The death of Roberto Calvi, "God's banker"
London, United Kingdom, 1982
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
On the morning of Friday, June 18, 1982, at around 7:30 am, a postal worker found the Italian banker Roberto Calvi, 62, hanging from a rope on the scaffolding under Blackfriars Bridge in London. In his pockets he had bricks and about 14 thousand dollars in three different currencies. Chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano of Milan, tied through business to the Vatican bank and to the clandestine Masonic lodge P2, Calvi had fled Italy days earlier on a forged passport in the name of Gian Roberto Calvini and was hiding in a flat in Chelsea.
The bank collapsed that same month, leaving a hole estimated at between 700 million and 1.5 billion dollars. The day before his death, Calvi's secretary, Graziella Corrocher, fell from a fifth-floor window at the head office in Milan, a death treated as suicide. In London, the first inquest, in July 1982, concluded that Calvi had killed himself; his family challenged it, and a second inquest, in 1983, left the verdict open.
Sources
In the game
Bricks in the Pockets
London, Friday, June 18, 1982, 2 pm. At 7:30 am, a postal worker found the banker Ettore Malvasi, 62, hanging from a rope on the scaffolding under a Thames bridge.
In December 1998 the body was exhumed, and in October 2002 experts appointed by the Italian courts concluded that he could not have hanged himself from the scaffolding: there were no traces of the tubes on his shoes or hands, and the neck injuries did not match hanging. The City of London Police reopened the case as a murder in 2003. In 2005, five people went on trial in Rome; in June 2007 all were acquitted for lack of evidence, and no one has ever been convicted of the death.
