Giorgio Ambrosoli (; 17 October 1933 – 11 July 1979) was an Italian lawyer who was gunned down while investigating the malpractice of banker

Michele Sindona Michele Sindona (; 8 May 1920 – 22 March 1986) was an Italian banker and convicted felon. Known in banking circles as "The Shark", Sindona was a member of Propaganda Due (#0501), a secret lodge of Italian Freemasonry, and had clear connecti ...

Liquidating Sindona’s financial empire

Appointed by the court as liquidator of the Banca Privata Italiana, one of the Italian banks controlled by Sicilian banker

, which was forced into liquidation, he found evidence of criminal manipulations.Messina and Arico v. United States of America
, United States Court of Appeals, February 7, 1984 He provided the US Justice Department with evidence to convict Sindona for his role in the collapse of the

Franklin National Bank Franklin National Bank, based in Franklin Square on Long Island, New York was once the United States' 20th largest bank. On October 8, 1974, it collapsed in obscure circumstances, involving Michele Sindona, renowned Mafia-banker and member of ...

."Justifiable Homicide"
by Luigi DiFonzo, '' New York'', April 11, 1983. According to Ambrosoli, Sindona paid a US$5.6 million commission to "an American bishop and a Milanese banker". Official Italian sources confirmed that it concerned

Paul Marcinkus Paul Casimir Marcinkus (; January 15, 1922 – February 20, 2006) was an American archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church and president of the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, from 1971 to 1989. Early ...

, of the

Vatican Bank The Institute for the Works of Religion ( it, Istituto per le Opere di Religione; la, Institutum pro Operibus Religionis; abbreviated IOR), commonly known as the Vatican Bank, is a financial institution situated inside Vatican City and run by a ...

, and

Roberto Calvi Roberto Calvi (13 April 1920 – 17 June 1982) was an Italian banker, dubbed "God's Banker" () by the press because of his close association with the Holy See. He was a native of Milan and was chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in ...

, president of

Banco Ambrosiano Banco Ambrosiano was an Italian bank that collapsed in 1982. At the centre of the bank's failure was its chairman, Roberto Calvi, and his membership in the illegal former Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due (aka P2). The Vatican-based Institute for t ...

."Scandal at the Pope's Bank"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'', July 26, 1982.

Murder

On 11 July 1979, only hours after talking to US authorities, he was shot dead by three

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

hitmen commissioned by Michele Sindona. Sindona feared that Ambrosoli would expose his manipulations in the Banca Privata Italiana case. Shortly before he was killed, the American Mafia hitman William Arico, a convicted bank robber, invoked the name of Giulio Andreotti – the influential

Christian Democrat Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...

politician close to Sindona – in a threatening phone call taped by Ambrosoli.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', pp. 39-42 Arico fell to his death while trying to escape from a federal prison in New York in 1984.God's Banker' Guilty in Milan Murder"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'', March 19, 1986. Andreotti later replied in an interview that Ambrosoli "was a person who, in Romanesque words, was looking for it". In 1986 Sindona was sentenced to life imprisonment for having ordered the murder.

Giorgio Bocca Giorgio Valentino Bocca (28 August 1920 – 25 December 2011) was an Italian essayist and journalist, also known for his participation in the World War II partisan movement. Biography Bocca was born in Cuneo, Piedmont, the son of teachers, an ...

,
Giorgio Ambrosoli, l'uomo che sfidò Sindona e la mafia
',

La Repubblica ''la Repubblica'' (; the Republic) is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and led by Eugenio Scalfari, Carlo Caracciolo and Arnol ...

, August 26, 2005

Mafia involvement in murder

According to the Mafia turncoat (

pentito ''Pentito'' (; lit. "repentant"; plural: ''pentiti'') is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public ...

)

Francesco Marino Mannoia Francesco Marino Mannoia (born 5 March 1951) is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who became a pentito (government witness) in 1989. His nickname was ''Mozzarella''. He is considered to be one of the most reliable government witnesses against ...

, Sindona laundered the proceeds of heroin trafficking for the Bontade-Spatola- Inzerillo- Gambino network. The mafiosi were determined to get their money back and would have played an important role in Sindona's attempt to save his banks.Anche Antonino Giuffré nell'inchiesta Calvi
La Repubblica, October 13, 2002 Ambrosoli was killed shortly after he had a talk with Palermo Police chief

Boris Giuliano Giorgio Boris Giuliano (; October 22, 1930 – July 21, 1979) was a police chief from Palermo, Sicily. He was the head of Palermo's Flying Squad. He was killed by the Sicilian Mafia while investigating heroin trafficking and money laundering. N ...

, who discovered cheques and other documents which indicated that Sindona had been recycling the proceeds from heroin sales by the Mafia through the Vatican Bank to his Amincor Bank in Switzerland. Ten days after the killing of Ambrosoli, Giuliano was shot and killed by the Mafia on 21 July 1979.Sterling, ''Octopus'', p. 194 Ambrosoli was posthumously awarded with a medal for civic heroism. In 1995 a film about him was made, entitled ''A Middle-Class Hero'', directed by

Michele Placido Michele Placido (; born 19 May 1946) is an Italian actor, film director, and screenwriter. He began his career on stage, and first gained mainstream attention through a series of roles in films directed by the likes of Mario Monicelli and Marco ...

.Un Eroe Borghese (1995)
Online Video Guide URL visited October 23, 2010

References

Sources

* Stajano, Corrado (1995). ''Un eroe borghese. Il caso dell'avvocato Ambrosoli assassinato dalla mafia politica'', Turin: Einaudi, . *Sterling, Claire (1990). ''Octopus. How the long reach of the Sicilian Mafia controls the global narcotics trade'', New York: Simon & Schuster, * Stille, Alexander (1995). ''Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic'', New York: Vintage * Lucarelli, Carlo (2002). ''Misteri d'Italia. I casi di Blu notte''. Turin: Einaudi, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Ambrosoli, Giorgio 1933 births 1979 deaths Lawyers from Milan People murdered by the Sicilian Mafia Deaths related to the Years of Lead (Italy) Italian murder victims People murdered in Italy Assassinated lawyers Deaths by firearm in Italy 20th-century Italian lawyers University of Milan alumni 1979 murders in Italy