 A BANKER who had been questioned over a huge corporate scandal was found murdered on Friday, having apparently been kidnapped coming home from a meeting of the Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei. The body of Gianmario Roveraro, 70, had been chopped into pieces and hidden in a hut beneath a motorway bridge about 30km from Parma.
| "Tell Luca dat Roveraro's gonna be at da choich. Da Don don't want him to make it home from da choich, know whudda mean?" |
Police said three men had been charged over the crime but a limited confession by the alleged ringleader opened the way for a flood of speculation.
"Whaddya t'ink, Fat Tony?"
"I t'ink it musta been da Barzini clan. I'd know Pippo da Cheeseman's work anywhere!" |
Mr Roveraro, a former Italian Olympic pole-vaulter, had been questioned in an inquiry into the collapse and fraudulent bankruptcy of the food and dairy conglomerate Parmalat, which is based in Parma. In 2003 Parmalat collapsed with E14billion in debt -- Europe's largest corporate failure.
"Whuddya mean, my dough's gone 'pfffft!'"
"Just what I said. Yer dough's gone 'pfffft!'"
"Cheese. Somebody's gonna get chopped inta pieces and left under a bridge for dat!"
"Youse said it, Pippo!" |
Mr Roveraro, who had helped Parmalat to list its shares on the stock market a decade ago, was last seen on July 5 at a meeting in Milan of the secretive organisation Opus Dei. Italian media reported that he was closely linked with the arch-conservative movement. While some reports said Mr Roveraro was a "supernumerary" or member of Opus Dei, police have made no link between his disappearance and Opus Dei.
"Sorry, officers. We dunno nuttin'. Have youse asked at Bilderberg?"
"Dey sent us here." |
The speed of the arrests suggested that police had already followed leads concerned with his financial activities. Noted for his reserve and discretion, Mr Roveraro once said in a rare statement about his Opus Dei involvement that it was was "not concerned with finance -- finance is not Catholic or masonic, it is just finance".
| "Churches never go 'pfffft!' Well, maybe Episcopalians, but not real churches." |
Luciano Garofano, the chief of the police squad that found the body, said: "We are dealing here with a particularly savage murder." The alleged ringleader of those arrested was Filippo Botteri, 43, described as a former financial consultant from Parma who allegedly had had dealings with Mr Roveraro.
"Into da paddy wagon wit' yez, Don Filippo!"
"I'm goin'. I'm goin'. Getcher mitts off da suit." |
Police said he had confessed to the kidnap and murder but had refused to reveal a motive. He had told investigators he had suffered a memory loss: "Don't ask me any more questions, I don't remember a thing."
| "Yeah. De entire contents of me head just went 'pfffft!'" |
The news magazine Panorama headlined its report The Roveraro Code, saying the case involved "rivers of money, opaque interests and shady figures". Mr Roveraro was the founder of Akros Finanziaria, a financial services group.
"Hey! Who're youse callin' shady? We're legit business guys!"
"Oh, yeah? What kinda legit business?"
"We import olive oil!"
"This is Italy!" |
The magistrates leading the inquiry said they were also looking into his interests in companies registered in Lugano and London and the collapse of an Austrian high-risk investment firm he had helped set up.
"Ludwig! Die möney! Sie ist alles gegangen..."
"Pffft?"
"Pffft." |
On the day of his disappearance Mr Roveraro, who had grown-up children, told his wife, Silvana, he would be back at his Milan flat in the evening. Instead he telephoned to say he was abroad, in a "German-speaking country", and she would "soon have news". Alarmed by this behaviour, Ms Roveraro contacted police, who began an investigation. His business colleagues said they later received a suspicious request from him by fax, purportedly from Switzerland, asking them to release E1 million.
"Pippo! Roveraro wants a million euros!"
"Gone. All gone." |
Police said they were investigating whether the kidnap gang had used sophisticated technology to make it appear that both the phone call and the money request had come from abroad when in fact the murdered banker had never left Parma. Pippo Corigliano, spokesman for Opus Dei in Italy, said: "We are close to the family at this time and we respect their grief. We are praying for Gianmario, whom God will surely reward for his goodness and kindness."
"Yeah. We're hopin' he wasn't in a lotta pain when he went."
"He was chopped into little pieces!" |
The case has echoes of the death of Roberto Calvi, the Vatican-linked Milanese financier founded dead under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 after his bank collapsed in a fraud scandal. His death was initially ruled to be suicide, but a murder inquiry was later opened and five people with mafia links are on trial in Rome for conspiring to kill him. |