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Banco Ambrosiano (; ) was an Italian bank that was established in 1896 and collapsed in 1982. The Holy See-based Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, was Banco Ambrosiano's main shareholder. The Vatican Bank was accused of funnelling covert United States funds to the Polish trade union Solidarity and to the Nicaraguan Contras through Banco Ambrosiano.
In 1971, Calvi became general manager, and in 1975 he was appointed chairman. Calvi expanded Ambrosiano's interests, including the creation of off-shore companies in the Bahamas and South America; a controlling interest in the Banca Cattolica del Veneto; and funds for the publishing house RCS MediaGroup to finance the Corriere della Sera newspaper (giving Calvi control behind the scenes for the benefit of his associates in the P2 masonic lodge). Calvi was a friend of American Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, president of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (the formal name of the Vatican Bank), and involved both the IOR and Marcinkus in his dealings.
Ambrosiano provided funds for political parties in Italy, and for both the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua and for its Sandinista opposition. There are rumours that it provided money for Solidarity in Poland. At Lugano, Banco del Gottardo, which was founded in 1957 with Dr. August Gansser-Burckhardt as president, became Banco Ambrosiano's Swiss arm in 1963 with Swiss managers and a 45% stake indirectly through the Banco Ambrosiano Holding S. A., Luxembourg, which Banco Ambosiano held a 70% stake, and was the linchpin of Calvi's offshore system with branches established in Nassau (Bahamas) and Luxembourg in the 1970s and after its failure Sumitomo Bank obtained Gotthardt Bank in 1984 and added the Monaco branch in 1994.
Calvi used his complex network of overseas banks and companies to move money out of Italy, to inflate share prices, and to secure massive unsecured loans. In 1978, the Banca d'Italia (Bank of Italy) produced a report on Ambrosiano that predicted future disaster and led to criminal investigations. Soon afterward the investigating Milanese magistrate, Alessandrini, was killed by a left-wing terrorist group, while the Bank of Italy official who superintended the inspection, Mario Sarcinelli, was imprisoned on charges that were later dismissed.
In 1982 the bank was unable to account for $1.287 billion (equivalent to $ in present-day terms). Calvi fled the country on a false passport, and Rosone arranged for the Bank of Italy to take over. Calvi's personal secretary, Graziella Corrocher, left a note denouncing Calvi before leaping to her death from her office window. Calvi's body was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London on June 18.
During July 1982, funds to the off-shore interests were cut off, leading to their collapse, and in August the bank was replaced by the Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano under Giovanni Bazoli. Pope John Paul II pledged full transparency regarding the bank's links to the Vatican and brought in lay bankers including German financial expert Hermann Abs, a move that was publicly criticized by Simon Wiesenthal, due to Abs' role as top banker to Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. There was much argument over who should take responsibility for losses incurred by the Old Ambrosiano's off-shore companies, and the Holy See (Vatican) eventually agreed to pay out a substantial sum without accepting liability.
In April 1992, Carlo De Benedetti, former deputy chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, and 32 other people were convicted of fraud by a Milan court in connection with the bank's collapse. Benedetti was sentenced to six years and four months in prison. His sentence was overturned in April 1998 by the Court of Cassation.
In 1994, former Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi was indicted in the Banco Ambrosiano case, along with Licio Gelli, head of Propaganda Due, and former Justice minister Claudio Martelli. In April 1998, the Court of Cassation confirmed Licio Gelli's 12-year sentence for the Ambrosiano crash.
As of 2005, the Italian justice has opened up again the investigation concerning the murder of Roberto Calvi, Ambrosiano's chairman, but it asked the support of Ernest Backes and will investigate Gerard Soisson's death, according to Lucy Komisar. Licio Gelli, the headmaster of P2 Masonic Lodge, and the mafioso Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò are being prosecuted for the assassination of Roberto Calvi.
Calvi's family maintains that he was an honest man manipulated by others. According to the magistrates who indicted Propanda Due's leader, Licio Gelli, and Sicilian Mafia boss, Giuseppe Calò, for Calvi's murder, Gelli would have ordered his death for embezzling his and the mafia's money, while the mafia wanted to prevent him revealing how Calvi helped its money laundering.
Clearstream scandal
Just before the media revealed the Ambrosiano scandal, Gérard Soisson, the manager of the transaction clearing company Clearstream, was found dead in Corsica, two months after Ernest Backes' dismissal from Clearstream in May 1983. Banco Ambrosiano was one of the many banks to have unpublished accounts in Clearstream. Backes, formerly the third-ranking officer of Clearstream and a primary source for Denis Robert's book on Clearstream's scandal, Revelation$, claims he "was fired because (he) knew too much about the Ambrosiano scandal. When Soisson died, the Ambrosiano affair wasn't yet known as a scandal. (After it was revealed) I realized that Soisson and I had been at the crossroads. We moved all those transactions known later in the scandal to Lima and other branches. Nobody even knew there was a Banco Ambrosiano branch in Lima and other South American countries."
Falklands war involvement
France prohibited deliveries of Exocet missiles purchased by Peru to avoid the possibility of Peru giving them to Argentina, because they knew that payment would be made with a credit card from the Central Bank of Peru, but British intelligence had detected that the guarantee was a deposit of two hundred million dollars from the Banco Ambrosiano Andino, an owned subsidiary of the Banco Ambrosiano. An Italian investigation into Propaganda Due's involvement in the arms trade uncovered a contract for 52 Exocets signed by Carlos Alberto Corti, an Argentinian naval officer and member of Propaganda Due.
Roberto Calvi's 1982 murder
David Yallop popularized a conspiracy theory that Calvi, with the assistance of Propaganda Due, may have been responsible for the death of Pope John Paul I, who was planning a reform of Vatican finances.
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