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Licio Gelli (; 21 April 1919 – 15 December 2015) was an Italian Freemason and businessman. A fascism volunteer in his youth, he is chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. He was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine Freemasons lodge Propaganda Due (P2).
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Gelli also volunteered for the Blackshirts expeditionary forces sent by Benito Mussolini in support of Francisco Franco's rebellion in the Spanish Civil War. He served as liaison officer between the Italian government and Nazi Germany, and participated in the Italian Social Republic with Giorgio Almirante, founder of the neofascism Italian Social Movement (MSI).
After a sales job with the Italian mattress factory Permaflex, Gelli founded his own textile and importing company.
The Argentine Chancellor Alberto Vignes drafted with Juan Perón, who had returned from exile in 1973, a decree granting Gelli the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Libertador in August 1974, as well as the honorary office of economic counselor in the embassy of Argentina in Italy.Susana Viau and Eduardo Tagliaferro, "Carlos Bartffeld, Mason y Amigo de Massera, Fue Embajador en Yugoslavia Cuando Se Vendieron Armas a Croacia - En el mismo barco", Pagina 12, 14 December 1998 Gelli publicly declared on repeated occasions that he was a close friend of Perón, although no confirmation ever came from South America. Gelli affirmed that he introduced Peron to Masonry and that this friendship was of real importance for Italy. He stated: "Peron was a Mason, I initiated him in Madrid in Puerta de Hierro, in June 1973.", Perfíl, August 31, 2008 Gelli become the main economic and financial consultant of Isabel Perón and of José López Rega.
According to a letter sent by Gelli to César de la Vega, a P2 member and Argentine ambassador to the UNESCO, Gelli commissioned P2 member Federico Carlos Barttfeld to be transferred from the consulate of Hamburg to the Argentine embassy in Rome. Gelli was also named minister plenipotentiary for cultural affairs in the Argentine embassy in Italy, thus providing him with diplomatic immunity. He had four diplomatic passports issued by Argentina, and has been charged in Argentina with falsification of official documents. During the 1970s, Gelli brokered three-way oil and arms deals between Libya, Italy and Argentina through the Agency for Economic Development, which he and Umberto Ortolani owned. Hot Money and the Politics of Debt By R. T. Naylor
Several members of the Argentine military junta have been found to be P2 members, such as Raúl Alberto Lastiri, Argentina's interim president from 13 July 1973 until 12 October 1973, Emilio Massera, part of Jorge Videla's military junta from 1976 to 1978, and José López Rega, the infamous founder of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance ("Triple A"). The lodge P2, also known as the Propaganda Due, was also linked to the robbery of Juan Perón's severed hands.Nabot, Damian, and Cox, David. Second Death: Licio Gelli, The P2 Masonic Lodge and The Plot to Destroy Juan Peron. Amazon, 2014.
In 1990 a report on RAI Television alleged that the CIA had paid Gelli to instigate terrorist activities in Italy."CIA backed Italy terrorism during '70s, report claims," Daily Breeze, 23 July 1990 Following this report, which also claimed that the CIA had been involved in the assassination of the Swedish Prime minister Olof Palme, then President Francesco Cossiga requested the opening of investigations while the CIA itself officially denied these allegations."CIA Denies Report", The Washington Post, July 24, 1990 Critics have claimed the RAI report to be a fraud because of the inclusion of testimony from Richard Brenneke, who claimed to be a former CIA agent and made several declarations concerning the October surprise conspiracy. Brenneke's background was also investigated by a U.S. Senate subcommittee, which dismissed Brenneke's claims of CIA employment. In June 2020, the Swedish police closed their investigation into Olof Palme's assassination, assigning blame to Stig Engström, a Swedish graphic designer and centre-right municipal activist who was not affiliated with the CIA.
A Parliamentary Commission, directed by Tina Anselmi (of the Christian Democratic party), found no evidence of crimes, but in 1981 the Italian parliament passed a law banning secret associations in Italy. Gelli was expelled from GOI freemasonry on 31 October 1981, and the P2 scandal provoked the fall of Arnaldo Forlani's cabinet in June 1981 "Leader of Italian Scandal Arrested Trying to Get Cash in Swiss Bank," The Miami Herald, September 15, 1982
The P2 lodge had some form of power in Italy, given the public prominence of its members, and many observers still consider it to be extremely strong. Several famous people in Italy today (starting with the top TV anchor-man Maurizio Costanzo) were affiliated with P2. Among these Michele Sindona, a banker with clear connections to Sicilian Mafia, has been clearly associated with P2. In 1972, Sindona purchased a controlling interest in Long Island's Franklin National Bank. Two years later, the bank collapsed. Convicted in 1980 in the US, "mysterious Michele" was extradited to Italy. Two years later, he was poisoned in his cell while serving a life sentence. The P2 membership list was authenticated, with a few exceptions, by a 1984 parliamentary report."Italian Panel Reports on Secret Lodge," The Boston Globe, July 4, 1984
On the run, Gelli escaped to Switzerland where he was arrested on 13 September 1982 while trying to withdraw tens of millions of dollars in Geneva. Detained in the modern Champ-Dollon Prison near Geneva, he managed to escape and then fled to South America for four years. In 1984 Jorge Vargas, the secretary general of the Unión Nacionalista de Chile (UNACH, Nationalist Union of Chile, a short-lived National Socialist party Franz Pfeiifer R., Memorias de treinta años II. (written by a former MNRS member) ) and a former member of the Movimiento Revolucionario Nacional Sindicalista (National-Syndicalist Revolutionary Movement ), declared to La Tercera de la Hora that Gelli was then in Pinochet's Chile." Gelli en Chile, dice diario", El Nuevo Herald (Miami), July 30, 1984
Finally, in 1987, Gelli secretly came back to Switzerland in the car of his lawyer Marc Bonnant and surrendered in Geneva to investigative judge Jean-Pierre Trembley."Ex-head of Secret Masonic Lodge, Licio Gelli, Surrenders to Judge", The Seattle Times, 21 September 1987 He was wanted in connection with the 1982 collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano"Italian Bank Scam Fugitive Surrenders in Switzerland", Philadelphia Daily News, September 21, 1987 and on charges of subversive association in connection with the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing, which killed 85 people."Gelli, Fugitive Italian Financier, Gives Himself Up in Switzerland," The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 22, 1987 He was sentenced to two months in prison in Switzerland,"Swiss Court Jails Italian Financier", The Washington Post, December 23, 1987 while an Italian court in Florence sentenced him on 15 December 1987, in absentia, to eight years in prison on charges of financing right-wing terrorist activity in Tuscany in the 1970s."Terrorism Conviction," Newsday (Melville, NY), December 16, 1987 Gelli had already been sentenced in absentia to 14 months in jail by a court in Sanremo for illegally exporting money from Italy.
In 1992 Gelli was sentenced to 18 years and six months of prison after being found guilty of fraud concerning the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982 (a "black hole" of $1.4 billion was found). The Vatican bank, Istituto per le Opere di Religione, main share-holder of the Banco Ambrosiano, consequently had a "black hole" of $250 million. This sentence was reduced by the Court of Appeal to 12 years. The year 1992 also saw the beginning of the trial of 16 members of the P2 Masonic Lodge, which included charges of conspiracy against the state, espionage, and the revelation of state secrets. In April 1994 Gelli received a 17-year sentence for divulging state secrets and slandering the investigation, while the court threw out the charge that P2 members conspired against the state; Gelli's sentence was reduced, and he was placed under house arrest two years later.
In April 1998 the Court of Cassation confirmed a 12-year sentence for the Ambrosiano crash."Top Italian fugitive Licio Gelli arrested in France," Associated Press, September 10, 1998 Gelli then disappeared on the eve of being imprisoned, in May 1998, while being under house arrest in his mansion near Arezzo. His disappearance was strongly suspected to be the result of being forewarned. Then, finally, he was arrested in the French Riviera in Cannes. Two motions of no confidence were made by the right-wing opposition (the Northern League and the ex-Christian Democratic splinter groups CDU-CDR), against the Justice Minister, Giovanni Maria Flick, and the Interior Minister, Giorgio Napolitano, stating that Gelli had benefited from accomplices helping him in his escape. They also made reference to secret negotiations which would have allowed him to reappear without going to prison. But the two ministers won the confidence vote."Italian justice and interior ministers win confidence vote," ANSA, May 29, 1998 Police found $2M worth of gold ingots in Gelli's villa.
A few years after the Ambrosiano scandal, many suspects pointed toward Gelli with reference to his possible involvement in the murder of the Milanese banker Roberto Calvi, also known as "God's banker", who had been jailed in the wake of the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano. On 19 July 2005 Gelli was formally indicted by Roman Magistrates for the murder of Roberto Calvi, along with former Mafia boss Giuseppe Calò (also known as "Pippo Calò"), businessmen Ernesto Diotallevi and Flavio Carboni, and the latter's girlfriend, Manuela Kleinszig. In his statement before the court Gelli blamed people connected with Calvi's work in financing the Polish Solidarity movement, allegedly on behalf of the Vatican City. He was accused of having provoked Calvi's death in order to punish him for having embezzled money owed to him and the Mafia. The Mafia also wanted to prevent Calvi from revealing how the bank had been used for money laundering. Gelli's name, however, was not in the final indictment at the trial that started in October 2005, and the other accused were eventually acquitted due to "insufficient evidence", though by the time of these acquittals in June 2007, the prosecutor's office in Rome had opened a second investigation implicating Gelli, among others. Processo Calvi, la sentenza dopo 25 anni assolti Pippo Calò e gli altri imputati, La Repubblica, June 6, 2007 In May 2009, the case against Gelli was dropped. According to the magistrate there was insufficient evidence to argue that Gelli had played a role in the planning and execution of the crime. Omicidio Calvi: archiviato procedimento contro Licio Gelli, Corriere della Sera, May 30, 2009 Gelli has been implicated in Aldo Moro's murder, since the Italian chief of intelligence, accused of negligence, was a piduista (P2 member).
He talked of many Italian politicians. Of Fabrizio Cicchitto, he said he knew him well ( è bravo, preparato — "he's good and capable"). With regard to Berlusconi's program for the reform of the judicial system, he boasted that this had been an integral part of his original project. He also approved of Berlusconi's reorganization of television networks.
On 15 December 2015 Gelli died in Arezzo, Tuscany, aged 96. The funeral home was set up in Villa Wanda. The Catholic funeral was celebrated on December 17 in the Church of Mercy of Pistoia, his native town, in the presence of relatives and onlookers and relatively few VIPs. During the funeral, access to the church was prevented by a private security agency. The body was transferred to the family chapel of the Cemetery of Mercy in Pistoia, where his first wife Wanda already rested.
After his death, an autographed will was published in which he named as his only "spiritual heir" the Romanian general Bartolomeu Constantin Săvoiu, Grand Master of the Romanian National Lodge.
However, the so-called "500 directory" remained secret (426 files addressed by Gelli to businessmen, politicians, companies, banks, clergymen, etc.). Guardia di Finanza and investigators have never managed to find its contents.
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