6. Your early business
career
Jul 31st 2003
From Economist.com
Your proudest business
achievement in the 1970s was Milano 2, a very large development of offices and flats at
Segrate on the outskirts of Milan. You had just started construction of Milano 2 in 1970,
leading your small and dedicated team. By the end of the decade, the development was
complete.
Yet you were nowhere to be seen
in the company filings of the main developer, a limited partnership called Edilnord Centro
Residenziale di Lidia Borsani (Edilnord). Successive managing partners of Edilnord were
your cousin (Lidia Borsani), her mother (your aunt), and an Edilnord employee. Umberto
Previti, the father of your friend, Cesare Previti, at the time a little-known lawyer in
Rome, became Edilnord’s liquidator in January 1978 when it went into voluntary
liquidation.
Nor were you to be seen in
company filings for Societa Generale Attrezzature di Walter Donati (SOGEAT), the firm that
developed the commercial part of Milano 2. SOGEAT was also a limited partnership. Its
managing partner was Walter Donati, a Milanese accountant who became a director of many
companies connected to Fininvest.
Yet jointly with Luigi
Berlusconi, your father, you guaranteed facilities from Banca Popolare di Novara (BPN), an
Italian bank, to Edilnord of at least 6.9 billion lire in 1973-77. You also jointly
guaranteed facilities to SOGEAT from BPN of at least 4.7 billion lire in 1976-77. And, in
1978, you personally guaranteed facilities of 3 billion lire to SOGEAT.
Swiss registered companies with
nominee directors controlled both SOGEAT and Edilnord, and the Swiss companies’ shares were
in bearer form. An internal document from one of your lenders, dated December 1976, shows
that the bank believed you to be their beneficial owner. This was hardly surprising.
Otherwise the bank would have been light on security for its loan.
Strict exchange-control laws were
in force in Italy in the 1970s—prison sentences for violations were severe. The Swiss
companies behind Edilnord and SOGEAT were punctilious in applying to the Bank of Italy for
permission to bring into Italy a total of 4 billion lire in 1968-75 to increase the
companies’ share capital. The Bank of Italy agreed on condition that any post-tax profits
made by Edilnord or SOGEAT would be remitted to the Swiss parent companies.
The Swiss company behind
Edilnord, your brother, Paolo, and you all had bank accounts at Banca Rasini, a
little-known bank with only one branch (in Milan), where your father, by then retired, had
worked for most of his life.
Today, the holding company at the
apex of your family’s business empire is Fininvest. A corporate forebear of Fininvest is a
company called Finanziaria di Investimento Fininvest Srl (Fininvest Srl), which was
incorporated in Rome in March 1975. Mr G Foscale, your cousin, was its sole director. In
1975, both Umberto Previti and his son, Cesare, were appointed to Fininvest Srl’s board of
statutory auditors.
Mr G Foscale mandated two trust
companies to be the registered holder of the shares: SAF and Servizio Italia, both owned by
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), then a state-controlled bank. The person who mandates a
trust company is either the beneficial owner, or someone ultimately acting on behalf of the
beneficial owner. Through use of a trust company, which shows up to the public as the
registered shareholder, a beneficial owner remains anonymous. Use of them was common in the
1970s in Italy.
Before anti-money-laundering
rules in 1991, a beneficial owner of shares registered to a trust company could sell shares
and receive payment directly from the buyer under so-called “franco valuta”
transactions (ie, the money would bypass the trust company). The trust company would merely
execute a share transfer when instructed by the beneficial owner, and not handle the money.
With a franco valuta transaction, the trust company would have only a beneficial
owner’s word that he had sold his shares.
In May 1975, Fininvest Srl’s
shareholder(s) agreed to inject 2 billion lire by way of share capital. Fininvest Srl
bought 80% of Italcantieri in July 1975 and the rest in November 1976. Construction work at
Milano 2 was sub-contracted to this Milanese firm, set up in 1973 by two Swiss registered
companies which had nominee directors and bearer shares. The sole director of Italcantieri
from 1973 until July 1975 had been Luigi Foscale, Giancarlo Foscale’s father and your
uncle. You joined Italcantieri’s board in July 1975, immediately after Fininvest Srl bought
it.
Bank of Italy inspectors carried
out a check in 1979 at Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde (Cariplo). They found
evidence that suggested that Edilnord, Italcantieri and SOGEAT might belong to
you.
In October 1979, the Bank of
Italy asked the Guardia di Finanza to investigate. The Guardia di Finanza found that
Edilnord had made profits of 2.44 billion lire in 1974-78 that should have been remitted to
the Swiss shareholder (ie, your alter ego), as agreed with the Bank of Italy. And SOGEAT
had made 3.3 billion lire in 1974-78 that had not been remitted to Switzerland. The total
infraction amounted to 5.74 billion lire.
As result, a posse of Guardia di
Finanza officers came to another of your companies on November 13th 1979. Mr Berruti, then
a captain in the Guardia di Finanza, led the team. The previous day you had told Mr Berruti
that you were merely an external consultant to Edilnord and SOGEAT. Mr Berruti resigned
from the Guardia di Finanza that month. Despite the strong evidence of exchange-control
violations (ie, your personal guarantees at BPN and another bank, and failure to repatriate
post-tax profits), no legal action was taken against you.
You, as chairman, and your
brother, Paolo, joined Fininvest Srl’s board in November 1975.
Another direct corporate forebear
of Fininvest is Fininvest Roma Srl (Fininvest Roma), incorporated in Rome in June 1978. It
was a shell company with paid-up share capital of 20 million lire. Umberto Previti was its
sole director until June 1979.
On January 29th 1979, Fininvest
Roma and Fininvest Srl voted to merge, but based on their respective balance sheets at
December 27th 1978.
For 18 months prior to the merger
you had been trying to increase the share capital of Fininvest Srl from its paid-up level
(2 billion lire). This was a meagre capital base for a man of your ambition, so you needed
more share capital. At that time, ministerial approval was needed for a share capital
increase beyond 2 billion lire. By mid-1977, Fininvest Srl had not obtained this. The
authorities typically requested information such as details of a company’s beneficial
owners.
You found a solution. As chairman
of Fininvest Srl, you proposed that shareholders make interest-free loans on account of the
approved share capital increase. As the approved increase was 18 billion lire, that meant
up to 18 billion lire of shareholder loans could be received. Your proposal was approved on
December 2nd 1977.
Unofficial records at SAF (one of
the BNL trust companies) show that between February 1977 and August 1978, Fininvest Srl
received interest-free shareholder-loans of 16.94 billion lire on account of the capital
increase. These came in 25 tranches, sometimes on successive days. The obvious inference is
that the money was received in cash or cash equivalent, such as bank cheques. SAF got the
information from Giovanni Dal Santo, an “interlocutor” and director of several
Fininvest-related companies. Mr Dell’Utri’s technical consultant confirmed the accuracy of
the list, but added that some of the funds may have come by ordinary current-account
cheque.
In November 1978 Fininvest Srl
decided to repay its shareholder loans of 16.94 billion lire and a 500m-lire convertible
bond that had been issued in November 1976. What happened next is complicated—it is best
understood by looking at steps 2-4 in table 1.
Your cousin, Mr G Foscale, told
the BNL trust companies of the proposed redemption of shareholder-loans. The trust
companies would be initial beneficiaries of three uncrossed bank cheques for a total of
16.94 billion lire, to be drawn on Fininvest Srl’s account with Banca Popolare di
Abbiategrasso (BPA). He asked SAF to endorse the cheques in Mr L Foscale’s favour (ie, his
father’s favour).
At the end of November, Mr Dal
Santo, acting as interlocutor, picked up the three endorsed cheques from the trust
companies. Mr Dal Santo gave the three cheques to Mr L Foscale, who was acting on your
behalf. A negotiable cheque (ie, no named beneficiary) was also obtained for 500m lire. So
there were four cheques in total.
On December 7th 1978 Mr L Foscale
cashed the negotiable cheque and one of the three bank cheques. This came to 1.01 billion
lire. So he had 1.01 billion lire in cash and 16.43 billion lire in cash equivalent (ie,
the two remaining bank cheques)—17.44 billion lire in total. Thus 17.44 billion lire had
left Fininvest Srl’s coffers.
That day, there was receipt from
an unknown source of 17.5 billion lire into Fininvest Srl’s bank account at BPA. And on the
same day, Fininvest Roma paid 17.5 billion lire to another party, whom the investigators
were unable to identify from banking records, at the same BPA branch (see steps 1 and 8 of
table 1). Since the Palermo investigators’ inspection of BPA’s records precluded the
introduction of funds by a third party, the money must have gone round in a circle. (The
investigators deduced this because the total movements shown in BPA’s daybook for December
7th 1978 were 78 billion lire. The four bank account movements of around 17.5 billion lire
accounted for 70 of the 78 billion lire. If a third party had introduced funds, there would
have been movements of at least 95.5 billion lire (ie, 78 plus 17.5)).
As 17.5 billion lire had gone in
and 17.44 billion lire had gone out of Fininvest Srl’s bank account at BPA, the
shareholder-loans and the convertible bond together totalling 17.44 billion lire could not
have been repaid. So Fininvest Srl still had 17.44 billion lire outstanding, even after
this bank-cheque shuffling (steps 2 to 4).
In other words, the 17.44 billion
lire needed to disappear from its balance sheet. The merger, effected by Mr U Previti and
based on balance sheets drawn up as at December 27th 1978, was the answer.
Mr U Previti said there would be
an interest-bearing receivable, due from Fininvest Srl, of 17.69 billion lire in Fininvest
Roma’s balance sheet at December 27th 1978 (ie, the payment made by Fininvest Roma at step
8 of table 1 must have been included in that balance). When Mr Previti merged the two
companies, he literally merged the two companies’ balance sheets. The receivable of 17.69
billion lire in Fininvest Roma’s balance sheet simply netted off against the liabilities of
17.44 billion in Fininvest Srl’s balance sheets. Two of the equal and opposite accounting
balances that had in effect arisen from the circular flow of funds had been
eliminated.
These operations were part of an
even wider transaction involving 19 companies called Holding Italiana 1 (and so on
sequentially to 19). Steps 6 to 7 in table 1 show how these companies were involved in the
circular flow of funds.
The Holding Italiana companies
have become synonymous with your family’s wealth as the owners of Fininvest, yet you are
absent from these companies’ filings until 1990, and even then you do not appear in all of
them.
Acting on your own behalf and/or
on behalf of someone else, by December 4th 1978 you had bought 10% of 23 holding companies
and had given a mandate to Par.Ma.Fid, a little-known trust company, to act as the
registered shareholder. By December 5th 1978 you had bought the remaining 90% and had
mandated SAF.
As at December 5th 1978, the
holding companies had combined share capital of 420m lire. As there were 23 holding
companies, their combined share capital could reach 46 billion lire without any ministerial
approval (ie, 2 billion lire apiece).
You appointed Mr L Foscale, your
uncle, as the companies’ sole director and mandated signatory for their bank accounts with
BPA. Mr Dal Santo was appointed to their boards of statutory auditors.
You seemed to know the share
issue was going to happen. By December 7th 1978 you had written to SAF to state that a
total of 17.98 billion lire would be paid in as share capital to 19 of the holding
companies “presso le casse sociali” (at the companies’ treasuries).
On December 7th 1978, the 19
holding companies received a total of 17.98 billion lire into their accounts at BPA. The
source of nearly all the cash must have been the 17.44 billion lire (€46.8m in today’s
money) in Mr L Foscale’s possession that day.
The 17.98 billion lire inflow was
accounted for as share capital in the books of the 19 holding companies. These companies
injected this amount as share capital into Fininvest Roma, thereby becoming the collective
owners of Fininvest Roma. This transaction brought Fininvest Roma’s share capital to
exactly 18 billion lire, all paid up.
In effect, a convertible bond of
500m lire and 16.94 billion lire in shareholder loansreceived by Fininvest Srl, according
to Mr Dal Santo’s information, in 25 tranches from February 1977 to August 1978were
recycled in December 1978 as fresh share capital for the 19 holding companies. The money
had appeared all at once, as well.
However, the only new funds were
540m lire sitting in Fininvest Roma’s and Fininvest Srl’s bank accounts (see table
1).
As at December 26th 1978,
Fininvest Roma had paid-up capital of 18 billion lire, all held by the 19 holding
companies. The merger with Fininvest Srl had not yet happened. Fininvest Srl had paid-up
share capital of 2 billion lire at that date. As part of the merger, its shareholder(s)
must have exchanged his/their Fininvest Srl shares, which had been mandated to SAF, for 10%
of the shares in the holding companies. This may explain why you mandated 10% of the
holding companies’ shares to Par.Ma.Fid.
It is reasonable to surmise that
the provider(s) of the shareholder-loans to Fininvest Srl between February 1977 and August
1978 owned the other 90% of the holding companies.
In 1979, 45.4 billion lire (about
€104m in today’s money) flowed into the holding companies (see table 2). Nearly all of it
involved money that had been sent round in a circle through companies under your control.
The largest transaction of 27.68 billion lire is explained in the section below on Anna
Maria Casati Stampa di Soncino’s legacy.
The holding companies put 32
billion lire in 1979 into Fininvest Roma by way of share capital, thereby apparently
increasing its paid-up capital to 52 billion lire by December 31st 1979. But this money
went straight out of Fininvest Roma, too, in effect whence it came. Therefore 32 billion
lire of Fininvest Roma’s paid-up share capital of 52 billion lire were phoney.
In 1980, 20.05 billion lire was
put into the holding companies in cash or equivalent, including 19.2 billion in late
December 1980 (see table 2). This money was for Fininvest.
On December 22nd 1980, you wrote
to the trust companies to say that 19.2 billion lire would be paid in as interest-free
shareholder loans, with 90% going via SAF and 10% via Par.Ma.Fid. According to the holding
companies’ books, the funds came in four tranches of 4.8 billion lire in the last week of
December.
Yet the investigators from
Palermo found trace of only one transaction in banking records at Banca Rasini, the
little-known bank with one branch, which was another banker to the holding companies. They
found that 4.3 billion lire (ie, SAF’s 90% share of 4.8 billion lire) had been recorded in
a transit account at Banca Rasini and so had the payment for the same amount to Fininvest.
The receipt was in cash (or equivalent), and so was the payment. The receipt must have been
in cash. If you had funded 4.3 billion lire from your personal account at Banca Rasini,
there would have been a withdrawal from your account that day for that amount. There was
not.
The transaction had been recorded
in a transit account. In those days, some banks used transit accounts to record very
short-life transactions (ie, one week maximum to maturity). Recording a transaction in a
transit account indicated that it was for a customer who was not a client of the bank.
There was therefore a serious anomaly – for you were a Banca Rasini
customer.
Banca Rasini acted as a bank to
you, your brother, Mr Dell’Utri and his brother, your Swiss alter egos (the ones behind
Edilnord and Italcantieri), and also Par.Ma.Fid. It was also very close to the Holding
Italiana companies.
Armando Minna, a Milanese
accountant, and his wife had founded Holding Italiana 1-23 in June 1978. Mr Minna, who was
a member of the board of statutory auditors of Banca Rasini, set up bank accounts for the
holding companies with Banca Rasini. You bought the 23 holding companies’ shares in
December 1978 in franco valuta transactions with Mr and Mrs Minna. Mr Minna was
appointed a member of the board of statutory auditors of the holding companies.
In the bank’s internal records,
each Holding Italiana company was categorised as “hairdresser and beauty parlour”. Bank of
Italy inspectors use this categorisation as one of the criteria for determining which bank
accounts to inspect. The categorisation could have been a mistake, but there is no doubt
that 23 “hairdressers” would have been far less susceptible to inspection than 23 financial
holding companies.
At the time, Giuseppe Azzaretto,
a Sicilian, appointed in 1973, was Banca Rasini’s managing director. Mr Azzaretto was one
of the banks’ largest shareholders with 29.3%. Three Liechtenstein-registered companies
held a further 32.7%, represented by Herbert Batliner, who runs one Liechtenstein’s leading
trust companies.
Doubtless Mr Batliner represents
many people who have valid reasons for privacy. Some clients did not. A court case in
America in 1971 resulted in the conviction of two American citizens for evading taxes in
the 1960s. They had done so through a Liechtenstein-registered front company that Mr
Batliner had run on their behalf. Another court case from America (in 1998) revealed that
Mr Batliner’s firm had acted for the common-law wife of a Latin American drug-trader. In
1989 the drug-trader had transferred $8m into a Swiss bank account. The account was held in
the name of a Liechtenstein-registered company, represented by Mr Batliner who had been
mandated by the common-law wife. The court case arose because the US government wanted to
sequester the money, the alleged proceeds of narcotics trading and money
laundering.
By November 1979, you had been
living in a 17th century mansion, called Villa San Martino, for over five years. This
beautiful house is in the town of Arcore, just north-east of Milan. You were not the legal
owner; Anna Maria Casati Stampa di Soncino was. In September 1970, aged 19, Ms Casati
Stampa became heiress to the family’s large fortune in tragic circumstances after Count
Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, her father, shot her step-mother, her step-mother’s lover
and then turned the gun on himself on August 30th 1970 in Rome.
As Ms Casati Stampa was under 21,
the court appointed Giorgio Bergamasco, a senator and friend of the late count, as Ms
Casati Stampa’s legal guardian. Cesare Previti, based in Rome and who had acted for Ms
Casati Stampa’s step-mother, won Ms Casati Stampa’s confidence and became her lawyer. His
role was to dispose of the estate, whereas Mr Bergamasco’s was to sign all the necessary
legal paperwork in Ms Casati Stampa’s name. So Mr Bergamasco had legal control of her
assets, while Mr Previti had practical control.
Traumatised, Ms Casati Stampa
left Italy in 1970, briefly returned in 1972 and has lived abroad since. When she became 21
she gave Mr Bergamasco power of attorney over her affairs. Ms Casati Stampa declines to
comment.
The Casati Stampa estate, mainly
in Lombardy, included large tracts of land. As well as Villa San Martino and its parkland,
the family owned about 250 hectares of land at Cusago. With effect from November 11th 1979,
a company called Immobiliare Coriasco Spa (Coriasco) bought Ms Casati Stampa’s land at
Cusago.
Mandated by Mr L Foscale, SAF
were the registered holders of Coriasco’s shares, so Coriasco’s beneficial owners were
anonymous. However, in Fininvest Srl’s 1976 accounts Coriasco was included as a wholly
owned subsidiary. Coriasco’s only director was Giuseppe Scabini, who later became
Fininvest’s treasurer.
Coriasco did not pay money for Ms
Casati Stampa’s land. Instead, 800,000 shares, valued at 1.7 billion lire, in a company
called Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi (CRM), a small property company, one of whose directors
was Mr Dell’Utri, were given to Ms Casati Stampa. These shares represented a 40% stake in
CRM. Around the same time 400,000 CRM shares were given to a trust company called Unione
Fiduciaria, a subsidiary of an Italian bank. It is not known who the beneficial owner of
these shares was.
Ms Casati Stampa was unhappy that
she had been given shares in a company she knew nothing about in exchange for her land. She
wanted the shares to be turned into cash. What followed next is best understood by
referring to table 3.
The essence of what happened is
that you arranged for a shell company of yours, Palina, fronted by a 75-year old stroke
victim, to buy the 800,000 CRM shares from Ms Casati Stampa, and the 400,000 CRM shares
from Unione Fiduciaria. Palina paid 1.7 billion lire to Ms Casati Stampa and 860m lire to
Unione Fiduciaria. The investigators from Palermo did not find out where this money came
from, as there was no trace of it at BPA. However, they found a bill from Unione Fiduciaria
and a stamped share-transfer form signed by Mr Bergamasco, which strongly suggest that 2.56
billion lire was paid.
On December 19th 1979, Palina
sold the 1.2 million CRM shares to Milano 3 Srl, another shell company. Milano 3 Srl paid
Palina 27.68 billion lire (ie, more than ten times as much as Palina had paid weeks
earlier). Palina was a cut-out company; it was incorporated in October 1979 and placed in
liquidation in May 1980. There was nothing in its accounting records about the CRM share
deals, or the sale of the CRM shares to Milano 3 Srl.
The transaction was a sham
because Milano 3 Srl indirectly got the money to pay Palina from Palina. As table 3 shows,
on December 19th 1979, Palina sent 27.68 billion lire to the trust companies, which then
transferred this sum to holding companies’ bank accounts at BPA. From there, the funds went
through Fininvest Roma’s BPA account, and then, through Milano 3 Srl’s account to an
unknown beneficiary.
Since the Palermo investigators’
examination of BPA’s records precluded the introduction of funds by a third party, the
funds must have gone round in a circle. This is because on the same day there was a receipt
of 27.68 billion lire in Palina’s current account (ie, from Milano 3 Srl).
You seemed to have known what was
going on. You had written to the trust companies on December 13th 1979 to advise them that
a forthcoming payment of 25.68 billion lire was to be treated as shareholder loans to
certain of the Holding Italiana companies. In the event you paid 27.68 billion lire.
(Holding Italiana 18-19, not mentioned in your letter, received 2 billion lire.)
Milano 3 Srl was incorporated in
November 1979, as a subsidiary of Fininvest Roma. Mr Dal Santo was its only director. The
anti-Mafia investigator and the Palermo magistrates' technical consultant did not gain
access to Milano 3 Srl’s books and records. However, Milano 3 Srl must have been the source
of the 27.68 billion lire received by Palina on December 19th. It must also have recorded
the 27.68 billion lire as an investment in CRM in its books. This investment was “funded”
by the 27.68 billion lire that it had received from Fininvest Roma the same day.
CRM merged (literally) into
Milano 3 Srl in July 1980. Milano 3 Srl, the surviving company, renamed itself Cantieri
Riuniti Milanesi. It was the same manoeuvre once again—elimination of two equal and
opposite accounting balances that had arisen from the circular flow of funds. When the two
balance sheets were merged, the balances in Milano 3 Srl’s books relating to the Palina
transaction disappeared. Its investment in CRM shares would simply have been netted off
against the related financing received.
It needed to be. Fininvest could
not possibly have spent 27.68 billion lire on buying the 1.2 million CRM shares that you
already owned (through Palina) since precisely the same amount of money had gone in and out
of Palina’s bank account on December 19th 1979. And CRM’s shares had little value since CRM
did not even own the land at Cusago— Coriasco did.
Mr Dell’Utri’s technical
consultant told the Palermo court that, if this transaction had taken place after
anti-money laundering rules were introduced in 1991, “it would have had to have been
reported” because of the amount of money involved.
Routing the funding for the
Palina transaction through Fininvest Roma had the effect of puffing up this company’s
assets and liabilities by 27.68 billion lire. As a part of the operation, Fininvest Roma’s
share capital increased by 15 billion lire, treated as fully paid up. This share capital
was phoney, as were the rest of the accounting entries relating to this operation. In other
words, manufactured bank-account movements, made possible by Palina, which completed the
circle, lent spurious credence to hollow accounting entries.
Coriasco (the company that
acquired the Cusago land) also made a share issue in 1979 that was not what it
seemed.
As noted above, in 1976,
Fininvest Srl had owned 100% of Coriasco’s 200,000 shares of 1,000 lire each (ie, Coriasco
had paid-up share capital of 200m lire in total), but SAF was Coriasco’s registered
shareholder under a mandate from Mr L Foscale.
According to official SAF
records, in mid-March 1979, Mr L Foscale had written to SAF to say that on March 22nd 1979
there would be a 2 billion lire increase in the share capital of Coriasco (ie, 2m shares
would be issued).
He said the transaction would be
franco valuta (ie, the money would bypass the trust companies). Instead, according
to unofficial records at SAF, on March 20th 1979, Mr Dal Santo phoned to say he would give
them the mandate to underwrite a 2 billion lire share capital increase. Again, according to
SAF’s unofficial records, on March 21st 1979, Mr Dal Santo brought the mandate for SAF to
sign, and made available 2 billion in cash. SAF paid that money to Cariplo and Banca
Popolare di Novara and obtained two uncrossed bank cheques for a total of 2 billion
lire.
SAF endorsed these cheques to
Coriasco, which therefore looked as though it had received a 2 billion lire share capital
increase paid by two bank cheques. It had not—the money for the shares was really in cash.
In other words, Mr Dal Santo had laundered 2 billion lire through SAF with help from the
trust company itself.
To any inspector of the official
paperwork for the share issue (ie, Mr Foscale’s letter), it would have looked as though the
money had bypassed the trust company. This is because there would have been no immediate
reason to suppose that the deal had not been done as set out in Mr Foscale’s
letter.
According to Fininvest’s accounts
for 1979, its stake in Coriasco was by then only 9.09% (ie, the 200,000 shares it held in
December 1976). It was not therefore clear who had provided the 2 billion lire in cash in
March 1979. Mr Dell’Utri’s technical consultant told the Palermo court that Coriasco was
“absolutely marginal and irrelevant”.
After getting planning
permission, another company called Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi (ie, not the same company as
involved in the Palina operation) later carried out a large development on land that
Coriasco had acquired in 1979.
In 1980 Immobiliare Idra, a
company fronted by Mr Dal Santo, became the legal owner of Villa San Martino (and its
parkland, collection of books, pictures and so on) when it paid Ms Casati Stampa 500m lire
(about €960,000 in today’s money). At some point Immobiliare Idra must have belonged to
Fininvest because Fininvest later sold this company to you.
A number of influential figures
in your early career—Mr C Previti, Mr G Foscale, Mr Scabini, Mr Dell’Utri, and Mr
Berruti—later rose to positions of prominence with you. Like you, they were all charged in
the 1990s with criminal offences. Far more enigmatic is Mr Dal Santo.
Born in Sicily in 1920, by the
1970s, Mr Dal Santo was working in Milan as a book-keeper. He was the only director of a
number of companies at crucial points in their existence: for instance, of Milano 3 Srl
when it acquired CRM from Palina, and of Immobiliare Idra when it bought Villa San Martino.
He was also the “interlocutor” between Mr L Foscale and the BNL trust companies. He was the
person who supplied the information found in SAF’s unofficial records (ie, information that
the 16.9 billion lire of shareholder loans to Fininvest Srl were received in 25 tranches
between February 1977 and August 1978). He served on the board of statutory auditors of the
Holding Italiana companies. You certainly knew him.
Mr Dal Santo laundered 2 billion
lire (about €5.1m in today’s money) through SAF and Coriasco in March 1979. From the date
of its acquisition by Fininvest Srl in 1976 until January 1978, ISTIFI’s only director was
Mr Dal Santo. This firm, a finance company, was to become the financial lung of the
group.
He was obviously an uomo di
fiducia (trusted man).
Our
questions
Do you have any alternative
explanations for the above transactions?
Who put 4 billion lire into
Edilnord and SOGEAT by way of share capital in 1967-75?
Who put the 16.94 billion
lire into Fininvest Srl as shareholder loans in 1977-78, and where did the money come
from?
Why was this money injected
in 25 tranches over a 20-month period?
On whose behalf was Mr Dal
Santo an uomo di fiducia?
Do you think Ms Casata Stampa
got a fair deal for Villa San Martino and her land at Cusago?
Who was the beneficial owner
of the 400,000 CRM shares registered in the name of Unione Fiduciaria and who therefore
received the 860m lire paid by Palina?
Who put 2 billion lire into
Coriasco in March 1979 and where did the cash come from?
Why did you transact so many
share deals franco valuta?
Why did you avail yourself of
the right to silence when prosecutors wanted to question you at Palazzo Chigi on November
26th 2002 about these and other matters?
In October 1990 the appeals court
in Venice found that you had perjured yourself while giving evidence in 1988 in an
unsuccessful libel case that you had brought against Giovanni Ruggeri and Mario Guarino,
both Italian journalists. They are the joint authors of “Inchiesta sul Signor TV”, a
thoroughly researched book on your early business career, first published in
1987.
You were found guilty but your
perjury was commuted by a general amnesty. Among other things, in the libel proceeding you
said that you had joined the P2 lodge only shortly before it was uncovered in 1981 and that
you had not paid your subscription. The court in Venice ruled that these statements were
not true. You were initiated into the P2 lodge in early 1978 and paid your 100,000 lire
subscription.
After Mr Berruti questioned you
about Edilnord and SOGEAT in November 1979, Salvatore Gallo, a superior officer in the
Guardia di Finanza in Rome, wrote the following month to the Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi. He
recommended no further action be taken. Mr Gallo was initiated into the P2 lodge in July
1980.
BNL had more top managers who
were members of P2 than any other Italian bank. At least six senior BNL executives had been
initiated into the lodge, including Gianfranco Graziadei, chief executive of one the BNL
trust companies.
During the 1970s your companies
received generous support from Italian banks, including Monte dei Paschi di Siena whose
general manager, Giovanni Cresti, was a member of P2. Later Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s
statutory board of auditors concluded that: “ The risk profile towards [your group] was
altogether exceptional. Inspectors who have looked at the loan book have made an accurate
analysis of it that allows the conclusion that there was significant favouritism towards
[your group].”
Our
questions
Why did you lie about the
date on which you were initiated into the P2 lodge?
Did you use your membership
of the P2 lodge to obtain things that you would not otherwise have
done?
*We have compiled this
sub-section from the reports on your companies by an anti-Mafia investigator and by the
Palermo magistrates’ technical consultant from the Bank of Italy. An allegation from a
pentito (supergrass) that 20 billion lire of Mafia money had been used to build up
Fininvest’s television interests triggered their investigation. The two investigators spent
18 months combing records of companies at the top of the Fininvest corporate hierarchy in
the period 1975—1985 (and companies connected to those, and so on), of trust companies
connected to you, and of bank accounts belonging to you and the companies examined. They
have both given evidence in relation to their findings in the trial of your close friend,
Marcello Dell’Utri, who was charged in 1996 with aiding and abetting the Mafia.
Apart from a short spell in the
late 1970s, Mr Dell’Utri, a Sicilian, worked with you from the mid-1960s to 1994. A member
of the Italian parliament, he was a co-founder of Forza Italia, and acted as your campaign
manager in the 1994 election.
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