As a result of Ms. Minardi's testimony, Roman prosecutors arrested three underworld associates of De Pedis for kidnapping and murder: Sergio Virtù, Angelo Cassini, and Gianfranco Carboni.38 She had identified them as individuals who had assisted De Pedis in arranging the kidnapping and contacting the Vatican with the terms for her release.39
THE PAY-OFF
Eventually, the investigating magistrates obtained evidence that the Vatican had made the payoff to the Banda in a circuitous manner. In the fall of 1983, L’Opera Francesco Saverio Oddasso, a Roman Catholic society dedicated to the works of St. Francis Xavier, sold a luxurious villa surrounded by twenty-four thousand square meters of gardens on the outskirts of Rome to Enrico Nicoletti, the “treasurer” of the Banda, at the rock bottom price of 1.2 billion lire ($860,000). Seven years later, the property was appraised at 27 billion lire. The sale had been engineered by Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the Vicar of the Diocese of Rome and a member of P2.40 Nicoletti transformed the villa into a nightclub called the House of Jazz, which received substantial loans from the IOR.41
Thanks to the sale of the villa, Cardinal Poletti emerged as a leading figure in the case of the missing girl. Poletti, at the time of the kidnapping, had received a great deal of adverse publicity because of his membership in P2 and his alliance with Licio Gelli. He had also received criticism for his advancement of the cause of Opus Dei, a secretive Catholic sect that had served to establish Gladio units throughout Europe.42 As the Vicar of Rome, he presided over the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare, where De Pedis remained a member in good standing.43 He stood in a unique position to resolve the matter of Emanuela Orlandi and the Banda's demand for repayment of its drug money.
A SORDID SCENARIO
By 1983, when the villa was sold, most investigators, including Judge Parisi, had come to the conclusion that the kidnapping case revolved around sex and the problem of pedophilia that was mounting within the Holy See. If the matter was simply financial, Archbishop Marcinkus would have provided the restitution. If the matter was political, the resolution would have been made by Cardinal Casaroli, the Secretary of State. But the extortion appeared to revolve around a considerably more sinister episode. Rumors had been rampant about Archbishop Marcinkus's taste for young girls and for sex parties within his private apartments.44
A scenario was gradually compiled that served to explain the kidnapping, the Vatican's attempts at obstruction, and Cardinal Poletti's participation in the payoff. Emanuela, by this account, had been sexually molested by Marcinkus. When the Banda received news of the incident, they kidnapped the girl in order to blackmail the IOR head for the money they had lost through Ambrosiano. Exposure of the statutory rape would have been devastating in the wake of the Sindona episode, the P2 headlines, the collapse of the Vatican's shell companies, and the strange death of Roberto Calvi. Emanuela represented a $200 million baby. Marcinkus, after personally verifying that the girl was in the Banda's custody, worked through P2 and Cardinal Poletti—not to secure Emanuela's immediate release but to ensure her perpetual silence.45
BOXES OF BONES
On February 2, 1990, Enrico De Pedis was gunned down and killed on Via del Pellegrino in Rome. He was buried in a diamond-studded tomb within the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare, a place reserved for popes and cardinals.46 Perhaps the gangster merited such hallowed interment. He had participated in the killing of Calvi, made peace between the Vatican and the mob by accepting a real-estate deal as a cash settlement, and prevented a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl from creating a scandal that would have rocked the foundation of Holy Mother Church. His place among the saints and ecclesiastical dignitaries was sanctioned by Cardinal Poletti.47
In 2006, an anonymous caller to Chi l’ha Visto (“Who Has Seen Them?), an Italian current-events program, said, “Do you want to solve the Emanuela Orlandi case? Then look inside the tomb of De Pedis.” On May 14, 2010, Italian forensic examiners opened the tomb in response to widespread public demand. They discovered that the body of De Pedis remained “well preserved.” He remained dressed in a dark blue suit with a black tie. Next to his coffin they also found nearly two hundred boxes of bones, which appeared to date from pre-Napoleonic times. They remain under examination.
Archbishop Marcinkus had a beautiful apartment in Rome, very comfortable. And then he had lots of young female housekeepers, very young, who needed to make frequent confessions.
Licio Gelli, interview with Philip Willan,
The Vatican at War, 2013
On May 24, 1984, a “good will payment” of $250 million was made by the Vatican to Ambrosiano creditors at the headquarters of the European Trade Association in Geneva.1 The money for the reparation came from a mysterious deposit made in the IOR by Secretary of State Casaroli in the amount of $406 million.2 The source of the cash was Opus Dei (“Work of God”), a deeply conservative Catholic organization that had amassed an estimated $3 billion in assets.3 In its efforts to prop up the papacy after the damage wrought by the IOR, the organization assumed the lira debt of parochial banks within the Ambrosiano group, including Banca Cattolica del Veneto, Credito Varesino, and Ambrosiano itself (which launched an ill-fated attempt to return from financial ashes as Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano).4
In exchange for these benefactions, John Paul II granted the sect recognition as a “personal prelature.” This status ensured that the secret society would answer only to the pope and the pope alone. No local bishop could discipline or sanction it. Overnight, Opus Dei emerged as a global ecclesiastical movement without a specific diocese. No organization within the history of the Roman Catholic Church, save the Society of Jesus, had been granted such power.5
OPUS DEI
Founded in 1928 by Josemaría Escrivá, a Spanish priest and lawyer, Opus Dei is a movement in which members adhere to “the Way,” a rigorous daily order prescribed by Escrivá that includes Mass, devotional readings, private prayer, and physical mortification (self-flagellation with whips and chains) to subdue the flesh. The “numeraries”—single lay members—within the order make a “commitment of celibacy” and live within “centers.” They maintain private sector employment and donate their income to the movement—opting to live on a modest stipend. The “supernumeraries” are married couples who maintain the Way together within their private domiciles. The movement also includes “associates”—single people who cannot live in centers because of other obligations, such as caring for their elderly parents—and “cooperators”—single or married individuals who contribute a lion's share of their income to Opus Dei but have not yet adopted the “divine vocation” of daily spiritual regimentation.6
Despite Opus Dei's espousal of an intransigent obedience to Catholic doctrine, the movement violates a cardinal tenet of canon law by remaining a “secret society,” like Freemasonry. Opus Dei does not publish its membership list and members, according to the movement's 1950 constitution, are forbidden to reveal their adherence to the movement without the express permission of their superiors.7
FOUNT OF FASCISM
Much of what is known about the sect comes from John Roche, a professor at Oxford University, who left the order and broke his pledge of secrecy. In an essay titled “The Inner World of Opus Dei,” Roche writes, “Internally, it is totalitarian and imbued with fascist ideas turned to religious purposes, ideas which were surely drawn from the Spain of its early years. It is virtually occult in spirit, a law unto itself, totally self-centered, grudgingly accepting Roman authority because it still considers Rome orthodox.”8
By 1984, when the reparation was made, Opus Dei had become a $3 billion enterprise, controlling six hundred newspapers, fifty-two radio and television stations, twelve film companies, and thirty-eight news agencies.9 Prominent Americans who became affiliated with the movement included CIA director William Casey, William Simon of Citicorp, Francis X. Stankard of Chase Manhattan, and Sargent Shriver (a former Democratic candidate for vice president). David Kennedy of Continental Illinois, albeit a Mormon, became a conspicuous fri
end of the sect, since his bank was a leading shareholder of an Opus Dei bank in Barcelona.10
THE CIA FUNDING
Because Opus Dei was vehemently anticommunist, in 1971 the CIA began to funnel millions into its coffers to thwart the growth of liberation theology in Latin America. Much of this money ended up at the Chilean Institute for General Studies (IGS), an Opus Dei think tank. The members of IGS included prominent lawyers, free-market economists, and executives from influential publications. The leader of IGS was Hernán Cubillos, founder of Qué Pasa, an Opus Dei magazine and publisher of El Mercurio, the largest newspaper in Santiago and one that received CIA subsidies. The coup against the democratically elected regime of Salvatore Allende was planned within the corridors of the Chilean think tank. After the coup, IGS technocrats became the new cabinet ministers, and Cubillos emerged as a foreign minister.11
Throughout the 1980s, the CIA made use of Opus Dei's milites Christi (“soldiers of Christ”) as a primary force in Poland. The numeraries and supernumeraries provided ongoing support for Solidarity, which, by some accounts, reached nearly $1 billion by the end of the decade. Opus Dei also organized courses, seminars, and conferences to indoctrinate Polish teachers, scholars, and economists in the tenets of Western democracy and the plans of a unified Europe (as envisioned by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission) in the wake of the imminent collapse of the USSR.12 How much money the CIA provided to Opus Dei remains a mystery. The CIA refuses to release any records regarding its relationship to the secret sect, on the grounds that any disclosure would undermine “national security.”13
As plans got underway for Opus Dei to take control of the Vatican's finances in order to ward off a future debacle, the CIA was forced to bring closure to other matters, including the case of Michele Sindona, the man who knew too much.
PRESIDENTIAL PLEAS
In a letter of September 1, 1981, Sindona had petitioned President Reagan for a presidential pardon. In the letter, the Mafiosi reminded Reagan that he had served as a central figure in the “Western anti-communist struggle” and had purchased the Rome Daily American on behalf of the CIA “to prevent it from falling into the hands of the left.” The Mafia financier further informed the president that he had worked with Graham Martin, the US ambassador to Italy, to create a media center that would produce an ongoing flood of anticommunist propaganda. As a result of this effort, P2 gained control of Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading daily newspaper, and the entire Rizzoli publishing group.14 “I have only fought for democracy and justice,” Sindona wrote, “and for this I have been persecuted.” He ended the letter with the caustic phrase, “And this is what happens to a friend of the United States!” and the closing, “Respectfully yours, Michele Sindona.”15
David Kennedy, Nixon's former secretary of the treasury and Sindona's longtime friend, personally delivered the letter to the White House. Eleven months later, Sindona, who had been transferred from a lockup in Springfield, Missouri, to the federal prison in Otisville, New York, received a reply from President Reagan's lawyer, Fred F. Fielding. “Thank you very much for your petition,” Fielding wrote. “I have taken the liberty of forwarding your material to Mr. David Stephenson, Acting Pardon Attorney.”16
Sindona waited over a year for a response from Stephenson. When no word came, he took pen in hand and dashed off a note to former president Richard Nixon. Sindona reminded Nixon of their many meetings and of the financial help he had provided Nixon in the struggle against communism. “I now turn to you for assistance,” he wrote.17 Sindona received no reply. He next asked Randolph Guthrie, Nixon's former law partner, to approach the former president on his behalf. Once again, his plea was ignored. Nixon had told Gutherie that any assistance he offered Sindona would only further damage his public image.18
FOLLOWING THE TRAIL
In addition to twenty-five years in prison for his role in the collapse of Franklin National, Sindona had been sentenced on April 20, 1981, to two and a half years for bail jumping and perjury. Johnny Gambino, Rosario Spatola, Vincenzo Spatola, and Dr. Joseph Miceli Crimi were named as unindicted co-conspirators.19 In the course of the bail-jumping investigation, John Kenney and his team of federal prosecutors retraced the route of the “kidnapping,” and discovered that Sindona had spent several weeks at the villa of Rosario Spatola's father-in-law in Torretta, not far from Palermo. The Spatolas, the prosecutors came to realize, were one of the four Mafia families forming a transatlantic colossus. The Cherry Hill Gambinos were another. This explained the participation of John and Rosario Gambino in the staged abduction. The Inzerillos, the closest of all Sicilian clans to Stefano Bontade, were the third. Bontade was a member of P2 and his brother-in-law Giacomo Vitale (another Freemason) had arranged Sindona's travel. The fourth were the Di Maggios of Palermo and southern New Jersey.20
SINDONA'S FAMILIA
In Palermo, Kenney and company came to learn that Salvatore Inzerillo, Sicily's leading heroin smuggler, served as the capo di tutti capi of this extended crime family—a position he assumed after Rosario Di Maggio died of a heart attack. Inzerillo and his sister were married to Spatolas. Salvatore's Uncle Antonio, along with his cousin and namesake in New Jersey, were married to Gambinos. His cousin Tommaso was a brother-in-law of John Gambino, who was married to a different Gambino. The Sicilian clan inhabited the Passo di Rigano section of Palermo. The American clan lived in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.21 Describing the inner dimensions of the four families, Italian prosecutor Giusto Sciacchitano wrote:
These four families…form a single clan unlike anything in Italy or the United States—the most potent Family in Cosa Nostra. John Gambino is the converging point in the United States for all of the group's activities in Italy, and the final destination for its drug shipments. Salvatore Inzerillo has emerged as the Gambino brothers’ principal interlocutor, the central personage in Sicily, with myriad interests and heavy capital investments…Rosario Spatola is just below them in the structure.22
Stefano Bontade was an integral member of the clan. Through his ties with P2, the extended family gained the protection of Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and, in turn, the CIA.23
THE DRUG BUST
During his stay in Sicily, Kenney and his fellow prosecutors received word of Salvatore Inzerillo's latest heroin shipments to New York. They contacted agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), who intercepted five kilos of heroin, packed in talcum powder, meant for John and Rosario Gambino. The next shipment came from Sicily inside a truckload of lemons, which were then driven to Milan, where the ninety-one pounds of heroin were packed inside a cargo container filled with Italian pop music albums and shipped off to the Gambino brothers in the Big Apple.24
When the second shipment reached the United States, the police moved in on the Gambinos. In March 1980, John and Rosario were arrested in their restaurant, Valentino's, for alleged participation in an international heroin-smuggling operation. They were acquitted of those charges—but more than sixty members of the Sicilian Mafia were eventually convicted in the case.25
INZERILLO'S END
The bust produced profound repercussions in Sicily. A substantial amount of the confiscated heroin belonged to the Corleonesi, the crime family of Calogero Vizzini (“Don Calo”), which was now headed by Luciano Leggio and Salvatore “Toto” Riina. The two capos demanded compensation for their loss, but Salvatore Inzerillo refused to cough up a dime. As Men of Respect, Leggio and Riina were bound to retaliate. Stefano Bontade was gunned down on April 23, 1981, while stopped at a traffic light in his Alfa Romeo. Salvatore Inzerillo was next. He was murdered on May 11 as he was about to step into his bulletproof car, after leaving the house of his mistress. What followed was a bloodbath. During 1981 and 1982, more than two hundred members of the Inzerillo extended family became victims of the lupara bianca (“white shotgun”—a killing done in such a way that the body is never found), while the Corleonesi suffered no casualties.26
Thanks in part to the an
tics of Sindona, the clan had lost the protection of the Italian government and the overlords of Gladio. By the end of 1982, seventy-two Men of Respect with ties to Salvatore Inzerillo went on trial in Palermo, and warrants were issued for over fifty more soldati (soldiers) and business associates, including Sindona. To top it off, the multibillion dollar Gambino-Inzerillo-Spatola holdings were seized by the state.27
LOSS OF FAMILY
Sindona had lost his family, and matters for the Mafia financier continued to get worse. In addition to the charge of operating a $600 million-a-year heroin business between Sicily and the United States, he was charged with illegal possession of firearms, using a false passport, and violating currency regulations. To top it all off, he was also indicted for ordering the execution of Giorgio Ambrosoli, the chief bank investigator who tried to uncover the Vatican's connection to the Mafia.28 On January 25, 1982, Sindona was indicted in Palermo, Sicily, along with seventy-five members of the Gambino, Inzerillo, and Spatola crime families. The indictment sprang from his ill-fated faked kidnapping and the trail he had blazed for investigators to follow—a trail that led from New York to Palermo.
In the fall of 1982, after the raid on Gelli's villa and the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, Sindona finally broke and began to prattle from his cell at Otisville. He told Jonathan Beaty, a reporter from Time, “Money was given to political parties. But money was sometimes under the table. Calvi feared his trips to South America because the Communists, the Cubans, knew that Calvi with Gelli were building rightist strength in South America. That was our goal.” Sindona went on to talk not only about the Vatican's subversive attempts to gain control of Ambrosiano but also about his involvement in P2 and the secret society's support for right-wing guerrilla units.29
TAKING THE BAIT
Alarms were sounded. The CIA dispatched Carlo Rocchi, one of its Italian agents, to monitor Sindona's behavior within the federal prison. Rocchi gained the Mafia financier's trust by presenting him with an affidavit from the Department of Justice. The affidavit said that Rocchi was a “reliable person” and that President Reagan was prepared to grant Sindona a “full pardon.”30
Operation Gladio Page 27