Banca Rasini
| Banca Rasini | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Spa |
| founding | 1950s |
| resolution | 1992 |
| Seat |
Milan , Italy
|
| Branch | Banking |
The Bank Rasini was a small bank in Milan , founded in the 1950s, in 1992, Banca Popolare di Lodi integrated.
The main reason for her fame is her deep involvement with the Cosa Nostra and names like Pippo Calò , Totò Riina , Bernardo Provenzano , leading men of the Sicilian Mafia and the involvement of the entrepreneur and politician Silvio Berlusconi and his father Luigi Berlusconi, who was first employed and later the director who was Banka Rasini. Of central importance for the background of the bank are the statements of Michele Sindona , originally a financial advisor and later a key witness, murdered in custody with a poisoned cup of coffee.
history
The bank was founded in the 1950s by Carlo Rasini, Gian Angelo Rasini, Enrico Ressi, Giovanni Locatelli, Angela Maria Rivolta e Giuseppe Azzaletto. The start-up capital was 100 million lire. Since its inception, the bank has been a hub of Lombard capital (especially the noble family von Rasini from Milan) and Palermitan capital (Azzaletto Joseph, man of confidence in Giulio Andreotti from Sicily).
In 1970, under the leadership of Luigi Berlusconi, the bank acquired shares in the “Brittener Anstalt”, a company in Nassau in connection with the Nassau Cisalpina Overseas Bank .
1974 Antonio Vecchione becomes General Manager. In ten years the value of the bank will multiply from about one billion lire in 1974 to an estimated 40 billion lire in 1984.
The bank hit the headlines on February 15, 1983. Police in Milan are raiding members of the Cosa Nostra in Milan, and among those arrested are many Rasini Bank customers, including Luigi Monti, Antonio Virgil and Robertino Enea. The police discovered accounts of Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano among the bank customers. As a result, the director Vecchione and the management of the bank are prosecuted and convicted because the Rasini bank was demonstrably a means of mafia money laundering.
After 1983 Giuseppe Azzaletto transferred the bank to Nino Rovelli. Nino Rovelli is an entrepreneur (best known for the IMI-SIR affair) with no experience in the banking sector. However, research suggests that Nino Rovelli is just a straw man who has to hide the real management. However, there is no official evidence to support this suggestion or the names of the real directors of the bank.
In 1992 Bank Rasini became part of Banca Popolare di Lodi .
In 1998, the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office confiscated the bank's archives. As a result of its investigation and also as a result of the revelations of Michele Sindona (interview in 1985 by the American journalist, Nick Tosches) and other investigations, the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office describes Bank Rasini as the central money laundering organization of the Sicilian Mafia in northern Italy. Vittorio Mangano , who worked as a “groom” in Silvio Berlusconi's villa from 1973 to 1975, was one of the bank's customers .
Relations with the Berlusconi family
Silvio Berlusconi's father, Luigi Berlusconi, was initially a simple employee of the bank, then legal representative and authorized signatory and finally director. Bank Rasini, and Carlo Rasini in particular, were Silvio Berlusconi's first donors at the beginning of his entrepreneurial career. Silvio and his brother Paolo Berlusconi had accounts here, as did numerous Swiss companies that were owned by Edilnord , Silvio Berlusconi's first construction company and at the same time the basis of his later fortune.
Bank Rasini is on the list of banks and credit institutions in connection with the financing of 113 billion lire (equivalent to more than 300 million euros in 2006) for the maintenance of Fininvest , the financial company Silvio Berlusconis, between 1978 and 1983.
The English newspaper The Economist repeatedly names Bank Rasini in reports about Silvio Berlusconi and underlines the bank's diverse illegal transactions. There is evidence that Silvio Berlusconi registered 23 holdings with the bank, including hairdressing and cosmetics stores. In order to shed some light on these peculiarities, the bank's archives came under judicial confiscation in 1998.
literature
- Elio Veltri & Marco Travaglio: L'Odore dei soldi. Origini e misteri delle fortune di Silvio Berlusconi. ("The smell of money. Origins and secrets of Silvio Berlusconi's fortune") Editori Riuniti, 2001, ISBN 88-359-5007-4