R. eventually became Banco Ambrosiano's fourth-largest stockholder, acquiring over the years at least 794,390 shares, or 1.589% of the bank's stock. A few months after Sindona and Calvi set up the Bahamian bank in 1971, a "Mr. Paul Marcinkus" was listed as a director. "We used his name...