Word: sindona
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...Sindona guilty of bank fraud
...known to rivals as "mysterious Michele" for his deft behind-the-scenes maneuvers. Son of a Sicilian farm worker, Michele Sindona, 59, worked his way up to become the legal and financial adviser to important Italian companies, the Vatican and, some say, the Mafia. Creating his own holding company, he amassed a $450 million fortune. In 1972 Sindona purchased controlling interest in Long Island's Franklin National Bank, the 20th largest in the U.S. Two years later, Franklin National collapsed, the biggest bank failure in U.S. history, and the Government blamed mysterious Michele...
...enforcement officials, however, give Sindona less enthusiastic reviews...
They are investigating reports that Sindona arranged for his own kidnaping by young immigrants connected with gangsters in Sicily, and then was double-crossed. In addition, the investigators are looking into reports that the mobsters held him somewhere in eastern Long Island and released him only after members of his family paid them an undisclosed bonus. The Sindona case is also being investigated in Italy, where police have arrested two brothers, Rosario and Vincenzo Spatola, both Sicilian contractors, for complicity in the financier's disappearance...
...York, meanwhile, Federal Judge Thomas Griesa ordered that Sindona be kept under guard, and set Nov. 26 for the start of his trial...