NCJ Number
161056
Journal
Crime, Law and Social Change Volume: 23 Issue: 4 Dated: (1995) Pages: 345-365
Date Published
1995
Length
21 pages
Annotation
Based on the operations of the now-liquidated Banco Ambrosiano in Italy, this paper analyzes the links between organized crime and economic crime, showing the patterns of relations and highlighting the weaknesses and strengths of both forms of crime as they interact with one another.
Abstract
On August 6, 1982, the Italian Treasury Minister Eniamino Andreatta announced the compulsory administrative liquidation of the Banco Ambrosiano. The collapse was said to be the largest in Western banking history. A month and a half earlier, Roberto Calvi, the former president of the Banco, had been found murdered beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London. As recent investigations are beginning to show, for years the Banco Ambrosiano played a leading role on the international financial crime scene; by exploiting its extensive network of subsidiaries and shell companies, the bank, under Calvi's management, was able to provide a wide range of illicit services to the families of Cosa Nostra, urban gangsters, white-collar criminals, exponents of secret masonic lodges, and a varied set of national and international characters. The case of the Banco Ambrosiano is therefore useful for the analysis of the relations between organized and economic crime within the Italian environment, as well as for the reconstruction of the paradigms of their interaction at a more general level. Section 1 of this paper presents an outline of the theoretical background to the problem, and Section 2 discusses the interpretation followed for many years by Italian judges to explain the bank's collapse. Section 3 sketches the reconstruction of the Ambrosiano affair in the context of new elements and knowledge, and Section 4 discusses the interaction between organized and economic crime. Section 5 describes and analyzes the peculiarities that characterize the Italian criminal issue. 17 notes and 90 references