God’s Banker I 6. On the Run

Summary

Shadow Kingdom: God’s Banker I 6. On the Run – Detailed Summary

Shadow Kingdom, a compelling new series from Crooked Media and Campside Media, delves into the mysterious death of Roberto Calvi, infamously known as "God's Banker." In episode six, titled "On the Run," host Nicolo Magnoni unravels the intricate web surrounding Calvi's disappearance and untimely death in 1982. This summary captures the episode's key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions, enriched with notable quotes and structured for clarity.

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1. Introduction and Background

The series sets the stage with the enigmatic figure of Roberto Calvi, who was deeply entwined with the Vatican Bank’s clandestine activities. On June 10, 1981, Calvi vanished from his Rome apartment under suspicious circumstances. His disappearance occurred against the backdrop of a major banking scandal involving the Banco Ambrosiano, Italy’s largest private bank, which was teetering on the brink of financial collapse due to massive debts.

Notable Quote:

Simona Zecchi: “Roberto Calvi vanished from his apartment in Rome. He told no one where he was going.” ([00:28])

2. The Disappearance of Roberto Calvi

Calvi’s sudden flight from Italy was marked by irregularities. A week before his death, on June 17, 1982, Calvi was found dead hanging from a bridge in London. Initially deemed a suicide by British authorities, the lack of typical signs of foul play sparked widespread conspiracy theories.

Nicolo Magnoni highlights the financial pressure Calvi was under, noting:

Nicolo Magnoni: “Huge debt payments at the Ambrosiano were coming due... Only Calvi knew the tangled web of shell companies and offshore accounts set up to move that borrowed money around the world.” ([01:49])

3. Nicolo Magnoni’s Quest for the Truth

Determined to uncover the truth behind Calvi’s death, lawyer Nicolo Magnoni embarks on a decade-long investigation. Forty years later, he receives a crucial tip that leads him to Silvano Vitor, the last person known to have seen Calvi alive. Magnoni seeks to answer the lingering question:

Nicolo Magnoni: “Was Roberto Calvi, aka God’s Banker, killed? And if so, by whom?” ([02:56])

4. Meeting Silvano Vitor – The Last Witness

After extensive efforts, Magnoni secures an interview with Silvano Vitor, a former smuggler who played a pivotal role in Calvi’s final days. Vitor’s involvement offers a unique glimpse into Calvi’s desperate attempts to escape Italy amidst the burgeoning scandal.

Nicolo Magnoni: “Vitor was the last man we know of to see Calvi alive, the man responsible for watching over Calvi in his final days.” ([06:08])

5. Calvi and Vitor’s Escape Plan

Vitor recounts how he was enlisted by Flavio Carboni, Calvi’s fixer, to help smuggle Calvi across Italy’s borders. Calvi, facing illegal currency exportation charges, sought to flee to avoid imprisonment. The escape involved a meticulously planned route:

• From Rome to Trieste: Calvi used Vitor’s expertise to navigate the complexities of crossing into Yugoslavia.
• From Yugoslavia to Austria: They settled temporarily in a chateau owned by Vitor’s girlfriend’s family.
• Planned Route to Switzerland: Initially intended to continue to Switzerland but was abruptly redirected to London.

Notable Quote:

Silvano Vitor: “He asked me if I could make my boat available and if I could travel. I said, sure, and we decided to make arrangement.” ([10:02])

6. Suspicious Motives and Calvi’s Behavior

During the journey, Calvi exhibited signs of extreme paranoia and anxiety. He frequently watched news broadcasts about his own disappearance, heightening the tension between him and Vitor. Vitor describes moments where Calvi’s behavior suggested he was running from more than just legal troubles.

Silvano Vitor: “At this point he started to panic. So I told him, look, why don't you wait an extra day at my house?” ([12:24])

Magnoni grows suspicious of Vitor and Carboni’s true intentions, questioning whether they were genuinely helping Calvi or had ulterior motives.

7. The Mysterious Change of Plans

As the escape team approached the Swiss border, Carboni issued a last-minute change, directing them to fly to London instead. This sudden shift raised red flags for Magnoni, suggesting possible interference or hidden agendas.

Silvano Vitor: “Kaldi had to accept this. He was on the run. He was nervous and panicking, and he had no other solution, so he had to accept going to London.” ([23:59])

8. London and Calvi’s Final Days

Upon arriving in London, Calvi was lodged in a substandard hotel in Chelsea, which further unsettled him. Despite the unsettling environment, Calvi continued to make cryptic phone calls to his family, assuring them he was negotiating to resolve the bank’s debt crisis without revealing details.

Clara Calvi: “Nobody ran away. I need to do a job. He was going to recover the debt. He was doing really important negotiations.” ([18:27])

In London, Vitor observes Calvi’s increasing dependence on him, highlighting the shift from a determined banker to a man fraught with fear and uncertainty.

Nicolo Magnoni: “Calvi was more confident, more relaxed. It makes me think that Calvi had a plan, right?” ([17:29])

9. The Mysterious Briefcase and Final Moments

A pivotal moment occurs when Calvi burns documents from his briefcase in a chateau in Austria, adding to the mystery surrounding its contents. The briefcase symbolizes the elusive evidence that could potentially unravel the true cause of Calvi’s death.

Nicolo Magnoni: “Calvi, the king of paranoia, not only willingly parted with his precious briefcase, but also offered up the combination.” ([14:51])

Ultimately, the episode culminates with Calvi’s presence in London waning and his sudden death on June 17, 1982.

10. Cliffhanger and Tease for Next Episode

The episode ends on a suspenseful note, hinting that the River Thames may hold the key to solving Calvi’s death.

Nicolo Magnoni: “Perhaps the key to Calvi's death is to be found here on the River Thames.” ([29:08])

Listeners are left eager for the next episode, which promises to delve deeper into the mysteries surrounding Calvi’s death.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Simona Zecchi: “Roberto Calvi vanished from his apartment in Rome. He told no one where he was going.” ([00:28])
• Nicolo Magnoni: “Was Roberto Calvi, aka God’s Banker, killed? And if so, by whom?” ([02:56])
• Silvano Vitor: “He asked me if I could make my boat available and if I could travel. I said, sure, and we decided to make arrangement.” ([10:02])
• Silvano Vitor: “At this point he started to panic. So I told him, look, why don't you wait an extra day at my house?” ([12:24])
• Clara Calvi: “Nobody ran away. I need to do a job. He was going to recover the debt. He was doing really important negotiations.” ([18:27])
• Silvano Vitor: “Kaldi had to accept this. He was on the run. He was nervous and panicking, and he had no other solution, so he had to accept going to London.” ([23:59])
• Nicolo Magnoni: “Perhaps the key to Calvi's death is to be found here on the River Thames.” ([29:08])

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Conclusion

Episode six of Shadow Kingdom, "On the Run," masterfully combines investigative journalism with gripping storytelling to shed light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Roberto Calvi's disappearance and death. Through Nicolo Magnoni’s relentless pursuit and Silvano Vitor’s firsthand account, the episode uncovers layers of deception, fear, and intrigue, setting the stage for further revelations in this enthralling series.

For listeners seeking an in-depth exploration of one of Italy’s most perplexing financial scandals, Shadow Kingdom offers a meticulously crafted narrative that promises to keep them hooked.

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Shadow Kingdom is available in both English and Italian, titled Il Banchiere di Dio, ensuring a broad reach to its audience. Join Crooked Media’s Friends of the Pod for early access and exclusive content at crooked.com/friends.

Transcript

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Friends of the Pod subscribers can listen to the full season of Shadow Kingdom right now. Join [e-mail] friends or on Apple Podcasts campsite media On June 11, 1981, Roberto Calvi disappeared.

[Simona Zecchi]

Thursday, June 10. Last year, Roberto Calvi vanished from his apartment in Rome. He told no one where he was going.

[Joe Hawthorne]

The circumstances that led to Calvi's flight from Italy were, to say the least, unusual.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Yet another chapter in what is shaping up to be a major banking scandal involving the Vatican. News reports said that Calvi had vanished seemingly in the middle of the night. His disappearance came just a couple of weeks before. Huge debt payments at the Ambrosiano were coming due hundreds of millions of dollars. Calvi had been frantically trying to drum up cash or buy more time from its creditors. He'd scheduled meetings with bankers and lawyers for the following week. He even made plans with his driver to commute to work as usual the following day. But instead, the driver found a vague note from Calvi saying that he was tired, he wasn't feeling well, and that he was going to go away. The driver found the note so suspicious, so unlike Calvi, that he almost immediately alerted the authorities. God's Banker was officially a missing person. But there was no announcement from kidnappers, no demand for a ransom, and none of Calvi's employees knew what to do. Up until this point, only Calvi knew the full extent of the Banco Ambrosiano's debts. Only he knew the tangled web of shell companies and offshore accounts set up to move that borrowed money around the world.

[Joe Hawthorne]

The bank of Italy was demanding explanations for more than a billion dollars worth of loans. Behind the facade of respectability, Calvi had become entangled in a web of evil and corruption.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Now that Calvi was missing and his massive debts were coming due, his employees struggled to run the bank without him, to untangle the mess he'd left behind. And because of the size of the Ambrosiano, Italian regulators were watching as well. The Ambrosiano was Italy's biggest private bank. It had money tied to businesses around Italy and the world. If Calvi's bank failed, it could rock international stock markets.

[Simona Zecchi]

That's why when a bank like Banco Ambrosiano gets into trouble, the ripples can wash around the world, sometimes with devastating effect.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

But the headline that seemed to dominate beyond the bigger financial questions about the bank, what everybody wanted to know was, what the hell happened to Roberto Calvi? Was he kidnapped? Was he on the run? Had he been killed? I was pretty sure Calvi decided to escape rather than being abducted. And I know he'd be dead a week later. What I didn't know is what happened in between. In other words, God's Banker's final days. The answer was like a black box hiding footage that could explain how and why it all came crashing down. Up until writing this episode, I thought I'd have to piece together that black box from news articles and history books. But then I heard back from the last known person to see Calvi alive. From Crooked Media and Campside Media. This is Shadow Kingdom, God's banker. I'm Nicolo Magnoni, and this is episode six, on the Run.

[Clara Calvi]

Nobody should be using the words on the run. Nobody ran away.

[Silvano Vitor]

You need to live with COVID right now.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Foreign.

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[Nicolo Magnoni]

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[Nicolo Magnoni]

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[Nicolo Magnoni]

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[Vitor's Lawyer]

Okay, in my hotel room, about to go see Vitor, actually Vitor's lawyer, and.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

We'Re gonna sit on the side of.

[Vitor's Lawyer]

A street because Vitor is not telling us where he lives, which is bad.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

For the blood pressure of those who love you.

[Vitor's Lawyer]

Okay, let's see what happens.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

It's fall 2023, and I'm waiting to meet Silvano Vitor, a former contrabandiere or contraband smuggler, who was also the last man we know of to see Calvi alive, the man responsible for watching over Calvi in his final days. Vitor hasn't sat down for a recorded interview in 40 years, and even then, the questions he answered were mostly bureaucratic. I was desperate to speak to him, to ask him, why did Calvi flee? What or who was he running from? If there was anyone Calvi had confided in during his final days, I suspected it might be Vitor. And so I spent months and months trying to wrangle Vitor. First he was down to talk, then he wasn't. Then he wanted his lawyer to join, but I'd have to pay the lawyer. Then I thought he'd ghosted me. Finally, he was in. So now I've traveled all the way to Trieste, a town on the northernmost border of Italy. And almost on cue, Vitor's lawyer showed up first outside of my hotel. Fun fact, lawyers in Italy are actually called avocado, which sounds like what guacamole is made from. So when two Italian lawyers greet each other, it sounds like we're saying, hello, avocado. And as us two Italian avocados were going back and forth, a fit 70 something with cool slicked back hair walked out of my hotel. At that moment, I realized I'd actually seen him. He'd been sitting in the hotel lobby all along, surveying the scene, just like I'd never met a Mafioso or a spy until working on this story. I'd never met a smuggler either, and I wasn't sure what to expect. What immediately struck me about Vitor was how normal, nondescript he was. He has a fairly pronounced Northern Italian accent, sort of like a Midwestern accent in the United States. He'd easily blend into a crowd, which I imagine was helpful in his former line of work. So the smuggler, the lawyer and I settled into a room on the ground floor of the hotel, and Vitor began to tell me about his work before Calvi. Vitor didn't go to too in depth, but he did say he smuggled food and clothes across the Iron Curtain. It's easy to forget, but Italy was on the very border of the Cold War, and Trieste, where Vitor lived, was very close to the border with Soviet bloc countries like Yugoslavia, great for smuggling goods or people. See, when Calvi was convicted of Illegal currency exportation. He'd had to surrender his passport. The Italian government wouldn't allow him to leave the country. But that's exactly what he wanted to do, because if he stayed, he could be sent back to jail. So he reached out to his new fixer, Flavio Carboni, to see if he could help. And Carboni reached out to Vitor.

[Silvano Vitor]

He asked me if I could make my boat available and if I could travel. I said, sure, and we decided to make arrangement.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

The next day I interviewed Vitor in Italian, so I've enlisted an actor to read his responses in English. So Carboni and Vitor were dating sisters. They'd been friends for years. And so Carboni knew all about Vitor's work as a smuggler. It wasn't a huge surprise then that Carboni called Vitor and said he needed help smuggling a person. The next day, Vitamin Vitor pulled up to a fancy hotel and saw an old Alfa Romeo driven by Carboni's assistant. As Vitor moved to open the passenger door and look down, eyes squinting, he saw the silhouette of Roberto Calvi. Bald head, dark suit, clutching a briefcase.

[Silvano Vitor]

I took Calvi's bag out of respect. I saw this heavy bag and I see, wait, I can help. I was 40 or less than 40 years old. I thought I'd help him. I said, poor guy, he was 60, 62. So I took this bag and brought it in.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

I thought that was strange. A 40 year old insisting he help a 60 year old with carrying a briefcase. Calvi wasn't an athlete, but he wasn't like 90 years old. Anyway, the directions that Vitor had from Carboni were to smuggle Calvi over the border.

[Silvano Vitor]

So I made some phone calls to some people I knew, and they told me that after midnight, around midnight, there'd be no controls and I could safely cross the border.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

So Vitor took Calvi to his house that afternoon and the two settled into Vitor's living room, waiting for midnight.

[Silvano Vitor]

We were sitting at the table and he made me turn on the television. And when we turned it on, they were broadcasting the news of him missing. Presidente del Banco Ambrosiano Nunci.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Time must have stood still for Calvi as he watched the biggest evening news in Italy, plastering his face on the screen, saying he was on the run. Vitor said he freaked out.

[Silvano Vitor]

At this point he started to panic. So I told him, look, why don't you wait an extra day at my house? I'll arrange for a safer trip tomorrow. But he wanted to leave as soon as Possible.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

So he's watching the news and he's getting upset.

[Silvano Vitor]

Oh, yeah, he changed it. He turned pale.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

And did he take his suit or his jacket off at all?

[Silvano Vitor]

It was actually a really hot day. It was boiling. So I think at one point he was down to his underwear.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Vitor painted this vivid image for me. A half naked Roberto Calvi, drenched in sweat, a week from death, watching his own face plastered on tv. He was running from something, but I still didn't quite understand what. And then, unexpectedly, Vitor said something that put me on alert. He told Calvi, okay, you want to leave right away, fine, but don't take your briefcase.

[Silvano Vitor]

I told him, look, if we get caught at the border, the first thing they'll say is, show us your briefcase. And I don't know what you have in there, but you are running and realizing that they take it from you. And so I told him, leave it with me and I can drop you off and bring it with me the following day.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Vitor thought it'd be less risky if he helped Calvi sneak across the border without the briefcase. Once over the border, Calvi would sit tight in Austria. Then Vitor would go back to Italy, get the briefcase, and drive across the border legally to meet Calvi. Vitor said Calvi initially freaked out and said, no way. But eventually, somehow, a panicked Calvi agreed.

[Silvano Vitor]

Vitor explained, I told him, don't worry, I'll make sure to bring you your. Your bag. And he said yes. He also said he'd spoken to Carboni and who told him I was a person he could trust. So he gave it to me, and actually, he even gave me the combination to the lock. It's a combination I remember to this day. I remember it my whole life.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Why or how?

[Silvano Vitor]

Because it was an easy combination.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Can you share it?

[Silvano Vitor]

I never have.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Again, this just sounds off to me. Calvi, the king of paranoia, not only willingly parted with his precious briefcase, but also offered up the combination. I found myself wondering, were Vitor and Carboni genuinely helping Calvi, or did they have an alternative motive in these final crucial days? But I decided not to press Vitor just yet. He was starting to get comfortable with me and was finally getting to the part of the story I'd come for. So Vitor's plan continued. After midnight, the smuggler and the banker, now a bizarre buddy duo, stepped into Vitor's boat under cover of darkness and slipped over the border out of Italy.

[Silvano Vitor]

The sea was beautiful. It was a flat and calm, beautiful sea. But Calvi would ask me, hey, what are those light there? Who are those guys? I tell him those are fishing boats. Or he want to know what about the light moving toward us. I say, those are fishing boats making their way around the gulf, because there were quite a few boats around pretty much for the entire journey. He kept asking me information. It was like an interrogation. He was just really worried and concerned.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

So he was afraid?

[Silvano Vitor]

Yeah, he thought he saw patrol boats and was afraid.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Vitor reassured Calvi all throughout their boat ride to Yugoslavia. And from Yugoslavia, Vitor put Calvi in a car to Austria and set him up to stay at a chateau owned by his girlfriend's family.

[Silvano Vitor]

Calvi was really agitated. He was agitated because the arrival of his briefcase has been delayed. I was getting phone calls constantly saying, I can't stand this anymore.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Vitor was supposed to zip back to Italy and return promptly with the briefcase. But weirdly, he stopped for a family get together on his way back. When Vitor finally arrived in Austria, he was immediately greeted by Calvi.

[Silvano Vitor]

When he heard me coming with the car, he stormed out. I was just getting out of the car with the briefcase in my hand, and he was right there, anxious, waiting.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

For his damn briefcase with his precious briefcase in hand. Relief washed over Calvi. He finally relaxed on an easy chair, talking to Vitor's girlfriend about his family, his adolescence, his war stories. So talking with Vitor at this point, my ears perked up. Once Calvi had his briefcase and was out of the country, he was more confident, more relaxed. It makes me think that Calvi had a plan, right? And that plan was going somewhat well. And maybe there was something in that briefcase that gave him power. Calvi called his wife from the chateau and reassured her that everything was okay. She recalled this in an Italian interview. Roberto cerrabio volta miris pose non si devema.

[Clara Calvi]

And throughout the night, he kept calling me, saying nobody should be using the words on the run. Nobody ran away. I didn't run away. I need to do a job. He was going to recover the debt. He was doing really important negotiations. He was negotiating to resolve the Vatican debt problem.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

He said that the Vatican was going to give him protection, which is going to solve all his problems. He just needed time to negotiate outside of Italy. He wouldn't say why exactly those negotiations needed to be outside of the country or what exactly he was afraid of. But right here in the chateau, Calvi seemed confident that he could solve his looming debt crisis. After some time relaxing, Vitor watched Roberto Calvi get up and prepare some kindling.

[Silvano Vitor]

I remember the fireplace and how it was glowing. He was burning some of the paper that he had picked out from the briefcase.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

I asked Vitor what was Calvi burning, but he couldn't see. He just said that Calvi burned a lot of papers. It seems odd to me that Calvi would bring documents with him from Italy, carefully guard them, obsess about them when they weren't with him, and then burn some of these documents once he had them back in his possession. Maybe he decided it was too risky to carry them around. Or maybe he'd planned to use them and then changed his mind. I've often thought that if I could just see inside Calvi's briefcase, I could finally find Calvi's killer. But it's like all these years have rusted the lock and it won't budge. There's one person I know who held Calvi's briefcase and who knew his final itinerary. Silvano Vitor. And Vitor was getting closer and closer to London, to Calvi's final day. Calvi and Vitor had been on the run for three days. They were just starting to get comfortable in their borrowed Austrian villa when late one night, Carboni, the fixer, came to Vitor.

[Silvano Vitor]

He tells me, you need to leave with Kavi right now, and it's 11 o'clock at night or midnight, I don't remember exactly, but it was late. He says, yeah, it's all organized, it's all set. And I say, where are we going? And he says, toward Switzerland. And so we take off.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Why Switzerland? I don't know. There wasn't any time for Vitor to ask questions. He just thought. Threw a change of clothes in the back of the car, got Calvi's bags, put the banker in the passenger seat, and they headed to Switzerland, sleep deprived and, I imagine, a bit confused.

[Silvano Vitor]

And the whole time I was the one at the wheel. He never drove. So we talk.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

So what would he tell you, or what would you chat about?

[Silvano Vitor]

He would tell me about his family, about his daughter. Most of all, he'd tell me about his time in the military, that he'd frozen his hand. He showed me three of his fingers that were frozen. He'd also tell me, hey, Stefano, let's chat. I don't want you to fall asleep at the wheel.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

And so at this point, does it almost feel like there's sort of a friendship growing here?

[Silvano Vitor]

Yes, I think so. And the more time went on, the more you become attached, because it was just the two of us. We were together all the time. And he'd Open up a little bit. But he was also worried. I could feel it. There was nobody else around. He needed someone because, you know, he was fugitive again.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

I was torn here between taking Vitor at his word that he and Calvi really were forming some kind of bond in this other alternate narrative where Calvi was forcefully separated from his briefcase and sent to Switzerland without much of an explanation. He was, in this narrative, out of control, dependent, and at the whims of his handlers. It felt like a Hitchcock movie where nothing overtly scary is happening, but somehow you're on edge. Then, right as the duo started to approach the border with Switzerland, Carboni advised.

[Silvano Vitor]

Against going to Switzerland.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Why is that?

[Silvano Vitor]

No one ever knew why.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Carboni sent word to Calvi and Vitor that the border crossing was now too dangerous and that a plane was waiting for Calvi just a few miles down the road headed to London. Now, I didn't know about this last minute switch until speaking with Vitor, and I was feeling spooked here, like something was off. And then Vitor said something that stayed with me.

[Silvano Vitor]

Kaldi had to accept this. He was on the run. He was nervous and panicking, and he had no other solution, so he had to accept going to London.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

So you're saying at this point Calvi is almost resigned?

[Silvano Vitor]

Resigned, yes, because they basically imposed this departure and the arrival and the accommodation, and he accepted.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Vitor made a hopeless face. I can still see it up to this point. Vitor described a somewhat resilient Calvi fighting to get his briefcase back, chatty with Vitor as they drove into Austria, the Calvi I'd known for these two years of research, the uber planner, control freak, master of his destiny. But hearing the word resigned, I saw that Calvi disappear, turning into something different. I could see Calvi surrendering, being ushered off to the place where he'd die within days. Did he suspect that maybe Vitor and or Carboni weren't his saviors? That maybe they were the wolves guiding him to a more sinister place? I mean, to recap, in less than a week, Roberto Calvi had secretly flown to Trieste in the far northeast of Italy. From there, he took a speedboat across the Adriatic to sneak into Yugoslavia. From Yugoslavia, he drove to southeast Austria, taking a rest at a beautiful chateau. Then he took a road trip across Austria with his new best bud, Slavono Vitor, right up to the border with Switzerland, where at the last moment, he was told by men whose motives I'm still not sure of, to charter a private jet to London.

[Silvano Vitor]

So we arrived at London Gatwick, and we land off to the side where the private jets land. No commercial flight, no passport. Through a back door.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Vitor kept taking me through the details of their trip, and he explained that Carboni had booked a suite at a cheap hotel in a bad part of Chelsea. Vitor called it a zero star hotel.

[Silvano Vitor]

Calvi went totally mad here. As soon as we got in, he ran to the phone and started complaining. I can't stay here. He was saying he had to meet really important people and the president of the bank couldn't host people in such an environment.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

So that's interesting. Roberto Calvi, resigned to his handlers, but still seriously trying to make a deal in London. He called his family and told them not to worry anymore. Calvi's son Carlo said in testimony after his dad's death that he'd claimed to be working on something big that would have taken care of all of his problems. Calvi told his wife, Clara, something similar.

[Clara Calvi]

The last call we had together, he said, this job is going with some troubles, but it's going to blow up as a crazy, crazy thing.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

A big deal that would blow up into a wonderful thing that could change their lives. But what were the details of that deal? He didn't tell Clara, Carlo or anyone else. Even though Calvi was in deal making mode, he barely left the hotel. He was haunted by this fear of being recognized by someone on the streets in London. And so Vitor was the one that brought back most of their meals. Vitor was the one that checked airline schedules in case they needed to move again. Vitor was Calvi's main human contact. And in the midst of that strange arrangement, I just kept waiting for something awful to happen, like a big plot twist. But Kalvi's last days, even with him acting like there was one more deal out there, one key phone call to make, they seemed kind of procedural. At night, Vitor says he and Calvi would sit together in their PJs and just chat, bonding like a long term bizarro sleepover. Acting almost like the entire world wasn't looking for them. And then on June 17, a day before Calvi died, Vitor says they received news that Calvi's secretary had jumped out of a window at the Banco Ambrosiano to her death.

[Silvano Vitor]

It was unbelievable. Unbelievable. This was a blow to him. He basically dropped to the floor.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

That's next time on Shadow Kingdom.

[Joe Hawthorne]

He learned on the telephone that his powers with a Banco Ambrosiano had been removed.

[Silvano Vitor]

He opened the door, he got in and there was no Cali, just a suitcase.

[Joe Hawthorne]

Perhaps the key to Calvi's death is to be found here on the River Thames.

[Nicolo Magnoni]

Shadow Kingdom is a production of Crooked Media and Campside Media. It's hosted and reported by me, Niccolo Magnoni, with additional reporting by Simona Zecchi and Joe Hawthorne. The show is written by Joe Hawthorne, Ashley Ann Krigbaum and me. Joe Hawthorne is our lead producer and Ashley Ann Krigbaum is our managing producer. Tracy Samuelson is our story 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 Ewin Trimuin. Voice acting by Bonnie Biagini, Andrea Bianchi, Ferrante Cosma, Luca De Jannaro, Michele Teodori and Mustafa Zalan. Field recording by Justin Trieger, Jonathan Zenti, Pete Schev, Jonathan Gruber and Joanna Broder. Fact checking by Zoe Sullivan. Our executive producers are me, Nicolomini, along with Sarah Geismer, Katie Long and Allison Falsetta from Crooked Media. Josh Dean, Adam Hoff, Matt, Nat Sher and Vanessa Grigoriadis are the executive producers at Campside Media. One last thing before we go. You can also listen to Shadow Kingdom in Italian. Look up Il Banchiere di Dio wherever you get your podcasts.