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Niccolo Minoni
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Gerald Pozner
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Niccolo Minoni
Campsite Media.
Gerald Pozner
In the middle of a hot summer night in 1981, Roberto Calvi sat in a prison cell and began to cry. He'd been arrested just a week after the assassination attempt on John Paul II and had spent two months wasting away in his cell. Calvi's stubble was beginning to show. His eyes were red from lack of sleep. His beige prison jumpsuit stunk of bo. Calv had been stripped of his designer clothes right down to his shoelaces, and he hadn't had a good night's sleep in months. His cellmates would play cards and they listened to music all night, keeping him from sleeping. Calvi was charged with breaking currency export laws. Basically, Italy wanted to protect its economy by forcing people to keep their money in the country. Yeah, it's illegal to export a certain amount of capital abroad.
Francesco Pacienza
In Italy, everybody was doing that.
Gerald Pozner
I asked Francesco Pacienza, the former spy who worked for Calvi, about Calvi's arrest, and he said, what I heard from lots of people, which is everybody ignored this law. To be clear, Calvi was up to a bunch of financial shenanigans. But it's also pretty normal for bankers to work internationally, sending cash outside of their country. So arresting Calvi for this kind of felt like arresting a pedestrian for jaywalking. It seemed like prosecutors were going after Calvi to send a political message. Some reporters claimed this was a left wing vendetta against Calvi. Others suggested that prosecutors wanted to send a message to tax sheets to other rich Italians who were shadily trying to conceal money abroad. Either way, Potenza said, this was a shock to Calvi's world.
Francesco Pacienza
Well, when Calvi was arrested, I was just in my office in Rome and my secretary said, listen, listen, listen, listen. I heard the television. I saw that he was arrested.
Gerald Pozner
You're the Calvi family creative fixer at this point. Are you helping him now that he's in jail. Are you giving him strategies?
Francesco Pacienza
I organized a contact with the chaplain of the jail. I told the chaplain to say that we are very close to him, don't worry, and so on.
Gerald Pozner
Why did you want Calvi to know that you're with him and everything's okay?
Francesco Pacienza
Because. Just to keep him calm, you know? Calm, quiet.
Gerald Pozner
While Calvi was in prison, Pacenza was still in contact with the Vatican and politicians around Italy. He sent word to Calvi through the prison chaplain. Keep calm, keep quiet. We're with you. Don't talk to prosecutors about the Vatican masons, any of it. This could be a reassuring message. Sure, we've got your back, but I can also see how this could be threatening, like, don't talk, or else, I don't know which way Calvi read Pacienza's message, but I do know he didn't do as he was told. Investigative journalist Gerald Pozner said that jail just sort of broke Calvi.
Philip Willan
This was a man obsessed with his own personal security. And now, suddenly, he's in an Italian prison, not very clean, not very sparkling, not washed down once a day, with a lot of prisoners in a shared space. Calvi hates that experience. The idea that he could be sentenced one day and sent there, to him, is as bad an example of the future as he could possibly imagine.
Gerald Pozner
He'd been denied bail multiple times. He'd stopped leaving his cell during the day and stopped going outside to exercise. At one point, he got pneumonia. I mean, he was literally withering away. So according to Pozner, on a July night in 1981, Calvi called three prosecutors to the prison and told them, you must get me out of here. I can't take it anymore.
Philip Willan
So then he figures, okay, so what can I do?
Gerald Pozner
He did what he knew he shouldn't do. He started offering up information in exchange for a deal.
Philip Willan
Okay, that's it. I'll tell you what. P2, they're behind it all. They've got every conspiracy. They're the masterminds. They're pulling the strings. They're the puppet masters.
Gerald Pozner
Pozner told me at that point, Calvi let it all out. He claimed he'd made payments to politicians on behalf of P2. The P2 Masons were behind crooked oil deals and the big Italian newspaper he'd bought. He wept and wept. But the prosecutors demanded more. I read some Italian reporting of this exchange that quoted Calvi as telling the prosecutors, I'm the last wheel on the cart, and I'm simply in the service of someone else, but who controls you? The prosecutors demanded. At this point, Calvi realized he'd gone too far.
Philip Willan
He shut down and then the prosecutors come in and say, we need more. You can't just say that we need more. And then he says, oh, I was wrong about that. No, it's not true. I take it all back.
Gerald Pozner
The prosecutors grumbled and said they weren't sure how much they could do for Calvi. Over the next few days, Calvi retracted much of what he said about P2. He also sent desperate messages to his lawyers while his body and his career continued to deteriorate. Meanwhile, a public trial was on the horizon, and his chances of being found innocent were looking worse and worse. About a week after his meeting with prosecutors, guards discovered God's banker collapsed and unconscious in his jail cell. From Crooked Media and Campside Media, this is Shadow Kingdom Godspanker. I'm Niccolo Minoni and this is episode five of the Fixers.
Clara Calvi
I'm afraid all you would talk about was death. Always.
Philip Willan
The moment it starts to unravel, it all starts to unravel.
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Niccolo Minoni
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Gerald Pozner
In court. On the morning of July 9, one of Calvi's defense lawyers made a surprising announcement. God's banker had attempted suicide and had been rushed to the hospital. This is a really sensitive part of the Calvi story, so I want to tread carefully here. It's tough to say for certain what Calvi was thinking at this moment and what his intentions were. His family said his life was never actually in danger, that this wasn't a, quote, unquote, real attempt. But it feels important to acknowledge that Calvi had a history of suicide attempts, especially given how he died. In picturing him there in that moment, I really do feel for him. I don't think Calvi started out trying to make a billion dollar criminal empire, but I can see how Calvi's first fraud led to a lie, then a bigger lie and a bigger lie. And there's something so tragic, so Shakespearean, about a man who's gone too far, who's been swallowed up by his own crimes. Calvi had always been able to stay one step ahead of trouble in the past, always found someone to save him, someone to protect him. But his arrest made it clear that any protection was now gone. Also, Calvi had talked to authorities in jail, despite Potenza's warning not to. He was now a potential liability for a dangerous list of associates who might prefer his mouth to be closed permanently. Soon after Calvi's suicide attempt, he was officially convicted of those export violations and then was let out of prison pending appeal. But the violence Calvi had seemed to keep at bay was about to hit close to home, and I had just the person to ask about it. Hi, Philip. Hi, Mevinuti. Come in. This is Philip Willans, a British expat who lives in Rome and writes for the Times, the British newspaper. He's written two books about Roberto Calvi and spent over 20 years trying to piece together the final weeks of the banker's life. Over the course of my reporting, Willen and I have become friends. We've talked over a dozen times, but this visit was the first time we'd met in person. I traveled to Rome because he promised to open his personal archive for me. Yeah. Opening the seal. Yes. What do we have?
Clara Calvi
These are tapes of some of the.
Roberto Rozone
Interviews that I did. We've got Roberto Rossone.
Gerald Pozner
He's Calvi's vp. Yes. Willen had recordings of interviews he'd done with Calvi's family, with mafiosos, diplomats, and many other people who knew Calvi, including Roberto Rozone, Calvi's deputy at the Banco Ambrosiano. These were people I would have loved to interview, but most of them are now dead. As soon as I left Willen, I rushed to have these tapes digitized. Handing them over, I felt this pang of anxiety. And then a couple of days later, I got this tidy list of files back. I could just hit play from the convenience of my laptop. I started with the Rozona tapes. Hitting play. The first thing I heard Rizzone say was.
Roberto Rozone
So I open the door, my driver was waiting by the corner, and I see a handsome guy.
Gerald Pozner
Rossoni described an afternoon in the spring of 1982, after Calvi was out of prison. Rozone was leaving the Banco Ambrosiano when a young man approached him on the street and held up a gun. We've asked an actor to read Rizzoni's transcript here.
Roberto Rozone
And this was one of those moments in life where you see what's happening but you don't fully understand.
Gerald Pozner
When Rizzone was asked about the Calvi affair, this was the first thing he talked about. Staring down the barrel of a gun.
Roberto Rozone
The man points a gun at me and shoots. But the shot didn't end up firing. So he starts to reload the gun, and in the act of reloading, the gun somehow goes off. And the bullet went right by my testicles. And back then, I was more attached to them than I am now.
Gerald Pozner
Rizzone laughed about it after the fact. But in that moment, he watched as his bodyguard opened fire on the shooter. The hitman fell to the ground, dead, while Rozone fell, clutching. This story was the exact kind of attack Calvi had been afraid of. It's why he'd paid for armored cars, armed security, and had gotten involved with P2, which had promised him protection. All in the hopes of avoiding this kind of attack. It was shocking to hear Rizzone describe his own shooting. But perhaps more surprising was that Rizzone blamed Calvi's inner circle for the shooting. Rizzoni said that things had gotten increasingly disorganized at the Banco Ambrosiano after Calvi's arrest. Suspicious loans, shady businessmen coming in and out. And Rizzoni blamed a new business associate of Calvi's for the shooting. Someone Calvi had met and had started confiding in right after he was released from prison. A man named Flavio Carboni.
Roberto Rozone
If you and I run a red light, we get caught, we get a ticket. But Carboni, a man so utterly under qualified, he somehow kept everyone off his back.
Gerald Pozner
Carboni was a powerful construction magnate, a Bit of a lobbyist with high level government connections. He was someone you could pay to get you out of a jam. A fixer of sorts. He had a lot of experience getting out of trouble.
Roberto Rozone
They tried Carboni in something like 10 trials. Have you ever heard of any of them? No, because to everyone's surprise, he's always acquitted, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence.
Gerald Pozner
Rossoni thought Carboni had it out for him. That's because Carboni had been asking the Bancombraziano for all these shady loans and Rizzona had been denying them. I kept listening to the tape, captivated by Rizzona, when suddenly he dropped this incredible piece of news.
Roberto Rozone
The bank's security guard shot the assailant as he was riding away in a motorbike. He got him right in the back of the head. And then they would find that he had on him the phone number of Carboni.
Gerald Pozner
So this was nuts, like a huge red flag. If Carboni was trying to kill high level Ambrosiano bankers, I needed to go much deeper on him. I asked Pazienza what he knew about him. Who was Carboni, first of all? How would you describe him?
Francesco Pacienza
Carboni was a very intelligent man, but was a son of a bitch. He got a lot of money from Calvi.
Gerald Pozner
Patenza explained that In July of 1981, Calvi was recovering from his suicide attempt and was out of jail for now, pending his appeal. So after Calvi got out of jail, Patenza organized a vacation for him on the island of Sardinia, which happened to be Carboni's hometown. It was a nice, thoughtful idea. A chance to recuperate, maybe do some business.
Francesco Pacienza
And one day I met Carboni with another boat close to a beach. So I say, hey, listen. Oh, Senior Presidente. Voila.
Gerald Pozner
Pazienza knew Carboni had connections in the justice system that he might be able to lean on to keep Calvi free. So Pacienza organized a quote, unquote chance encounter with Calvi and Carboni. Carboni started charming Calvi, joking with him, apparently even making the banker laugh. He invited Calvi onto his yacht and gave him a big wheel of pecorino cheese, which to me sounds like someone doing an impression of an over the top Italian lobbyist. In fact, Pazienza started feeling a little threatened, a little jealous, maybe Garboni.
Francesco Pacienza
At that point he was thinking to take Calvi from my hands and handle him directly. Calvi completely abandoned himself on the hands of that piece of shit of Carbon.
Gerald Pozner
Not that Potenza's still upset about it or anything. Coming back from vacation, Calvi was determined to prove he could still run the Banco Ambrosiano. He'd been temporarily replaced as chairman while he was in jail. But now that he was free, he made his way to the executive elevator and up to the Ambrosiano boardroom, where he greeted employees as if everything was normal. He took back his chairmanship and told employees that he would steady the ship. Gerald Pozner again, that shows you the.
Philip Willan
Hold that Calvi had on the bank. The bank does not demand his resignation. They say, okay, that's fine, you're still running the bank, it's okay. And he stays there with an iron hand and he doubles down on many of the things that later get him in trouble.
Gerald Pozner
All the while, he continued to see Carboni more in Potzenza, less. After vacationing together, the two would often meet at Calvi's home in Milan and his vacation home near the Swiss border. They would have long, intense private conversations together. Carboni organized meetings with high profile ministers for Calvi and gave him business advice because the world didn't know it yet. But Calvi knew that all was not well at the Banco Ambrosiano. The bank's stock price had been artificially inflated as Calvi secretly bought more and and more shares. But those shares began to lose value when Calvi was arrested. Also, the bank had way more debt than was publicly known. And so, yet again, Calvi searched for a way out, a bailout for his bank. Throughout the summer of 1981 and into the fall, he looked for new financial partners. He met with Libyan, Saudi and Iranian investors. He talked about negotiating a deal with Opus dei, a secretive organization within the Catholic Church and eni, Italy's state run oil conglomerate. In November, Calvi recruited one of the most respected businessmen in Italy to join the Ambrosiano board. But the new board member stepped down after serving only a few months and sold a stake in the bank. He said only that he was appalled by what he found. By January of 1982, Calvi was really beginning to lose it. He was still appealing his conviction for illegal export control. The Italian government had taken his passport away, which meant he couldn't travel for business. Author Gerald Pozner Again, you yank the.
Philip Willan
Passport and you suddenly essentially lock the person down to Italy. And when that happened to Calvi, he was absolutely stunned by that.
Gerald Pozner
In February, Italian regulators followed up on Calvi's mafia and Mason ties. They threatened to take over Calvi's bank if he didn't reveal more information. About his shell companies. In March, Ambrosiano board members openly questioned Calvi during a meeting. They were no longer his yes men.
Philip Willan
Calvi has long lost all control by this point, and his desperation is showing in every possible way. He is a man whose desperation is controlling everything he does. And what Calvi probably could not see is the moment it starts to unravel, it all starts to unravel. It's like putting your finger in the dike, hoping you stop the flood from coming. And then another leak stops and another leak starts and you run out of fingers before the whole thing starts to leak.
Gerald Pozner
By the end of March, we know Calvi had just two and a half months left to live. And as the calendar flipped toward June, Calvi received threats that cut deeper than those at the Banco Ambrosiano. Threats that weren't financial, but personal. Someone was following his family shadow.
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Gerald Pozner
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Gerald Pozner
For sponsoring this episode. A big chunk of the money Calvi had borrowed 300 million was due to be repaid at the end of June 1982. Part of that was due to big institutional banks, part of it was due to the Vatican, and part of it was reportedly due to the Mafia. But that borrowed money, remember, Calvi had given a ton of it to the far right masons who weren't going to pay him back, and he'd used a lot of it to buy shares in his own bank. But since those shares had plummeted in value after his arrest, Calvi did not have the money to pay what was due. In the past, Calvi had always been able to find new investors or take out new loans to repay the old loans. But now that he'd been convicted of a crime, he was nervous his whole house of cards might topple and take him down with it.
Clara Calvi
I remember once he came through the front door, he took me in his arms, and he threw me up in the air four or five times. We were overjoyed.
Gerald Pozner
Clara Calvi, his wife, spoke to a journalist after his death. The translation read here by an actor. She said that Roberto Calvi's mood would swing from mad joy to sobbing depression.
Clara Calvi
Another time I was already in bed sleeping, and he was coming back from Rome at that point. He was already going back and forth for these trips, and he could no longer control the bank. It'd been a while now that he couldn't control the bank anyway. He came into bed and just burst into tears. I tried to comfort him best I could, and then he fell asleep. He was tired. He was so tired.
Gerald Pozner
Throughout 1982, Calvi told his wife he thought multiple people were after his family. They were so worried, they stopped letting the normal house cleaners in. The circle of trust tightened.
Clara Calvi
We couldn't have housekeepers living with us anymore. He'd get up, he'd look at me over and over, and I couldn't bear his eyes.
Gerald Pozner
At one point, Calvi took out a gun and began to clean it in front of his family, mumbling that he needed it for protection. His new emotional state scared Clara.
Clara Calvi
I have so much remorse now, but at a certain point, I just refused to go to him. And my daughter would say, mom, why don't you want to go and see dad? And I told her, because I'm afraid. All he would talk about was death, always.
Gerald Pozner
As May turned to June, Calvi didn't seem to have a plan. He bounced between trying to figure out how to save his bank and sobbing at home with his family. In a fit of despair, Roberto packed his wife's bags and practically forced her out of the country. Calvi's son Carlo was already living in the US at the time and picked his mom up at the airport in.
Carlo Calvi
Washington, D.C. when she arrived, I went to pick her up, and I remember this palpable tension.
Gerald Pozner
Carlo described his dad's time on the run as part of his testimony in a 2005 court case. Again, this is an English translation.
Carlo Calvi
As soon as she stepped off the plane, she told me about an episode. She said that my dad had found himself in a dark room with an official from the finance police, and he had been shown some documents that had truly scared him. It was a situation where you had a threat that was palpable, and it made her really, really scared. This is the first thing my mom told me right as she arrived at the airport. These were documents about a legal proceeding that, you know, my mom says were a real, real threat for my dad.
Gerald Pozner
Soon after Clara landed in Washington, she and Carlos started to suspect they were being watched, though by whom? They didn't know.
Carlo Calvi
There was no doubt in our minds that we were followed all the way home. There, a car stopped right in front of our house and stayed there for most of the night, maybe the whole night.
Gerald Pozner
It spooked them enough to reach out to local law enforcement for protection. Then, on June 9, just a week before his death, Roberto Calvi held a dinner at his office in the Banco Ambrosiano. Multiple witnesses recounted the scene to print reporters. Overlooking the lights of Milan, Calby hosted French and Austrian bankers to talk about an acquisition of Ambrosiano's subsidiaries. The bankers mold a $200 million deal over fine wine and pristine silverware. Calvi was uncharacteristically social, making small talk about his life and debating the Falklands War that was raging off the coast of Argentina. He spoke in French, playing the part of the suave CEO, acting as if his board wasn't actively rebelling against him, as if his empire wasn't falling apart. The men sipped wine and chatted deep into the night. But as the clock approached midnight, Calvi seemed distracted. Dessert was barely finished when Roberto Calvi suddenly stood up and said he had to go. His fellow bankers, caught off guard, began to ask where their host was going, but Calvi waved them off. Let's talk again soon. You can get in touch with my foreign department. Roberto Calvi rushed out the door, almost running for the elevator. One dinner guest recalled trying to follow him. But as the guests saw Calvi in the elevator and tried to wave him down, the doors closed, the remaining bankers turned toward one another. One raised his eyebrows, saying, like the devil, he's disappeared toward hell. A day later, Calvi's wife got a call.
Clara Calvi
Pacienza called me. He was screaming and crying, saying, clara, we can't find him. And I was a bit shaken and said, who? Who can't you find? And he said, roberto. He's been gone for 24 hours. We don't know where he is. We don't know where he's hiding.
Gerald Pozner
Roberto Calvi was missing, and he only had a week to live. Next time on Shadow Kingdom.
Philip Willan
In other news overseas today, yet another chapter in what is shaping up to.
Gerald Pozner
Be a major banking scandal involving the Vatican.
Roberto Rozone
I remember the fireplace. He was burning some of the paper that he had picked out from the briefcase.
Clara Calvi
The last call we had together, he said, he's gonna blow up as a crazy, crazy thing.
Gerald Pozner
Behind the facade of respectability, Calvi had become entangled in a web of evil and corruption.
Roberto Rozone
I can't stand the anymore.
Gerald Pozner
Shadow Kingdom is a production of Crooked Media and Campside Media. It's hosted and reported by ME Nicolomini, with additional reporting by Simona Zeki and Joe Hawthorne. The show is written by Joe Hawthorne, Ashley Ann Krigbaum and me. Joe Hawthorne is our lead producer and Ashley Ann Krigbom is our managing producer. Tracy Samuelson is our story editor. Editor, sound design, mix and mastering by Mark McAdam. Our theme song and original score are composed by me and Mark McAdam. Our studio engineer is Ewan Lai Tremuin. Voice acting by Bonnie Biagini, Andrea Bianchi, Ferrante Cosma, Luca De Janaro, Michele Teodori and Mustafa Zialin. Field recording by Justin Trieger, Jonathan Zenti, Pete Schev, Jonathan Gruber and Joanna Broder. Fact checking by Zoe Sullivan. Our executive producers are me, Nicolo Magnoni, along with Sarah Geismer, Katie Long and Allison Falsetta from Crooked Media. Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, Matt Sher and Vanessa Gregoriadis are the executive producers at Campsite Media. One last thing before we go. You can also listen to Shadow Kingdom in Italian.
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Gerald Pozner
You get your podcasts.
Podcast Information:
In Episode 5, "The Fixers," Gerald Pozner and Nicolo Minoni navigate the intricate layers surrounding Roberto Calvi's downfall. As Calvi grapples with legal battles and personal turmoil, shadowy figures and fixers emerge, influencing the fate of the infamous banker.
The episode opens in the summer of 1981, detailing Roberto Calvi's dire circumstances following his arrest:
Gerald Pozner [00:51]: "In the middle of a hot summer night in 1981, Roberto Calvi sat in a prison cell and began to cry."
Calvi faced charges for violating Italy’s currency export laws, a move seen by many as a political maneuver rather than genuine legal action. Francesco Pacienza, a former spy and Calvi's fixer, provides insight into the arrest's broader implications:
Francesco Pacienza [02:46]: "Well, when Calvi was arrested, I was just in my office in Rome..."
Pacienza's role was to maintain Calvi's composure and reassure him through the prison chaplain, suggesting a network striving to protect Calvi from deeper fallout.
Calvi's time in prison was marked by severe hardship. Deprived of his personal security and accustomed to an opulent lifestyle, he found the prison environment unbearable:
Philip Willan [04:21]: "This was a man obsessed with his own personal security..."
Calvi’s deteriorating health and psychological state led him to seek a plea bargain, revealing his connections to the clandestine P2 Masons and illicit financial dealings. However, his revelations were met with increasing skepticism from prosecutors.
A pivotal figure introduced in this episode is Flavio Carboni, a powerful construction magnate and fixer with extensive government ties. His influence and shady dealings are crucial to understanding Calvi's predicament:
Roberto Rozone [13:12]: "The man points a gun at me and shoots... the bullet went right by my testicles."
Carboni's attempts to manipulate Calvi and the ensuing conflict underscore the dangerous alliances and enmities within the banking and political spheres.
Frank Pacienza [16:55]: "Carboni was a very intelligent man, but was a son of a bitch. He got a lot of money from Calvi."
Carboni's repeated acquittals despite substantial evidence highlight the corruption infiltrating the Italian justice system, exacerbating Calvi's vulnerability.
As Calvi struggled to stabilize Banco Ambrosiano, his financial situation spiraled:
Gerald Pozner [24:28]: "A big chunk of the money Calvi had borrowed $300 million was due to be repaid at the end of June 1982."
Calvi's inability to secure new investments or loans, coupled with mounting debts and deteriorating bank stocks, signaled the impending collapse of his financial empire.
Calvi's personal life mirrored his professional chaos. His relationship with his wife, Clara, became strained as his mental health deteriorated:
Clara Calvi [07:09]: "I'm afraid all you would talk about was death. Always."
The constant threats against his family and his erratic behavior, including an attempt to clean a gun in front of his family, heightened the tension and fear within his household.
The climax of the episode details the final days leading to Calvi's disappearance and subsequent death:
Gerald Pozner [25:17]: "As May turned to June, Calvi didn't seem to have a plan. He bounced between trying to figure out how to save his bank and sobbing at home with his family."
Calvi's last public appearance was a dinner at Banco Ambrosiano, where his abrupt departure marked the beginning of his disappearance:
Gerald Pozner [27:06]: "Roberto Calvi was missing, and he only had a week to live."
His body was found hanging from a bridge in London on June 17, 1982, officially ruled a suicide by British police. However, the episode casts significant doubt on this conclusion, suggesting foul play orchestrated by those threatened by Calvi's knowledge and connections.
"The Fixers" unravels the complex interplay between power, corruption, and personal downfall. Roberto Calvi's tragic end serves as a microcosm of the broader systemic issues within Italian banking and political structures.
Roberto Rozone [30:24]: "I can't stand the anymore."
The episode emphasizes the pervasive influence of fixers like Flavio Carboni and the clandestine networks that manipulate and control high-stakes financial institutions.
Subscribe and Support: To delve deeper into the full season of "Shadow Kingdom," consider joining Crooked’s Friends of the Pod at crooked.com/friends. For Italian listeners, subscribe to "Il Banchiere di Dio" on your preferred podcast platform.