This is a fascinating article. Talk about Octopus, it is Vatican heavy but also implicates practically everybody on the planet including the Vatican, CIA, Japanese Yakuza, Mossad, American politicians, the Queen, British/European financiers, American financiers, Italian financiers, Italian mobsters, American mobsters, O.J. Simpson, Abraham Lincoln, P2 lodge, along with smuggling gold, selling dope, selling weapons, stealing property, laundering money, and more I can't even remember.
Its a dizzy trail. I have no idea how accurate it is but it is damn interesting.
(yes barracuda in the first couple of paragraphs it does mention European financiers, but give the article a chance before you have a hernia ok? it goes well well beyond that and this topic is NOT by any means the focus of the entire article. the article focuses on the Italian mafia, Vatican, and others much more than the European financiers. Ok? So don't stroke out because everybody on the planet takes an equal beating in this article)
The Pope's Banks in America, The Gianni Family, and The American CIA - Part One
Sherman H. Skolnick
Skolnick's Report
The Pope has had at least three banks in America.
What later was called the Continental Bank of Chicago, was founded in Chicago under different names prior to the American Civil War. About the same time as the setting up in 1857 of the Chicago Board of Trade with which the Continental became interwoven. Their transactions were so incestuous,,, how could one tell one from another? Early in its highly corrupt history, the Board of Trade was [and some say, still is] such a gambling hell, that Western Union Telegraph once cut off its wire there, refusing them services.
From early on, the Bank as well as the Board of Trade were supervised by the British and French Rothschilds, jointly with the Pope and the Papal States. And from early on, representatives of both the Vatican and the British monarchy sat on the Board of Continental. Few understand enough about all this to easily conceive of the Pope and the Queen, together. In the public mind, at best, these are forces of friction.
Traditionally, members of the CBOT were those of the Irish Catholic and some few of the Jewish aristocracy, not your everyday ethnic and religious folk. As strange as it may seem to ousiders, this raucous gang was fully acceptable to and allowed themselves to be supervised by the representatives of the British royal house together with the Vatican.
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From the onset, the Rothschilds were instrumental in the grain trading. To those who know a lot about the bloody conflict, called the Civil War in the North and the War Between the States in the South, President Abraham Lincoln's proposed post-war policies were bound to cause problems. The 16th President proposed to bind up the wounds of the Nation and not to be further destructive of the rebellious, now vanquished South. That policy would have permitted the South to as quickly as possible resume production of commodities, such as cotton. But, the Rothschilds, however, had in place speculations, in Chicago and New York, by which they would greatly profit if production would NOT soon resume and cotton prices were high or went higher.
The largest importer of U.S. cotton had been England for monopolistic textile production. And some contend the Civil War was fomented by Great Britain itching to take back the American continent as a British puppet colony,having failed to do so by the War of 1812. States' rights and the slavery issues, some say, were simply a gut-wrenching financial and emotional excuse to smash up the united federal republic.
Secretly involved in the Rothschild speculations to profit from high prices, post-war, were key members of the U.S. Congress. As part of this cabal, the head of what is now called the U.S. Secret Service, Lafayette C. Baker, plotted to create a security vacuum [like later in Dallas, 1963]. at some event where a convenient Southern assassin would be permitted to blow out the brains of Lincoln, the party-spoiler [or John F. Kennedy, who stepped in the face of the Oil Cartel].
To set an example, understood by some, Lincoln was assassinated on highly Catholic religious Good Friday, a few days after the War ended. A key assassination player fled, and took up refuge in the Vatican. Rothschild agent, August Belmont, and his conspiratorial ring, their speculative positions secured, prospered greatly. Lincoln's surviving son Todd somehow fell in with his father's financial enemies. Very late in life, Todd said as to the papers he had assembled, that if the papers had been known, and revealed earlier, press and railroad owners, those who claimed to be Lincoln's friends, would all have been hung, for they plotted the President's demise. The documents showed how the Continental Bank had handled the finances for the political assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Todd reportedly burned the documents. [Not all of them.]
Amidst the growing bank collapses of the Great Depression, in 1931, the Federal Government through a massive loan, bailed out failing Continental Bank. This was also abou the time that Italian strongman Benito Mussolini bailed out the money-starved Vatican. The events, to some, are related. Thereafter, beholden to the central government, Continental became a convenient link to espionage. Continental allowed its facilities to be used to disguise government paid provocateurs and con-men used to manipulate public opinion. [Resulting in a little known federal court case against Continental in the 1970s. We have the file.
In 1984, again sinking, Continental had some some of its principal owners jump ship about six weeks before its plight become more known. As major owners of its parent holding company, the Vatican and the Queen of England sold THEIR shares before the market price went to almost zero. [I was the first to publicly correctly estimate the run on Continental as 20 billion dollars of flight capital.] A major owner of the bank itself, Walter J. Cummings, Jr., prevented hungry litigators from deluging the federal courts with damage suits against the Bank. Cummings was Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago, one step below the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court in Washington hearing very few cases, Cummings' Court was, in effect, the end of the line for most federal litigation from Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, the 7th Federal Circuit. Off the record, Chief Judge Cummings threatened reprisals against lawyers if they brought a flood of damage suits against his Bank.
After all, Judge Cummings was a "man of trust" for the Vatican, safeguarding their interests in his Bank and in his Court. He did NOT disqualify in related litigation. Guess who won in his crooked Court?
Another financial enterprise of the Pope in the U.S. is Bank of America. They have done a fairly good jon to conceal the Vatican ownership. They paid for a puff piece book, called, "Biography of A Bank- The Story of Bank of America N.T. and S.A." by Marquis James and Bessie Rowland James. Published 1954 by Harper & Brothers, and more or less the standard reference work on the bank's history.
They would have you believe that Bank of America National Trust and Savings Association was at the time of the book "the largest bank in the world". Bank mergers now occurring so rapidly, it is hard to say which is NOW the world's largest Bank. They would further have you believe that this money ship, up to 1930 called Bank of Italy, was founded by Amadeo Peter Giannini. And that the Bank was able to spread out all over the world because Giannini was so nice in helping people following the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. They were kept out of being a New York money center bank by the agent and front for the British Monarchy, J.P.Morgan & Company.
By way of that book and the publicity flacks that followed over the years, Bank of America is supposedly owned principally by numerous of their small account holders. A fairy tale supreme. By the 1970s, Bank America, the holding company, was owned principally by the Vatican and the Jesuits, the Pope's clever army who occassionally see fit to rebuff the Pontiff. In the 1970s, the ownership broadened out to include the French Rothschilds, wrongly identified by know-nothings as "Jewish bankers", actually very Pro-Vatican into many joint finances not exactly compatible with ordinary Jews or the State of Israel.
By the early 1990s, Bank America stock was steadily declining. More numerous than the traditional Italian and Sicilian mafia, the Japanese underworld, the Yakuza, bought their way into Bank America, becoming a major joint owner. The Yakuza now owns most every bank headquartered in California. The book "Yakuza" by Dubro and Kaplan, tells a lot about the Japanese mafia. In Osaka, Japan, the Yakuza is actually an adjunct of the local police. According to a discussion by the authors on a radio program, more than half of the new buildings built downtown Chicago in the 1980s are owned by the Yakuza. Later in the 1990s, Bank of America and the Giannini family merged their interests publicly with Continental Bank, although the Chicago-based and San Francisco-based money ships had been more or less joined at the hip privately long before that. The office buildings in which are also housed the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, are reportedly bankrupt because of low occupancy but owned reportedly by the Yakuza.
[Some contend O.J. Simpson was framed up for the two murders because of financial problems developed in enterprises in California he once greatly owned but given, in part, to his ex-wife, Nicole, part of the divorce. Those businesses reportedly were money laundries for the dope traffic controlled by the Yakuza in murderous competition with the Mexican dope gang, the Herreras. OJ once reported to the police that strange orientals were trying to kill him.]
On behalf of the Pope, the Giannini family has operated in the Chicago-area a so-far low-key operation called First National Bank of Cicero. Historically, Cicero has been the mafia enclave adjunct to Chicago's old West Side. A dominant force in with the Gianninis and that Bank has been Bishop Paul Marcinkus, originally running aa Catholic Church in Cicero. Marcinkus went on to become head of the Institute of Religious Works [IOR] commonly called the Vatican Bank. Marcinkus fled the Vatican and took up refuge in Chicago, late in 1991.
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Shortly after Marcinkus returned to Chicago, a purported asset for Israeli intelligence, the Mossad, in December, 1991, was found murdered, mafia-style, not far from the First National Bank of Cicero. A U.S. Bankruptcy Court auctioneer who corruptly skimmed off funds from Bankrupt Estates to contribute to Israel, Wallace Lieberman tried to shake down the Giannini family, their bank in Cicero, and related others, threatening to expose their role in the corrupt traffic in illicit gold, arms, radioactive materials, and such; that they acted jointly with the American CIA, the traditional Italian and Sicilian mafia, and Bank of America.
The murder of Lieberman was announced in the heavily pro-Vatican and pro-British monarchy Chicago Tribune, in their edition for Christmas Day, 1991, an ironic twist not lost on everyone. Shortly thereafter, Lieberman's son, Barry, was framed up on U.S. treason charges. Barry Lieberman was supposedly caught in the process of supposedly selling to the State of Israel, certain stolen top U.S. military electronic counter-measure radar secret equipment. Actually, equipment abandoned by U.S. forces in the Iraqi and Saudi desert after the short Persian Gulf War.
With the help of Marcinkus and the Giannini family, an Illinois State Senator, Judy Baar Topinka, from the Berwyn-Cicero area, was elected in 1994, as Illinois Treasurer. On our TV Show in October of that year, she praised the First National Bank of Cicero and former Vatican Bank Chief Marcinkus who she said she knew. She had previously, in some capacity or another, acted as public relations flack for the bank in Cicero. Topinka was re-elected in 1998. So,the former Vatican Bank crooked helped install the woman who is in charge of all the State money of Illinois.
After leaving Chicago, sometime after 1991, Marcinkus took up residence in Sun City, Arizona. Italian authorities have tried repeatedly, to no avail, to force the U.S. to send Marcinkus back to Italy for prosecution for crimes implicating him and the Vatican Bank, the American CIA, and the traditional mafia, in assassination financing, arms smuggling, and illegal trafficking in stolen gold, counterfeit currencies, stolen bond, and radioactive materials. Marcinkus fought off all such attempts to send him back to Italy, by sheltering himself in his Vatican passport, the Vatican, after all, being a separate sovereignty from the Republic of Italy.
Briefly surfacing in December, 1995, was a related scandal. A retired agent of the American CIA, living in Italy with dual U.S.-Italian citizenship, was arrested by the Italian police. Roger D'Onofrio was charged with being implicated with at least ten others in illegal trafficking in stolen gold, stolen bonds, exceptionally good quality counterfeit currencies destabilizing the economies of various countries, and trafficking in osmium nuclear bomb detonators and other radioactive materials. Reportedly implicated with D'Onofrio were a ring that included the former Vatican Bank Chief Paul Marcinkus, the Archbishop of Barcelona, Spain, and the First National Bank of Cicero. Earlier, D'Onofrio had been described by a witness as the CIA's paymaster with the task of making secret payments to CIA assets and business partners.
Other witnesses reportedly contend that D'Onofrio's team were the ones reportedly arranging to poison Pope John Paul 1st who was murdered after only 33 days in office. That Pontiff wanted to stop the Vatican Bank and Marcinkus from dirty business with the American CIA and the traditional mafia.
No coincidence. After Marcinkus returned to Chicago late in 1991, set up in Chicago about the same time was the North American office of the super-secret Catholic organization, Opus Dei. This was done reportedly with the aid of the Archbishop of Milan, Italy.
In August, 1995, we did a taped TV Show, partly on-location, right near the First National Bank of Cicero, pointing out their criminal enterprises with Marcinkus, Topinka, and a confidant of that Bank, John Tarullo who lived nearby. Tarullo was once a member of the London Gold Pool and arranged clandestine shipments of stolen gold for the American CIA and the traditional mafia, as well as other criminal cartels. He was closely aligned with the Archbishop of Milan and, some say, also the Archbishop of Barcelona. [Note: Wallace Lieberman's body was found betweeen the bank and the not faraway residence of Tarullo.] Tarullo was murdered on the day our TV Show was cablecast.
The Vatican has a major interest in a world-wide chain of Hotels and Motels called Ramada. A member of the Giannini family, Steven Belmonte [his mother is a Giannini], has been a top operating official of the chain. According to persistent off the record reports by very well informed law enforcement, Ramada reportedly is in some way implicated in vast money laundering of illicit funds, smuggled gold, and proceeds from the dope and arms traffic. Or, at the very minimum, traffickers and money launders of the same somehow find it convenient if not safe and secure, to meet at various Ramada locations. Why?
Since about 1983, there have been a series of state and federal lawsuits by Joseph Andreuccetti, a Chicago-area caulking contractor. He has contended that First National Bank of Cicero, in combination with other banks and savings & loans, misappropriated tens of millions of dollars of funds, assets, and properties belonging to him. In the process, an extensive real estate development in a western suburb, called Kingspoint Condominiums, owned by him, was stolen by corrupt top IRS offiicals in the Chicago region, for their own personal benefit and not for the Public Treasury. The Acting Inspector General, Robert Cesca, arranged reportedly to cover it up. Cesca has been described by law enforcement personnel, as "the highest ranking mafia representative in the U.S. government".
About 1983, a federal agency parked 58.4 million dollars in federal funds with Household Bank and Household International [described by some as CIA proprietary operations]. This was to make good Andreuccetti's pending claims. About 1988, 50 million dollars of that disappeared, and was secretly transferred to Little Rock,Arkansas, to try to cover up a 47 million dollar S & L embezzlement for which Bill and Hillary Clinton are subject to federal criminal prosecution and upon conviction, federal prison.
Joseph Andreuccetti, a member of the Giannini Family, contends some in the Family want him silenced because of all the details coming out through his extensive litigation about the financial octopus linked to other Giannini family members, former Vatican Bank Chief and crook Marcinkus, the Giannini-linked First National Bank of Cicero, the merger of two corrupt enterprises, Bank of America and Continental Bank, and the involvement of CIA proprietary Household International and Household Bank. Household is the alter ego and successor to the CIA's Nugan-Hand Bank which disappeared in 1980.
Arriving in the fall of 1999 in the Chicago area and closely tracking him, Joseph Andreuccetti contends, has been a "hit" team head, known abroad as "The Sweet Assassin" by the way the killer boss is friendly to his target, kissing the target on the cheek, and then arranging some form of rub-out. This top killer has total immunity, U.S. and Italy, and elsewhere, and has co-ordinated his doings reportedly with the American CIA, primarily in Italy, and with the Italian military intelligence service, SISMI. These efforts are likewise intersected with the operations of Propaganda Due, known as P-2, a super-secret society pledged to overthrowing representative governments and re-instituting Fascism, the Iron Fist. P-2 has members in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., including judges, legislators, journalists, executive department and cabinet members, espionage officials, and civil and military brass. Reported members include former American secret political police chief George Herbert Walker Bush and retired war industry chieftain Alexander Haig, once head of NATO.
