God's Banker murder trial: link to Peter de Savary/Kuwaiti banks

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This is from the Evening Standard, Friday 23 April:"Leave my millions to my five daughters? You must be joking", by Alison Roberts, on dubious UK tycoon Peter de Savary.

Can't get the This is London online links to work but thought it is worth posting anyway, in view of the 20 years' worth of new police files recently made available to the Italian prosecutors in the Roberto Calvi murder trial, which re-convened 22 April. This follows the finding of $70 million of "missing" Banco Ambrosiano funds in the Bahamas, recovered by City of London police last month.

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Afrex (an import/export business) became the initial source of de Savary's wealth. He began trading profitably in oil, wheat and cement in West Africa, and then through rich Arab contacts, bought into a Kuwaiti oil company called Artoc. He and his Arab partners went on to open a bank in Nassau in the Bahamas, Artoc Bank and Trust. Business was brisk for a while. But by 1980 the bank had losses of $64 million.

At this point began one of the more peculiar eposodes in de Savary's curious life. Searching for a partner, he came upon an Italian banker whose Banco Ambrosiano was anxious to expand, especially in the Middle East. The Italian, Roberto Calvi, struck a deal with de Savary to merge his bank with Artoc. But in June 1982, before it could happen, Calvi was found hanged below Blackfriars Bridge, whether by his own or others' hands, it is still unclear.

"Ambrosiano had all the money in the world", de Savary said later, ruing his misfortune. "It had access to all the bloody money it could want."

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Previously discussed on DU:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=430020

and

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=427421