A portion of the huge treasure which the man known as God's banker, Roberto Calvi, was desperately trying to trace when he was murdered has been found in banks in the Bahamas.
Amounting to $70m (£37m), the money has been in limbo since June 1982 when Calvi was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London. His Banco Ambrosiano had gone bust some months before owing hundreds of millions of dollars to the Vatican, Sicilian Mafia gangs and many others. Declared by the original coroner's inquest to be suicide, Calvi's death is now believed to have been murder and four suspects are expected to go on trial in Italy.
The new development in the joint Anglo-Italian investigation into the Calvi affair was leaked to Rome's La Repubblica newspaper yesterday. According to Luca Tescaroli and Anna Maria Monteleone, the Roman prosecutors leading the Italian side of the investigation, a sum of about $70m has been unearthed in several bank accounts in the Bahamas, funds which it is believed that Calvi was trying desperately to recover at the time of his death.
When Calvi's corpse was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge, his coat pockets were packed with bricks but there were no traces of brick dust on his hands. His death came shortly after the bank, which had close ties with the Mafia, the Vatican and a powerful Italian Masonic lodge counting many top politicians among its members, collapsed with debts of £800m.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=492409for background & a large update on the new investigation, the following was in the Independent a few days back:
Unearthed: the true story of Roberto Calvi's death
For years, police believed it was suicide. But a new inquiry is finally shedding light on the dark plot that lay behind the demise of 'God's Banker'. An exclusive report by Jason Bennetto
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=489929Unfortunately it has gone pay-per-view, but I found a full copy on what appears to be a very dubious site (but having read the hard-copy, I can attest that the article is the same) so apologies for the source-by-proxy:
http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_takings&Number=1281171&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21&part=