Editing Roberto Calvi (section)

==Death==

Calvi went missing from his [[Rome]] apartment on 10 June 1982, having fled the country on a false passport under the name Gian Roberto Calvini, fleeing initially to [[Venice]]. From there, he apparently hired a private plane to [[London]] via [[Zürich]]. A postal clerk was crossing London's [[Blackfriars Bridge]] at 7:30 am on Friday, 18 June and noticed Calvi's body hanging from the scaffolding beneath. Calvi had five bricks in his pockets and had in his possession about US$14,000 in three different currencies.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/19/newsid_3092000/3092625.stm 'God's banker' found hanged, BBC, 19 June 1982]</ref>

Calvi was a member of [[Licio Gelli]]'s illegal [[masonic lodge]] [[Propaganda Due]] (P2), who referred to themselves as ''frati neri'' or "black friars." This led to a suggestion in some quarters that Calvi was murdered as a masonic warning because of the symbolism associated with the word "Blackfriars".<ref name = es071003/>

The day before his body was found, Calvi was stripped of his post at [[Banco Ambrosiano]] by the [[Bank of Italy]], and his private secretary [[Graziella Corrocher]] jumped to her death from a fifth-floor window at the bank's headquarters. Corrocher left behind an angry note condemning the damage that Calvi had done to the bank and its employees. Her death was ruled a suicide.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Deeley |first=Peter |last2=Lashmar |first2=Paul |date=1982-06-20 |title=Top banker found hanged |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1982/jun/20/ukcrime.italy |access-date=2025-04-22 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

Calvi's death was the subject of two [[coroner's inquest|coroners' inquests]] in London. The first recorded verdict of suicide was in July 1982. The Calvi family then secured the services of [[George Carman]], [[Queen's Counsel|QC]]. The second inquest was held in July 1983, and the jury recorded an [[open verdict]], indicating that the court had been unable to determine the exact cause of death. Calvi's family maintained that his death had been a murder.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}

In 1991, the Calvi family commissioned the [[New York City|New York]]-based investigation company [[Kroll Inc.|Kroll Associates]] to investigate the circumstances of Calvi's death. The case was assigned to Jeff Katz, who was a senior case manager for the company in London. As part of his two-year investigation, Katz hired a former [[Home Office]] forensic scientist, [[Angela Gallop]], to undertake forensic tests. She found that Calvi could not have hanged himself from the scaffolding because the lack of paint and rust on his shoes proved that he had not walked on the scaffolding. In October 1992, the forensic report was submitted to the [[home secretary]] and the [[City of London Police]], who dismissed it at the time.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}

Calvi's body was exhumed in December 1998, and an Italian court commissioned a German forensic scientist to repeat the work produced by Katz and his forensic team. That report was published in October 2002, ten years after the original, and confirmed the first report. In addition, it said that the injuries to Calvi's neck were inconsistent with hanging and that he had not touched the bricks found in his pockets. When his body was found, the [[River Thames]] had receded with the tide, but the scaffolding could have been reached by a person standing in a boat at the time of the hanging. That had also been the conclusion of a separate report by Katz in 1992, which also detailed a reconstruction based on Calvi's last known movements in London and theorized that he had been taken by boat from a point of access to the Thames in West London.<ref>Evidence on hanged Calvi 'proves' it was murder, The Observer, 18 October 1992.</ref><ref>Calvi - The tests that may point to murder, The Observer, 31 January 1993.</ref><ref name=st261003>[http://bishop-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Telegraph.pdf Dead Man Talking] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826113806/http://bishop-group.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Telegraph.pdf |date=26 August 2014 }}, by Jeffrey Katz, The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, 26 October 2003</ref><ref name=bbc060105>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4149813.stm Mafia, masons and murder], BBC News, 6 January 2005.</ref>

This aspect of Calvi's death was the focus of the theory that he was murdered and is the version of events depicted in Giuseppe Ferrara's film reconstruction of the event. In September 2003, the City of London Police re-opened their investigation as a murder inquiry.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3568409.stm "An end to the mystery of God's Banker?"], BBC News, 31 March 2004</ref><ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9407EFDD143BF933A15755C0A960 "Italian in Scandal Found Dead"], [[UPI]], published by the [[New York Times]], 20 June 1982</ref><ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/19/newsid_3092000/3092625.stm "1982: 'God's banker' found hanged"], BBC News</ref> More evidence arose, revealing that Calvi stayed in a flat in Chelsea Cloisters just prior to his death. Sergio Vaccari was a small-time drug dealer who had stayed in the same flat, and he was found dead in possession of masonic papers displaying member names of P2. The murders of both Calvi and Vaccari involved bricks stuffed in clothing, correlating the two deaths and confirming Calvi's ties to the lodge.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-gelli-idUKKBN0TZ1N620151216|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160915233613/http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-gelli-idUKKBN0TZ1N620151216|url-status=dead|archive-date=15 September 2016|title=Italy's murky masonic leader Gelli, linked to decades of plots, dies|author=Reuters Editorial|language=en-GB|access-date=4 September 2016}}</ref>

Calvi's life was insured for US$10 million with Unione Italiana. His family's attempts to obtain a payout resulted in litigation (''Fisher v Unione Italiana'' [1998] CLC 682). The forensic report of 2002 established that Calvi had been murdered and the policy was finally settled, although around half of the sum was paid to creditors of the Calvi family who incurred considerable costs during their attempts to establish the cause of his death.<ref name=es071003>[http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/londonlife/articles/7053419?source=Evening%20Standard A son's quest for truth], Evening Standard 7 October 2003</ref><ref name=obs071203>[https://www.theguardian.com/italy/story/0,,1101410,00.html Who killed Calvi?], The Observer, 7 December 2003</ref><ref name=dicarlo>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/1505250/Mafia-wanted-me-to-kill-Calvi-says-jailed-gangster.html Mafia wanted me to kill Calvi, says jailed gangster], ''The Daily Telegraph'', 10 December 2005</ref>