Vatican, mafia, secret services: the shocking disappearance of teenage Emanuela Orlandi

November 30, 2022 Cherry Timbol Italy, Religion 0

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One of the most famous unsolved cases in Italy

The Netflix docuseries ‘Vatican Girl’ has recounted one of the most shocking stories in Italian-Vatican relations. It’s an unsolved case of a missing girl that moved Italian society and also went around the world.

A complex case with new testimony

Over the course of four episodes, the Netflix series brings order to the dense plot of the crime story. It has interviews with the family and testimonies that have never been released before.

The Vatican, the Mafia and the Secret Service

The unsolved case attracted the attention of Netflix because its new clues led to the Vatican, the mafia, and meddling by secret service agents. It almost seems like the plot of an intricate and gripping thriller.

The disappearance of a teenage girl in 1983

There’s little we know for sure about this case. On July 22, 1983, around 19:00, Emanuela Orlandi disappeared into thin air after a music lesson. She left no trace whatsoever. The girl was 15 years old and the fourth of five children of an employee of the Vatican Prefecture, Ettore Orlandi.

The last contact with the family

Her last contact with the family was a phone call in which the girl told her parents that she would get home a little later. She mentioned that a man had offered her a job: distributing flyers for a cosmetic brand during a fashion show. Later, when asked about it, the company denies having planned any such promotional work.

The search for Emanuela Orlandi

After the phone call, nothing was heard anymore from Emanuela Orlandi. She did not come home that evening and the family went around Rome all night to look for the girl. Vatican City, where they lived, closed its gates every night after dark.

Another girl had disappeared shortly before

Initially, police investigators linked Emanuela’s disappearance to that of Mirella Gregori, which occurred in the city in May of the same year. The two girls were the same age and both seemed to have disappeared into thin air. However, there were no other similarities and connections between the two cases.

The Pope addressed the girl’s disappearance

On July 3, during the Angelus, Pope John Paul II spoke to those responsible for Emanuela’s disappearance and asked them to keep her safe and free her.

Did the Pope know more?

This remarkable comment by the Pope appeared to confirm that the girl had, indeed, been kidnapped. Also, his words suggested that the Vatican knew more about the case.

‘Kidnappers’ seemed to want to trade for a terrorist

From the day of the Angelus until the end of July, the Orlandi family received 16 phone calls from a man with a marked American accent. He said that the girl would be returned in exchange for the release of Ali Agca, a Turkish terrorist who had tried to kill the Pope two years earlier.

The Gray Wolves

In addition to the ‘Americano,’ the Turkish terrorist group of the Gray Wolves – to which Agca belonged – also claimed to have kidnapped Emanuela. They, too, asked for the release of the Turkish terrorist. However, the group could never give any proof that they really had anything to do with the case.

The Stasi

Moreover, in the 1990s, after the fall of the Eastern Bloc, a former Stasi agent revealed that the statements of the Gray Wolves were false. Allegedly, Eastern European secret services were the ones who had tried to kill the pro-democratic Pontiff, and they had used the Gray Wolves to distract the police from their involvement.

1997: investigation closed

Over the years there had been reports of sightings of the young girl in various places, but none were reliable. Every clue led nowhere. So in 1997, the investigation was closed, even though the family kept searching.

The Banda della Magliana

In the mid-2000s, suspicions began to arise that there was a connection between the Orlandi case and the activities of the Banda della Magliana, a Mafia-like criminal organization that dominated Rome in the 80s and 90s.

Anonymous phone call to a TV journalist

A phone call to the show ‘Who has seen it?’ opened this new path of investigation. An anonymous person said that investigators should look into a grave in the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare. As reported by the newspaper ‘La Stampa,’ the caller also referred to a “favor that Renatino did to Cardinal Poletti.” But who was Renatino?

The mobster and the Cardinal

‘Renatino’ was Renato De Pedis, the deceased boss of the Banda della Magliana. According to the anonymous call, he had something to do with a Cardinal of the Vatican! In the photo, he sits to the right of the Pope.

A gangster buried in Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare

To the shock of many Italians, the late criminal had indeed been buried in the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare, a place normally only reserved for cardinals and other high-ranking Vatican residents. Such a thing was impossible without the involvement and permission of the Church.

‘One of us had taken her’

After this discovery, some former members of the Banda della Magliana admitted that the group had been involved in the kidnapping of Emanuela Orlandi. One of their leaders said that he had heard “the girl was ours, that one of us had taken her.”

A question of money

According to the former gangsters, the girl had been kidnapped in order to put pressure on the Vatican for money it owed to the Banda. Yes, you read that right: the Vatican owed money to the mob.

The secret services knew

The money had gone through the financial institution of the Vatican, the Banco Ambrosiano, and it had never been returned. A former agent of the Italian secret service confirmed the tensions over money between the Vatican and Roman organized crime.

Roberto Calvi, the banker who had not returned gang money

The former secret agent claimed that the kidnapping of Emanuela was related to the death of the banker Roberto Calvi (photo). He had been murdered in London in 1982, about a year before the girl disappeared, allegedly because he had not returned the millions of Italian Liras he owed to various groups of gangsters.

Money trail from the mob to the Vatican

Through Calvo’s shady businesses, there were links between the Banda della Magliana and the Vatican, as several journalists and investigators concluded.

Revelations from the gangster’s girlfriend

By that time, the girlfriend of the late ‘Renatini’, Sabrina Minardi, finally opened up about everything she knew about the case. She accused her former partner of having kidnapped and then taken the life of the young Emanuela. Apparently, she said, the crime was committed to send a clear message to “someone very high.”

2015: investigation led nowhere

The revelations of Sabrina Minardi were confusing, however, and her testimony did not convince the investigators. Therefore, the investigation born of the woman’s statements was halted in 2015. Yet, the scenario of a connection between the Banda della Magliana and the Vatican was still considered a viable option.

REFERENCE:

By: Miss Cherry May Timbol – Independent Reporter

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