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Michele Sindona (; 8 May 1920 – 22 March 1986) was an Italian banker and convicted felon. Known in banking circles as " The Shark", Sindona was a banker for the Sicilian Mafia and the Holy See. Sindona was a member of Propaganda Due (#0501), a secret Masonic lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy. He was fatally poisoned in prison while serving a life sentence for the murder of lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli.
At the beginning of the 1950s, Sindona moved from Sicily to Milan, Northern Italy where he worked as a tax lawyer for rich Italians wanting to avoid paying Tax. He was an accountant for companies such as Società Generale Immobiliare and SNIA Viscosa. At the age of 30 he founded the company Fasco AG, inventing the system of back-to-back financing. His dexterity transferring money to Switzerland and Liechtenstein to avoid taxation soon became known to Mafia bosses. At the beginning of the 1950s, he travelled to New York and met the Gambino family. By 1957, he had become closely associated and was chosen to manage their profits from heroin sales. According to the pentito Sicilian Mafia (i.e., turned state's evidence) Francesco Marino Mannoia, Sindona laundered the proceeds of heroin trafficking for the Stefano Bontade-Spatola-Inzerillo-Rosario Gambino network. The mafiosi were determined to get their money back and would play an important role in Sindona's attempt to save his banks.
In 1972, Sindona's Fasco International Holding purchased a controlling interest in Long Island's Franklin National Bank from Laurence Tisch. He was hailed as "the saviour of the lira" and was named "Man of the Year" in January 1974 by the US ambassador to Italy, John Volpe. But that April, a sudden stock market crash led to what is known as Il Crack Sindona ("The Sindona Bankruptcy"). The Franklin Bank's profit fell by as much as 98% compared to the previous year, and Sindona suffered a 40 million dollar loss. Consequently, he began losing most of the banks he had acquired over the previous seventeen years. On 8 October 1974 the bank was declared insolvent due to mismanagement and fraud, involving losses in foreign currency speculation and poor loan policies. Part of the losses involved Sindona's transfer of $30,000,000 of Bank funds to Europe to recover his losses. Sindona became a member of Propaganda Due (#0501), a secret Masonic lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy.
Sindona feared that Ambrosoli would expose his manipulations in the Banca Privata Italiana case. Shortly before he was killed, the American Mafia hitman William Arico, a convicted bank robber, invoked the name of Giulio Andreotti – the influential Christian Democrat politician close to Sindona – in a threatening phone call taped by Ambrosoli.Stille, Excellent Cadavers, pp. 39-42. Arico fell to his death while trying to escape from a federal prison in New York in 1984. God's Banker' Guilty in Milan Murder", Los Angeles Times, 19 March 1986. Andreotti later replied in an interview that Ambrosoli "was a person who, in Romanesque words, was looking for it".
While in United States federal prison, the Italian government applied for extradition so that Sindona could be present at the murder trial of Ambrosoli; this time, the request was accepted and on 25 September 1984 Sindona returned to Italy, where he was imprisoned in Voghera.Alan Friedman, "Sindona Refuses to Take Part in Trial Proceedings.", Financial Times, London, 13 December 1984.
On 16 March 1985, in the trial for the bankruptcy of Banca Privata Italiana, Sindona was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the crime of fraudulent bankruptcy."Sicilian financier jailed 12 years for fraud", The Times, London, 16 March 1985, p. 1. The compensation for the damages was established in civil court; Sindona was sentenced to immediately pay a provisional amount of two billion lire to the liquidators of the bank and to the small shareholders who had filed a civil action lawsuit.
On 18 March 1986, he was sentenced to life imprisonment as the instigator of the Ambrosoli murder.Alan Friedman, "Sindona Given Life Sentence over Killing", The Financial Times, London, 19 March 1986, p. 2.
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