Thinking Sideways: Roberto Calvi

of cool stuff. So we're gonna be talking about God's Banker a k a. Roberto Caality Groovy. Before are go any further, I want to stop and thank Emily for suggesting this particular mystery. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good one. It's very convolated. If you write up you're Allex. Would you guys not agree this is a twisted mystery? Yeah, uh so call the we're going to Cally was found dead in the morning of June eighteenth two in the city of London, England. He was hanging from scaffolding underneath

Blackfriars Bridge, which I'm sure you're all familiar with. Yeah right, I did check it out. A street view of it's a cool old bridge actually that anyway, the bridge was undergoing some renovations and that's why there's scaffolding surrounding it. And he apparently climbed out onto the scaffolding and tied a rope to it and the other end around round his neck and jumped into the water. Um So it was not high enough for him to actually dangle in the air because the tide was in. The tide was in,

the water was high. Who was dressed in a suit and tie at the time they found him, his feet were still dangling into Thames, but the tide had gone out quite a bit, and so originally he probably would have been in up to his waist, if not a little higher. They found bricks and pieces of maceres stuffed into his jacket, the suit jacket pockets and down his pants. He had on an Italian passport. But did I mentioned that Roberto Acality was Italian? Yeah, yeah, he's actually a

banker from Milan, City of Milan. Well, by the way, he's called God's Banker because he did a lot of dealings with the Vatican. But I'll talk more about that. Yeah, I know we're gonna go into that a lot. Yeah. They so they found an Italian passport which identified him as Ian Roberto Calvino. Of course that was a fake. He then traveling and like with three different passports. I think they were all fake actually, because I think the

Italian government had confiscated his passport. Yeah, but yet. Also found in the body was about fourteen thousand dollars in British, Swiss and Italian currency and a Patech Philippe watch, which by one account was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand bucks. He was obviously a pretty well off guy. Unfortunately, the the watches stuff running because he went in When he went into the water, it immersed,

but that gave him a clue as to win. The hanging actually took place, which was one two in the morning. But anyway, we can rule out robbery and murder. Um that's what this was. Well, we can rule out robbery or murder for robbery. Yeah, yeah, that's true, but that it wasn't murder motivated by robbery. They found his luggage back at the hotel where he was staying, all packed up and ready to go. The police it did a two day investigation and there was an autopsy, of course.

Also the corner ruled that he had died of a six c ation because when he hung himself, he obviously usually when you hang yourself, you drop far enough fast enough that you break your neck. That's the preferred Yeah. Yeah, but the corner also ruled that the death was a suicide. The autopsy didn't find any suspicious marks on the body, no drugs in his system, no punctures, and his watch I said, it stopped at one fifty two in the morning.

The to for the suicide I was I'm assuming that they were assuming was that he had just been sentenced to four years in Britain's president in Italy because and also his bank, the Marco Ambrosiano, had just collapsed, because they had a whole lot of missing money, like about one point two billion dollars worth. And we're going to explain this a little more in a couple of minutes, right, Yeah, okay,

speak it were lossing over that part. Yeah, that bank collapsed, the Vatican Bank was missing about half a billion dollars, and so he had a lot of planning to do, and he was obviously under a tremendous amount of pressure and also he had attempted suicide the previous year while he was in jail by cutting his wrists and taking barbituates, so obviously that didn't work. How do you get barbituates in jail? Um, I hear it's easy. Actually, yeah, I've

heard of jail. You can get, especially if you're a rich guy like him, you can get anything you want. Good point. A lot of people, including his family, didn't believe he killed himself, and eventually the verdict almost a year later, was reversed to we don't know, so it could have been suicide, could have been murder. It was down grade. It was upgraded to a shrug pretty much. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But what's strange about the whole thing is to get to the scaffolding where he hung himself, he would have had to climb over the railing and down uh not a ladder which was attached to the sea wall, and then step across about a two and a half foot gap to the scaffolding, and then walk across the scaffolding to a certain point where it went down to a lower level of scaffolding, and then shinny down, tied the rope and then hang himself. This well, having bricks and

stuff in his pockets. Yeah, it stuffed down his pants and stuff. And I did I mentioned he was sixty two years old when he died. Yeah, he was sixty two, which is ancient. Yeah it's not Yeah, it's not that bad, but it's still he was not great. Yeah, he wasn't. No, he wasn't. Wasn't out there doing park quarters some no, not, Yeah, and that was that was odd. There were no signs of this in his body. His hands should have had,

like the scaffolding was kind of rusty. It should have had, so his hands should have had some abrasions and some rust stuff. And and maybe shoes did his Did he have his shoes on? Yeah, he's wearing his shoes. Yeah, and they didn't have any Although I guess the shoes. It doesn't bother me as much since they would have been submerged in water, so that stuff could have washed away, and it could have if the water was high enough for his hands, it could have washed it off. The

honking the same thing. Yeah, Yeah, it's possible, but that's quite I mean, but actually, but actually we'll be talking about that more little later on. Sure. Yeah, I was just gonna say it's quite a commitment to killing yourself in that very spot, in that very way. It seems like there would be easier ways to do it, even hanging off the bridge in London. It seems like there'd be a lot better places to do it than that. It really does. Jumping ahead, Yeah, so let's go back

in time. A week he left Italy. Just the week before, he'd been says to four years in stir for violating currency laws. And actually what what they arrested for and put him on trial for it wasn't a patently unfair because he had done some currency some not currency manipulation, but some currency transactions, some foreign currency transactions back in nineteen seventy one, and the transactions were perfectly legal, but in nineteen seventy six the Italian parliament passed a retroactive

law making it illegal. One he was arrested for for breaking a law that didn't even exist in ninety one. That's hard, yeah, it's yeah, yeah it is. And so his case was under appeal. He was out on bail of course at this time. Is it hadn't completely come out when he left the country that Banco Ambrosiano wasn't as serious trouble as it was, and had so many missing funds and bad debts. But he was aware of it, of course. Of course. Yeah, that's another good reason to

skip the country. Yeah, so he decided that, decided to skip out, skip down. And the day he left, his assistants saw him filling a black attache case with documents from his office safe and that's that same assistant died on the day that the bank was taken over by the Bank of Italy. Yeah, she threw herself out of window, didn't She was pushed. I thought she left her note. Yeah, she did live it out it was about CALLI. Yes, yeah he did, she did, Okay, Yeah, just making sure

I had that part right. Yea written in red ink. I don't know if that's signified everything or not. So when he left Italy, he had the aid of a guy named Flavio Carboni, who's a Sardinian businessman who apparently was very well connected. So Kali flew to Venice from the Lawn and then traveled by car to tree Esque, Italy,

which is over by the border with Yugoslavia. He was in smuggling into Yugoslavia bought by a boat and then traveled by car all the way up to Austria and then there and from Austria he flew to London on a private jet. So pretty it was a pretty elaborate thing that lasted for several days and a lot of different modes of transport. I have a quick question, I never saw this anywhere. Maybe nobody knows. Do we know

what his intended final destination was? Is? I mean, he couldn't have just intended to keep moving every couple of days for ever. He had to have somewhere he was going. One would have someplace without an extradition deal with Italy. Yeah, you would think, yeah, that would that would make the

most sense, which I imagine is nowhere in Europe. Yeah. Yeah, I think the only people that that maybe would have known would be Flavio Cormoni, who's the guy who basically made all the arrangements um and also Carboni also hired a cigarette smuggler named Silvano Vittor to be called these bodyguard, so or might have also known what the ultimate destination was. But these guys aren't talking. They're still alive, but they're not talking. I guess that could have been. You know,

if you have a fake passport. You essentially have a new identity if you can get to a place that's kind of bigger, like London. It's not the worst place to try and disappear, although it is the most monitored place, but kind of there's a lot of a lot of people there. But this was in Yeah, wasn't really has monitored eighty two. Sure they didn't cameras up on every day in London was kind of a dirty little town at that time, not the financial hub that it is

today now. In London, Calvin and Victor checked into a residential hotel called the Chelsea Cloisters. Um, of course I looked at on the street view. And meanwhile Carboni checked into it, I believe the Sheridan or the Hilton, some much more luxurious hotel. And oh, I forgot to mention too that the beginning of this little adventure, Calvin had transferred a large amount of money into Carboni's Swiss account to cover his expenses because there was a lot involved.

You know, he had pay people to smuggle him, pay people to drive him, and you know, bribe officials. It's not a cheaper fire private jet. Yeah, so yeah, I think the amount was around eleven million, decent amount of money. That's a lot of money even today. Oh yeah, they were throwing back when being a millionaire meant something. If I was a millionaire tomorrow, I still wouldn't quit my

day job. Yeah. So they were in London for just not very long at all really, But on the June seventeenth, about five pm, Carboni phone called and told him that he found a flatform to stay in the issue pack his bags. Strangely, Carboni went by the hotel later and met viitter at the front desk, but didn't go up to see Calvy at that time. I don't know why. Next next to Calvi was seen was about ten pm, when the resident of the hotel saw him leaving at the back by the back door. So did I say

ten pm? Ten pm with quote two Italian men, but he didn't identify them. What I can't understand is why if you're the bodyguard, you're not staying in the same place, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's really hard to some from Well now the vidder that the bodyguard was staying at the same place, Carboni was staying at a different hotel. Okay, sorry, I got I totally got the two mixed up. Yeah, yeah, this is confusing little mystery. Yeah, it seems likely that the team men were Carboni and Viitter,

but we're not sure, can't be totally sure. Veder later told the police that he left the hotel at seven pm to beat Carboni and then he returned at eight or one am and Calby was gone. That's what he told the police. I'm not sure he should be believed, but maybe it may be true. Yeah, we'll see. Uh So at this point, let me digress a little bit. And of course we know what happened after after that

he died at so I'll talk. So, I guess we need to talk a little bit about how he kind of got involved with all this high level financial stuff, how he became God's banker. He became God's banker, and then god knows how many things he was involved in, but he apparently got involved with some kind of dangerous people. Yeah, so I'm going to talk about how he got involved in the Vatican's finances. It's just real fast like here, um, and I sure, I'm sure you all know this already.

But in the nineteenth century, the Vaticans properties were all confiscated by the government of Italy. Yeah, you need that right left, the church was very little in the way of income, but they gets some compensation from Medito Mussolini in nine he gave them some I think some government bonds and a bunch of cash. Do you very one that we all know and love from World War two? At the very one at the pulp at the time was pious the twelve and so he started investing some

of those funds. And what they did is that they took out of the fact that their agreement now with the state of Italy made them basically a sovereign state. So to take advantage of that, they hired a banker named Bernardino Negara who was supposed to invest their money and basically use it to do a bunch of arbitrage operations to make money. You know, arbitrage is when you when you trade, it's like it's like trading gold and

silver and stuff, but you're trading money instead. So like say, right now, the Canadian dollar is weak, so if I buy up a bunch of Canadian money and then said I don't wait for wait for the Canadian dollar to get stronger, than I sell my Canadian dollars again. I've just I've just needed myself a profit. Okay, I'm sure we have some financial experts out there. I know what you're talking about, but I hadn't been able to connect that that term. I don't think I've ever heard it

used for so he's trading money. Yeah. World War Two, the Vatican, of course was surrounded by hostile fascists on all sides, you know, not to mention there were some other there's all kinds of stuff going on, and they

were worried about the safety of their money. So pious the twelfth or the creation of a private bank within the Vatican, and this was called to be called the Institute for Religious Works and the I r W. Yeah, and in italian's io RS but but I r W in English it so we'll call it what it is

in Italian. Then. Yeah, prittest named Giovanni Montini was put in charge of it at the bank, that is, and he oversaw its operations until nineteen sixty three when he became the sixth So yeah, the Vaticans banker became the Pope. The pope that only lasted thirty three days. No, that was John Paul. Yeah, John Paul. When he I have a hard time keeping the pope straight for some reason. Well, and you know Paul John paula yeah, ring, Yeah, that hasn't been one of those yet yet. Yeah. The the

actually the death of John Paul is subject. There's a lot of conspiracy theories about that. Pretty good. Yeah, we should do that sometimes, yeah, I we should do, don't. We don't want to do too many Vaticans stories, so not too many in Roman. Yeah, we've done a bunch of them. We've got plenty of time to get to them. Yeah. Yeah. So the Vatican back was doing all right, but then a new Italian law was passed that required foreign investors to pay a thirty percent tax on dividends. That's a

hefty tax. Yeah. Yeah, So the bank decided it was it would be a good idea to transfer most of his investments to overseas companies. I mean, you know, the Vaticans its own country. So yeah, but they were considered. But but if you have part of Italy, but if you have investments that are paying dividends, and the companies aren't located actually like in the Vatican, yeah, which none of them are. Oh yeah, so they were I'm guessing they were rather heavily investing in Italian You know, I'm

not sure exactly what kind of things it wasn't. It wasn't strictly Italian now, but I'm just thinking that must have been what forced them to decide to shift. Is Wait, this is coming through and we have a lot of money in the country that we're getting returns on, yeah, and that we're gonna we're gonna sell. Yeah, so we're to Panama and where sorry, oh, miscellaneous places a Panama, Lichtenstein, looked, Luxembourg,

all those, yeah, Nicaragua, Peru, all kinds of places. Yeah. Uh. So what they needed was they needed a bank that could set up an anonymous accounts and offshore companies for them and then transfer their assets for them. When they hired a small private bank called bunk up Vita Finanziata I think, yeah, close enough. It was run by a guy named michels in Donna, and who, by the way,

new Roberto Calbi gods banker. Uh and he had actually mentored Calibi in the art of creating offshore companies, and the relationship when in Sandona and the Vatican Bank went well for a while, but eventually he had a banking empire that wasn't and I think it was Italy and Switzerland. He had banks, he had a lot of banks and uh. But eventually it came under criminal investigation for a number of different matters, and so the Vatican decided that he

was a bit of a liability. And they also didn't if the police were investigators were snooping around the bank's records, and they didn't really want to have their private dealings known. Also another reason to ditch this guy, and so they went looking for a replacement. Uh. Paul Marcinkis who was kind of a player in this. He was a priest from America, and he was put in charge of finding that replacement, who turned out to be the Banco Ambrosiano

in Milan. They had already had already had connected it. It had been founded by priests, and some of the previous chairman had known some of the previous popes and such things. So they were yeah, yeah, they were already they were yeah yeah. And also the Vatican already owned some of his stock. Yeah. Chairman at the time was Carlo Kanisi and the general manager manager was Rodberto Calvy. A secret arrangement was made for the Vatican to buy more stock in the banks so that they could have

actually a controlling interest in the stock in the ban Yeah. Yeah, and then once they had controlling stock, they could put whoever they wanted in charge. I'm guessing yeah, or at least you have some say over there, you know, the bank's operations. That would make sense, especially if you're going to invest heavily. Yeah, exactly. And I'm really excus I'm really kind of actually like really glossing over a lot of stuff. It gets a lot more complicated than this.

The stuff that these guys were doing, well, they I know. One of the things that they were doing that I found fascinating and so despicable. Um and I don't remember exactly who it was, because again there is so many players. Was the false deposits. Did either of you guys read about those? Where they were they were reporting false deposits into accounts and so that they would get the funds from that. They'd say, oh, so and so it this

was depositing money. Now we've got more, and it was this weird shuffle of non existent cash that then showed up on the books. But they never actually had that cash to begin with, so then they had more money to spend. It was. It's almost like the guy you see on the street with the three solo cups with the ball under one of them, but he's like, which one is it really under? Which one is it really here? They're just moving it around constantly. That's what it was

with huge sums of money. Yeah, they were playing all kinds of crazy games. Um yeah, I came that came back to buy them on the Yeah, real blew up in their face, that kind of did uh uh so call call. They created a bank subsidiary in the Bahamas and set up a bunch of anonymous holding companies under that, and which is where the Vatican's money was going to go of Courus mar Senkas became president of the Vatican Bank and also sat on the board of the Bahamas

subsidiary of the Banco and Brosciano. Things went along pretty well for a while or a Bartol Calgary brought in some good profits for the church. When it's out made, everybody was happy. But then Michelle and Siding don't remember him. He was their previous bankers. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, little memories, yeah yeah yeah. He decided to stir up a little trouble. Apparently he was he was feeling kind of kind of upset about being cut out of cut out of the

Vatican's business. Well, there's probably he probably lost a fair about the money. Yeah, to be fair, yeah, uh, he demanded ten million bucks from Calby, and Calgary basically said no, I'm told him to go pound sand and so yeah,

so he got his revenge. He on November thirteenth, nineteen seventy seven, posters were plastered on buildings all around the Bonco and Brosiano which included numbers of secrets with accounts that had been used for the deal, whereby the Vatican netted that extra stock that put them in basically in control of Marco and Brosiano. And there was a lot of other stuff on these posters also. He also he also sent a letter to the Bank of Italy with

details of these transactions. Uh. And the Bank of Italy, by the way, it was not a private bank. It was Italy's central bank, kind of like our federal reserve. I was gonna say, yeah, what's our equivalent that makes sense? Yeah, Yeah, they started an investigation into this. Um is not a good thing, not a good thing on your bank. Now, a guy named Mario Sarsinelli the Bank of Italy was the guy who was put in charge of looking into Banko and Brociano's finances. One day, the police arrived at

the bank's headquarters and arrested him. And yeah, he was. He was taken away. I locked up in prison for ten days, uh and then at at at which point he was released on the condition that he leave his job at the Bank of Italy, and that pretty much was was it for the investigation? Wait a second, Yeah, so the major the major central bank, gets the police involved, they arrest him, they put him in jail for ten days, find out who knows what, if anything, and then just says,

quit your job, and it's all good. Quit your job and we'll let you go. Something smells fishy, and that's going to say that's conspiracy theory Podder. Yeah, oh yeah, I mean if you if you look at this whole mystery, it's obvious that. I mean, there's a whole lot of stuff like this going on. There's a there's another one I'm to talk about here in just a minute, so

I'll talk about it now. Uh. Or speaking of Sindona, well, some of his banks had failed, never being liquidated and a liquid A guy who was placed in charge of liquidating them was named Mario Ambrosli, and he found evidence in Sindora and Sindona's records that documented a possibly illegal transfer of six and a half million dollars to quote, an American bishop and a Milanese banker. Yeah, and that would be who guess who, Paul Marcinkus from the Vatican

and Roberto Calviy Right. So yeah, and the six point five million was part of the deal that netted the Vatican that extra chunk of Banco. Ambrosiano stuck word leaked out to the press. Uh. Mario amro slowly's investigation didn't go very far because he was shot dead in front of his house not long after that point. So yeah, another body, wasn't he and also a police investigator or

a reporter, I can't remember which one or another. So he and somebody else both got shot at the same time and turned out they were contracted, isn't that right? I'm not sure to sound familiar to you, I'm not sure, because I am pretty sure that I remember that. One of the things that is Sindona is that I think that and I might be getting this wrong, but I think one of the things that got him put away was contracting those two killings because he was trying to

hide what was going on. Could very well be yeah that that Apparently it worked, although eventually the lot caught up with Sidona. Yeah, he got the US Feds busted him, didn't. Hey, you got in trouble in America. I want him going to prison in America for a while, yes, and Dona, he did as you said, go to prison in the US and he was later extradited to Italy where he did a little time in prison. And uh in nineteen six he was in prison in Rome and he drank

some coffee that turned out to have some cyanide in it. Yeah, I know. Ye too long you had another dead body that the death was ruled a suicide. That seems wrong, Yeah, suspicious. Yeah, but you know, if if they can get barbituates in prison, why can't they get Sandy. Yeah? Absolutely, Okay, it doesn't make any sense to me either way. Yeah, I know, I know. So let's see. I don't think we're gonna

have another dead body for a little bit here. So yeah, if you if you want to take a break and go to the bathroom and feel free, Yeah, well, there's a lot more we can talk about about the whole all the financials living maybe that's not there. Yeah, that's not it's really confusing. It would take a long time, I think as a team would be describing this lightly. I kind of want to go into it, Okay three

hours later. Yeah, and it's not even about the unsolved part of this mystery inside deals and loopholes, and of course that's a lot of it. We don't know a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. Besides the missing funds, there have also been claims that Calbi was laundering funds from the mafia and perhaps even running investments for them. Uh. There are also theories out there about a secret Masonic lodge called Propaganda. Is that do a

in Italian? It's basically Propagantitudes and Propaganda du A, also known as P two. Um. He did have dealings with P two but I'll talk a little bit more about that later. There have been claims that the founder or the leader of Propaganda to had it was part of the conspiracy to murder of Calvie. I don't know about the evidence for that. There's also some evidence that all he was involved in funneling money from the Vatican too. Solidarity in Poland, believe it or not, Solidarity was a

political movement. They were. Yeah, they were a labor union. Yeah, labor union that became a political movement, the first labor union that wasn't controlled by a communist government. Yeah. And they yeah, and they they managed to actually overturn because they had I think in their first year they went from nobody to ten million members or something like huge from start date to just before their anniversary date. It's amazing. Yeah. So yeah, it's quite an amazing story. But that's not

a mystery, so we're not going to talk about that. Yeah. So okay, now that we've talked all about all about his financial dealings with the Vatican, one would assume that he had a life insurance policy. If he did. He did, quite that's a quite good guess. He had policy worth about ten million bucks. He was Yeah, of course the insurance company because well it was a suicide. It was a suicide, they wouldn't pay. And then it was later ruled maybe a suicide. They still wouldn't pay because hey,

we don't know, huh. And so yeah, they probably claimed like having a life as a pre existing condition. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, being alive as a pre existing condition. So when you die like that, there's nothing we could do about it. Can't die anyway, Sorry, guys, We'll just have to keep them premiums. But Calby's wife and his son Carlo hired a private detective agency called Coroll Associates

to investigate the case. And actually there was a guy named Jeffrey Katz who headed the investigation, and he wrote an interesting article about it in the Telegraph of London some years in the early two thousands. I don't know if you saw that article or not. I think I did. Yeah, good article, but well worth reading. Uh. They decided that they were they were going through all kinds of records and everything. But they decided also to recreate the suicide.

So they tracked down the contracting company that originally put up the scaffolding and didn't work on the bridge, and they still had the scaffolding, the very same scaffolding as before. You don't just throw that stuff away. It's expensive, yeah, So they graciously loaned it to Jeffrey Cats and his and his team and they set it up underneath the bridge just like it had been set up in nineteen two. And that's by the way, it was in when this that when they hired this when when they finally did

the recreation. Uh, Kelvie's shoes were custom made, and he had them made several pairs of their time. Of course, yeah, as he would. So his white still had a few extra pairs of these exact same shoes laying around, so she gave them the cats. They hired a stunt man who was about his height and size and weight cats. Yeah, he was about his height and had his way. He put out a suit and tie and put on Kelvie's shoes and climbed out over the scaffolding, just like Calvin

would have done. Did they did they stuff a bunch of masonry and he pants. Yeah, you know, I don't know about that. Safety reasons probably not. Yeah, it seems like it's important though, well the way it was be the way it would be kind of important. I mean it might he didn't mention what they did there. They might have added some extra weight. I mean there's ways

without doing something that's comesome as bricks something. Yeah, exactly, there's other ways to add weight besides that, or you could just pick a stunt man who you know weighs a bit more. Anyway, after after this guy went out there and he actually walked out all all kinds of different paths pathways on the on the scaffolding, because Calby obviously could have taken different path pathways. And then they took the shoes and they immersed in the water for

a while. Whatever. So if he went into the water at almost two two am and then he was found at seven thirty am, but then of course it took a while for the London River Police to get there and cut the body down. So probably good eight hours? Yeah,

good eight hours in the water. And so uh, they immersed the shoes and water for a similar period of time, then remove them, dried them out, uh, and then put them into a microscope and what they found is specks of rust and paint for the scalfol did they okay? But I guess here's my next question. Was it moving water that they immersed it in or was it standing standing water? Because it would if it were standing water, it would make more sense that the flex would be

left on. But if it was running water, running rushing past I would think it would be less likely. Um question, I don't I'm not sure how swiftly that the Thames moves, but even a little moving. First, Yeah, that's true. I don't know if they immersed it in any sort of floor, you know, I probably just dead water. But something I forgot to mention is that after they dried the shoes off, they took a wire brush to the soles and actually

brushed them off pretty good. So you yeah, you know, I'm saying all this staunchly believing that he didn't kill himself anyway, So it's not Yeah, I was gonna say. The the other thing that we could ask is and it doesn't matter because I also don't believe that he did it is okay, Well, if the stuntman is taken different paths, was he putting on a different pair of shoes every time? That's the same pair of shoes walking a path five times, You're gonna show much more than

a pair of shoes. It only doesn't want Yeah, that's that's and that's true enough. But but there's gonna be other It's not like called what's his name called thank you put on a brand new pair of shoes to go kill himself. Know, But what I mean is that if the stunt man takes root. One sees how that works. No, I hear what you're saying. I'm I just there would have been other stuff on. Yeah, and I would have

been rocks and dirt and assphalt in the whole nine yards. Yeah, I'm not I'm not really sure if when they did this, if they had him go out one way and then they and then they immersed the shoes and then they dried them out and looked at him, and they hadn't go out another way. That would have taken forever to do that. But even the fact that they found any

even after a wire brushing, that's they found. They found rust and paint flex and of course the police still had still had the original shoes in their possession and they had a look at those and they found nothing. They found no rust, no paint. So how did you get there? Then? So how did you get to onto the scaffolding? Well, how did he get to where he died?

How did he get to where he died? Yes, if he didn't go over the scaffolding in the bridge, then well the popular thinking is that he was brought there by a boat, right because the tide was out, The tide was kind of the tide was not quite the tide was not high tide when he went in. The tide was pretty close to low when they found him. Yeah, but it was much higher when he would have gone in. Yeah, it was higher when he would have gone in. Yes, so it could have been Yeah, pretty easy to bring

him rope over a piece of scaffolding. Yeah, from a boat. Yeah, so he was probably brought to that point on a boat. He was probably already dead. Strangled him on the boat, or maybe before he got it, even got on the boat. I was almost thinking of, did either of you guys

watch Deadwood? Yeah, do you remember the pilot episode where he throws a rope over the walkway and the guy's just standing there, and he just hoists him up, but then throws his own body weight on him and pulls him down to to do the deed that way, I can almost see that, you know, let the current drag the boat and just hold him in place. That's going to cause the constriction that you need cut off an airway. But it's not gonna it's not so sharp that it's

gonna break his neck. Correct. It's with the Thames is at high, it's still a slow moving river. So you're just you're just pulling against it. And if you've ever been in a little boat and just hung onto a tree branch and it's gently moving river, you're like, well, this actually is kind of pulling me a lot harder than I would have expected. I could see that if

all that was focused on with a rope. Yeah, I mean, this is conjecture, I know, but yeah, I know, so uh so, yeah, anyway, but that's what everybody thinks is it was the whole thing about he was out of strangled on on the spot or somewhere else. Nobody really knows. I guess we never will. Um And I wanted to talk a little bit about propaganda too, and how they

got involved with this whole thing. The guy in charge of that was Licio Gilly, And it's been claimed that P two is kind of a state within the state and had with a Masonic laws that had a thousand members or nearly a thousand members, who are all very high powered people in Italian society, and uh so obviously it was the thing to belong to. I'm kind of suspecting that Gale was actually just a huge fraud. And well, because I read that, I read the stuff about him.

So I'm trying to see what it is that that's leading you to think that. Well, um, uh. The Italian Parliament actually set up a commission to investigate P two and they looked at a lot of Gillies records and stuff. And he had records of, like I said, nearly a thousand people who were members of parliament, magistrates, generals in the in the service, the heads of intelligence services, all

regular leading businessmen, all kinds of people, high powered people. Uh. And it was this commission that called P you a state within a state, at least based on Gliese files. But the thing about it is is a lot of the people that were named in the files denied being members of of P two. P two didn't act like an ordinary Masonic lodge. That is, they didn't have meetings so all the members could get to know each other.

In fact, most of the members had no idea who any of the other members were, and only Gallen knew that. So they really weren't this sort of secret society apparently. Uh. And so it's really hard to say if it if it really was real, or if it was just a calm game. But and he he had some weird things going on, and he saw some of the oh yeah stuff he wrote about wanting to change the way the government was run and throw over everybody that was empowered.

I mean, he really I would almost say it bordered a bid on megalomania. I would say, yeah. But the important thing about P two is is that as long as enough people believed all this stuff, then it was. It was a great thing for Gali because he could make a lot of money by acting as a go between. Uh and and sometimes he probably his services probably actually did come in useful. Uh So back to Robertal calving Um,

as I mentioned, he was arrested in nine one. He felt at the time that he had spent two months in prison, of course, and he felt at the time that there was really kind of this class war against bankers going on in Italy, and so he wanted to

buy himself a little a little bit of protection. Uh And so he wanted to Lisio Gale and we was in charge of P two was Glee told Calvin in order to help him, he needed to bribe a bunch of high ranking Italian Italian parliament members, and of course, yeah, so he told him to transfer twenty one million dollars to a South American bank, and he was going to funnel that money back through intermediaries and to Italian politicians

who would in turn hopefully interviewed with bank regulators. Yeah, and there was also a series of loans that Manco Ambrosiano, uh there, Luxembourg Subsidi, I should say, made to a Animanian shell company that was also owned by Gilly. And I'm not going to get in all the shady financial movers that they that they pulled, but Glee was basically able to pocket over a hundred billion dollars of that those loans and so huge transfers of cash to him.

But in return he didn't really provide him provide Calary with any protection. He didn't call He was not able to call off the dogs or anything else, which is why I think it might have just the whole P two thing might have just been a big swing. Basically, are either of you watching this season of True Detective? No, not yet, wait until it's done, Boilers. This is very familiar. Oh really maybe they lifted it from this? Yeah? Are

you guys confused? All that's good. I want to hear about what happened, Like, who could have done this or did he do it? I'm trying as I'm ready for theories. Okay, let's let's talk about theories. And I've got a whole bunch of other stuff to what we'll just skip that goes straight to the theories. Okay, okay, alright, yeah, okay, alright. Theory number one, it was suicide. We kind of that, Yeah, I know, I know. Uh. Theory number two it was murder.

But why do you guys think it was murder? Yes, yeah, okay, and I'm gonna say who, but I think it was that we're in Devon territory. Here two headings. It was suicide, No, it was murder. Subheading, Yeah, it was murdered because she is a bullet list. I know it's catching on. So the question isn't then why number one Calvary was laundering money for the mafia and possibly investing some of their money and he lost a bunch of their money. So they often so they often makes sense, that's the theory.

But there were there were some mob type people who were involved who were big times suspects in his murder. What what is it that? What's the name of the mob in Italy? The COSA Nostra. Yeah, that's it. That's it, because they're they're pretty notorious for making people disappear. Yeah, or maybe in this case, you know, I mean, that's the thing is if the mob had done it, you would think they would have just like killed him and you know, maybe weighed his body down and dumped into

town's instead of very publicly hanging it like that. Then maybe I wanted to send a message, Yeah, I was gonna say, but it's a pretty strong message what they're wanting. Yeah, So our next theory as to why I would be propaganda too, and and Mr Gale the motive I'm not so sure about. But I'm kind of thinking that Calby gave Gli a lot of money, a hell of a

lot of money, and basically got nothing in return. So getting rid of Calby really would have been a good way to stop him from asking for a refund or suing him for fraud. But I've also read isn't it wasn't it? P? Two that the members would call themselves Blackfriars And so the fact that he was hung from Blackfriars Bridge, people have drawn that connection to make it P two because there's that one to one naming thing.

And I don't see anything other than that as a correlation based on what we I've read in the research you talked, I heard of that same connection. I don't I don't know. I was I don't know, um what brought Cali at to London? If he was manipulated into going to London, I say, Flavio Corbonian Carboni, who apparently had connections to P two, possibly had connections. There's rumored

to have connections. So if if Carboni, for example, suggested going to London, it could have been specifically for the purpose of taking him to Blackfriars Bridge and hanging him from the bridge. That seems it just seems like they it just it seems like they're you're over complicating your your whack job. I was gonna say that they put him on a boat and they put him into Yugoslavia.

There's not a whole lot of rule. I mean, even in the eighties, you know, communisms was still in effect, but you know, you could kind of do what you wanted in those countries, and it seems like an easy place to wax somebody. They put him on a boat, just push him overboard, right, I mean, if you're gonna just kill somebody. I go through all of the channels too.

That's I mean, it's I don't know. I think that's one of the things we run into with these whole secret society conspiracy theory things all the time, where it's like, well, they had they had to do it this way because it's this way, and it's like, well, but no, they probably didn't. I mean, if the evil bad guy had to confront him face to face and tell him he was going to die after he admitted he had done

him wrong. It's just like the James Bond thing right where they're like, we're going to have this laser that moved super slowly on the room before actually died already actually does that doesn't happen. You gotta you gotta love that nobody explains their entire master plan and then shoots shoot. Yeah exactly. But anyway, I think that's silly. Yeah, I

think it's a little silly too. Also, you can't exactly sue for fraud if you were like, hey, here's a bunch of money, do something to sketch you with bribe a bunch of people. Yeah, exactly so, but you defrauded me, you didn't actually bribe those people like you obeyed the law. You just took my money because I'm a jerk. Yeah, well I could have also, you know, he could have also done in his way to shut up chut calvy up that. That seems to be the overriding thing. You're

shutting calviy up. Because he knew a lot, he knew a lot of sensitive information. Well, yeah he was. He was involved in a lot of suspicious dealings. I'll call him suspicious. And I have read a lot that people were worried that he was threatening to talk and basically, you know, pull everything out from underneath the rug and expose everything. So somebody did him in to protect that information, whether it be you know, Jelly or Gilly or the

Vatican or the coast of Nostra. I mean, somebody did it for that reason, most likely, all right, next one, and a lot of people have accused the Vatican of arranging for his murder. I can see that, Yeah, because obviously he knew a lot of their business. He had made some he had made some threats about exposing his dealings with the bad with the Vatican Bank to Paul Marcinkus, And so that's why. That's why some people are thinking

things along these lines. It seems like the if you were in a lot of trouble for something money related, and you said to the investigators, Okay, I know you think I'm a big fish, but I can give you the Vatican. That'd be a pretty good plea bargain or deal or whatever that you would make. And I can see being really scared of that as the Vatican saying he knows and can prove all of the kind of shady stuff we've been doing to make a ton of money, to make a bunch of money. He can expose us.

And he's in the position in which he would try to expose us. Better take care of that. Yeah, I mean, so, yeah, the Vatican has the bad guy. Oh no, no, no, But you know there's you know, in the in the Church, obviously, there's occasionally going to be the bad apple, a bad apple or too you know, it happens, Well, there's there's been quite a few of them that have been involved

in their financial matters. I don't know what it is about being involved in the Vatican and suddenly you're put in charge of large amounts of funds and every one of them just goes hog wild and ignores every rule around, just like I've got to make the money. It really is. It's crazy. The church actually has been hard up in the in the past, they've been pretty hard up for cash, and there I think there's hard they're probably hard up

for cash now. Actually, well, the good news is the person in charge of that church right now seems to want to do the right thing with the money. So we will see how that all pans out. No longer wearing Versacci red slippers. Good for him. Sorry, Oh yeah, well you have the day the people who were aware of all these all these various dealings, where Carlo Kanisi was the original head of the bank he died, he had died quite a while before this. And then our

Calvi who succeeded him in the bank. And then Calby's secretary who was got Karosher I believe this was pronounced. She's the assistant who jumped or fell or was pushed to her death the day of the bank failed from the fifth story, right, Yeah, those are the three people that really would have known everything about the goings on with the Vatican Bank and all of their all their phony offshore companies and stuff. Hang on, Hang on a second.

You talked about earlier that the secretary had seen him in his office, taken a whole bunch of papers, and put him in a black briefcase. Did they find that totally disappeared from the story. What happened with the black brief disappeared? You know, it's interesting his luggage was. He had a couple of suitcases which were found in his hotel room, but the black briefcase was gone and never to be seen again. It sort of pops up a little bit later. But yeah, okay, let's get there, but later,

are we not? Yeah, at last, he just got killed for money here and simple. But he had a lot of money on him, but a whole lot more money in other places. So why wouldn't you take the money that was on him too? That would kind of make sense, wouldn't it. Yes, Yeah, I know. Yeah, I'm not gonna go club a guy and then steal his offshore account and leave the million dollars it's in his pocket. Actually

went around go spend that now. Yeah, there's literally nothing I have to do to take that money except for take it out of his pocket. Never thought about this. Let's continue. Yeah, yeah, Well, let's let's talk about some of the people who were who have been accused rather suspicious. Christ's Flavio car car Bony, the guy who facilitated as to escape from Italy. Next does a mafia boss named Pipo Ko I think I was pronounced who was who

was actually tried for ordering Calby's murder? Um, And I'll so, Flavio Carboni is said to have been involved in muddy laundering for Pippo cow Ko. Pippo Carlo, you're right, season make it down to Italian okay? Uh? And the foreman also said that Flavio Carboni was an essential link between Carlo and the P two lodge. But there's those PC people again. Uh. Mafio So mafia also turned in former named Francesco Mantol. Yeah, I think that's how it's pronounced.

Pointed the finger once again at Pippo Carlo, but also at Lecio Gali had a P two and claiming they had ordered Calvi's murder. I don't. I had no idea what his evidence was. That was for that Italian prosecutors. And by the way, by this time, everybody's on the same page. It was murdered, right, did the insurance company finally pay out. I don't know why I was concerned

about that. Unfortunately, for the Emily, they had that they had to pay out about half of that to the investigators that they had hired, because the investigators had spent tremendous resources and you know, not just recreating the murder, but but traveling the world and documents and witnesses, traveling for business to Panama and the Yeah. So they so that their tab came to a fairly large amount of money.

But in Italian prosecutors charged Carlo and also Flavio Carboni, alongside some guys named Ernesto and Dealt, Dealt, Levy and Francesco di Carlo. There was a very very long trial which basically was at the end they decided there was insufficient evidence to lock anybody up over this stuff. Yeah, there was more than one trial like that. Yeah, No,

there were there were, Yeah, there were other ones that. Uh. Eventually Francisco di Carlo, who apparently was a hit man, at one point returning format and he did say that Kalo people Klo had and approached him about murdering Calby, but that he hadn't carried it out. Uh, supposedly Kaylo had gotten a word to a third party to De Carlo that he needed to have somebody whacked. And by the time Di Carlo actually got in touch with Kaylo, because I remember the c at two people, nobody has

cell phones. It's not not as easy to get ahold of your back your office, the secretary hands you the message. Yeah yeah, So by the time, yeah, by the time you got back in touch with Kalo, which was like a couple of days later, Kaylo told him the problem had already been taken care of. So um. But on the other hand, British investigators did find one dollar deposit and made it to the Carlo's bank accounts on June sixt the day before the murder. So and also Francesco

di Carlo did have the nickname of Frankie the Strangler. Oh, you're kidding me. That was that, that was his name. That was okay, So what where else can and go from there? I mean, so obviously he did it. Yeah, what's that? No, it's not, it's not totally obvious. I think that's that's a good possibility. He was living in London at the time. Uh yeah, And obviously you know he would have an incentive to lie and say something in the order of yeah, yeah, he asked me to

do it, but I didn't do it, you know. And there was that hundred that hundred thousand dollar bank deposit. There's a down payment. Yeah yeah. Another trial happened began in nine two seven. It was the prosecutors had announced that they thought the mafia had assassinated Calby to stopping blackmailing a number of senior political figures linked to the PT Lodge as well as the Vatican Bank, because there were were there were hints that he was he was

actually going to blackmail. Then we had brought to talk about threatening to squeal. Yeah, exactly. That trial, as as I said, begin in two thousand and seven was it was people Kulo from Flavio Carboni deal to Levy and this time calby bodyguard, uh Silvano Vittor was included. Um. They of course all denied being involved, and eventually they got off again because of not enough evidence. And that was that. I don't know, and I don't know if there's gonna be any more trials at this point or not,

if people involved in this whole case. You're getting kind of old and so it's it's extremely difficult to run down any witnesses forty years later, thirty years later. I mean, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think, you know, I don't think we're ever gonna know who actually did who actually carried out the actual murder. I think that Flavio Carboni had a part in it. I don't know

that he actually committed the murder itself. Yeah, because Roberto cality was totally dependent on Carboni to make all his arrangements and then to keep him hidden in London in various other places. And obviously Carboni had access to him and he's the only person who knew his whereabouts besides

his veto or the bodyguard. Uh So, Carboni, because Calby trusted him, could easily have gotten him to come with them for some pretext, like say, I mentioned that he had said that he was he had found a flat for him to move into, but that was actually not true, and I found him a flat, So say, if you call um, won't say, hey, packer bags, we're gonna move to a new flat and get you some nicer accommodations

than Calby would have gone with him. And so I'm I'm guessing under that what you've just said there is that the idea was we're gonna go look at the flat. Knot let's move to the flat because his bags are all stilt hotel. Yeah, but his bags were packed. He told him to pack his bag because he would he

found a flat to move to. Yeah. Yeah, and so Carboni and so Colby would have just gone with him for whatever reason, and he could have just delivered him to the hitman who would have taken care of all arrest. Or he could have been the hitman. Yeah, or maybe he was. You know, I don't know that he has a record for that kind of thing or not. But what his motive would have been money because remember Calby had given him a whole bunch of money, and he

it wasn't actually it was just expense money. It wasn't actually a gift, It was just to cover expenses. So if he spent less, he had to give it back. Yeah. So if if yeah, if he hadn't spent it all, then he would he would probably have had to give most of all of it back. I mean, I'm sure he would have gotten a tip for his help with services. But yeah, so you know, eleven million bucks is a pretty good money. Yeah, that's a pretty good moments ago.

Another suspicious thing is that both Carboni and Vider left England very early on the morning of the eighteen body was found on the morning they lounged at the same time, if not before the body was found. Yeah. Yeah, it seems suspicious. It seems a little suspicious. Yeah. Uh. And

at last of all, the black briefcase makes its reappearance. Um. Yeah, he seems to have wound up in possession of the black briefcase, Carbonian Flavio carbon He appears to have And it's this is and the guy named Edward j. Epstein wrote wrote a long article about this, and he's he's an investigative reporter. He used to work for Vanity Fair magazine. Yeah,

and he's written a number of books and stuff. Uh. And he did a long article about this, and he talked to an investigating magistrate in Italy named Judge how Margie. I think that's how it's pronounced. Yeah. This judge was wasn't looking into the Calby affair. And he told Epstein that the Vatican had acknowledged to him that they had given Carboni two million dollars for certain documents. Uh and uh.

He had apparently come across evidence of the Vatican was considerable considering paying him an additional forty million dollars, presumably for the rest of the contents of that black briefcase. Well, so wouldn't You wouldn't even have to have murdered him for money, if you know, he said, Oh, I have this briefcase that's worth a lot of money, murdering money. Sorry, when did when did the Vatican pay him for the documents? Yeah? That I'm not Surestine didn't give any dates as to

precisely the judge either. The judge didn't tell him exactly what it was. Maybe just didn't know. One would assume you would wait a little bit. You wouldn't immediately like two days later, Yeah, show up with these documents. But yeah, so did did Flavio Carboni blackmail the Pope? Yes? Yeah, sounds like so. You guys have many further thoughts any

more theories. Yeah, he was definitely murdered. Carboni probably had a hand in it, whether or not it was you know, he happened to find these documents afterwards, or it was motivated by them. I think, Yeah, I definitely had a hand in it if he didn't do it himself, yeah, I think so. And his his bodyguard probably at least knew something. Yeah, of course he would. There's just seems to be a whole lot of people involved with this thing, this whole thing that could have a little blood on

their hands. Yeah. The only thing that I know that there's so much evidence pointing to certain people just because they're so involved in it. The one thing I couldn't help but wonder the whole time is going through this is the unknown third party, and that is somebody who is investing heavily in banking, and of course his bank is going under seeing him and recognizing him, because well Joe knows, and I think you know, Devon his his

great disguise to travel abroad, his mustache. He shaved his mustache, So yeah, not not really disguising himself much. Although I will tell you I have a friend who just today, I've only ever known him with a beard, and he shaved it all off. And I literally didn't. I see him every day I work with him, even it was his upper lip, I didn't suddenly I didn't recognize him. I thought he looked a lot different without the mustache.

I see. I although the only picture of him that I saw without the mustache was the one where he was dead and laying on the side to the bridge. He's probably gonna wear the same kind of clothes, He's going to act and speak the same way. So I I always just wonder if it's somebody happens to go, wait a minute, that's that that jerk that lost me all that money. We're gonna go find him and we're going to talk to him, and then something happens. I mean, do I think that's it? But I still can't help

but wonder he was keeping a pretty low profile. Yeah, I think that the odds that's some random dude just ran across him, you know, I think it's more likely that probably the people surrounding him just killed him or arranged for him to be killed, or got paid to bribe, Yeah, say a bribe to accidentally look the other way while he was walking down the street. Yeah. So yeah, it's

unfortunate for Roberto Calary. You know, I don't know that he was a bad guy at all, but he's got kind of involved with the wrong kind of people, and uh, everything kind of went south. That's what happens to a lot of those guys is that they want to make a couple of extra bucks, so they'll just shine on the fact that you do all these other things and then comes back to bite them in the end. Yeah, it's so sad. Yeah, anyway, any other thoughts, Well, hey,

let's just wind us down then, all right. Yeah, Well, I'm sure you all of you out there, I've got thoughts about this. In fact, maybe some of you your MafA Yosa and you'd like to actually, you know, cleue us in and some of the some of the actual stuff that happened. If that is the case, you can send us an email at Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail

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If you want to sponsor us, you can. You don't have to, no obligation at all, but that's patreon dot com. I think it's the forward slash Thinking Sideways. Yeah, and that's about it for this week. Any further thoughts, no, all right, well goodbye everybody hanging there, guys,