{"id":196613,"date":"2019-10-21T08:04:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T08:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=196613"},"modified":"2019-10-23T06:55:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T06:55:09","slug":"meet-the-mobster-who-claims-he-helped-whack-pope-john-paul-i-over-stock-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=196613","title":{"rendered":"Meet the mobster who claims he helped whack Pope John Paul I over stock fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brad Hamilton \u2013 New York Post Oct 19, 2019<\/h1>\n
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Colombo gangster Anthony Raimondi claims he was present in 1978 when fellow conspirators killed Pope John Paul I with cyanide — because the pontiff threatened to expose a stock fraud by Vatican bank insiders — in the new book “When the Bullet Hits the Bone.” Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

He helped kill the pope \u2014 so his pals could stay out of hell.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the shocking claim from longtime Colombo gangster Anthony Raimondi, who says that, in 1978, he went to Italy with a team of hit men who whacked John Paul I. They allegedly poisoned him with cyanide just 33 days into the pontiff\u2019s reign, according to Raimondi\u2019s new book, \u201cWhen the Bullet Hits the Bone,\u201d out now from Page Publishing.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Cardinal Paul Marcinkus. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Raimondi, the nephew of legendary godfather Lucky Luciano, claims he was recruited for the murder at the age of 28 by his cardinal cousin, Paul Marcinkus, who ran the Vatican bank. Raimondi\u2019s job was to learn the pope\u2019s habits and be on hand to observe as Marcinkus knocked out John Paul by spiking his nightly cup of tea with Valium.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI stood in the hallway outside the pope\u2019s quarters when the tea was served,\u201d he writes, adding that the drug did its job so well that their victim wouldn\u2019t have stirred \u201ceven if there had been an earthquake,\u201d he recounts. \u201cI\u2019d done a lot of things in my time, but I didn\u2019t want to be there in the room when they killed the pope. I knew that would buy me a one-way ticket to hell.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, he stood outside the room as his cousin readied a dose of cyanide, he claims. \u201cHe measured it in the dropper, put the dropper in the pope\u2019s mouth and squeezed,\u201d Raimondi writes. \u201cWhen it was done, he closed the door behind him and walked away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After the snoozing pontiff was force-fed the poison, a papal assistant checked on him, then cried out that \u201cthe pope was dying\u201d \u2014 after which Marcinkus and two other cardinals in on the plot \u201crushed into the bedroom like it was a big surprise,\u201d Raimondi writes. A Vatican doctor was summoned, who ruled that John Paul I had suffered a fatal heart attack, he writes.<\/span><\/p>\n

They used Valium and the deadly toxin so as to kill the pope painlessly \u2014 and to curry favor in the afterlife, Raimondi claims. To prove John Paul I didn\u2019t suffer, Marcinkus and cohorts Pietro Palazzini and Antonio Ribeiro, also his cousins, needed Raimondi to testify on their behalf before God, he claims. \u201cThey said when we die I would be their witness,\u201d Raimondi, now 69, told The Post.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pope John Paul I. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

They targeted the pope because he had threatened to expose a massive stock fraud run by Vatican insiders, according to the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

The billion-dollar scam involved a forgery expert at the Vatican who faked the church\u2019s holdings in blue-chip American companies such as IBM, Sunoco and Coca-Cola. Mobsters then allegedly sold the phony stock certificates to unsuspecting buyers.<\/span><\/p>\n

John Paul I had vowed to defrock the perpetrators, which included Marcinkus and about \u201chalf the cardinals and bishops in the Vatican,\u201d Raimondi told The Post. \u201cThey would have been thrown out and subject to the laws of the US and Italy,\u201d he said. \u201cThey would have gone to jail.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Had John Paul I \u201ckept his mouth shut,\u201d Raimondi writes, \u201che could have had a nice long reign.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The body was barely cold when a new plan was conceived to kill his successor, John Paul II, who appeared poised to take action against the scammers as well, Raimondi writes. So the made mob man was summoned back to the Vatican and told to prepare for a second murder.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2009\u2018This guy\u2019s gotta go, too,\u2019 they said. \u2018No way,\u2019 I said. \u2018What are you going to do? Just keep killing popes?\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, John Paul II decided not to act because he knew he too would die, Raimondi told The Post, then went on to become the second-longest-serving pontiff in modern history, until his death at 84 in 2005.<\/span><\/p>\n

His change of heart also prompted a booze-fueled celebration among crooked cardinals and mobsters in Vatican City, according to Raimondi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe stayed and partied for a week with cardinals wearing civilian clothes, and lots of girls,\u201d he writes. \u201cIf I had to live the rest of my life in Vatican City, it would have been OK with me. It was some setup. My cousins all drove Cadillacs. I am in the wrong business, I thought. I should have become a cardinal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Those who dismiss his claims, or point to the fact his story resembles the plot from \u201cThe Godfather III,\u201d Raimondi shrugs. \u201cIt was a terrible movie. To tell you the truth I don\u2019t really remember it. What I said in the book I stand by till the day I die. If they take [the pope\u2019s body] and do any type of testing, they will still find traces of the poison in his system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Raimondi\u2019s book is loaded with other over-the-top revelations, including intimate details on the Lufthansa heist, one of the most notable rip-offs in mob lore.<\/span><\/p>\n

But his take differs from the movie \u201cGoodfellas,\u201d and the book \u201cWiseguy\u201d on which it was based, as both featured James \u201cJimmy the Gent\u201d Burke, played by Robert De Niro, and Ray Liotta\u2019s Henry Hill as the brains behind the epic theft.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Meyer Lansky, reputed king of American gambling, takes a break outside High Court of Israel where he was appealing for permission to stay in the Jewish state as an immigrant, March 1972. (AP Photo) Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Raimondi \u2014 a fixer and earner for the Colombos \u2014 claims Lufthansa\u2019s real mastermind was Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky, head of the Kosher Nostra and a mentor of Raimondi\u2019s, he claims. \u201cI first brought him in on the plan during a trip to his home in Miami,\u201d he writes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another one of Raimondi\u2019s cousins was friends with gangster Burke, who allegedly got a tip about big money coming through JFK Airport.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when the information circulated among the Lucchese hierarchy, the family couldn\u2019t \u201cfigure out how to put this deal together,\u201d Raimondi writes, so he convinced Lansky to come to New York and orchestrate the smash-and-grab job.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEverything was so well planned,\u201d he writes. \u201cMeyer had set the time for everything to happen. He had it mapped out so everybody had a precise job they had to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, Raimondi claims, the gang got away with far more money than previously believed: about $45 million, including cash, jewelry and $35 million in bearer bonds that Lansky believed had been stolen before being shipped to New York, says the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

Raimondi hid the bonds at his father\u2019s house, after which Meyer fenced them at \u201c85 cents on the dollar,\u201d he writes, and the loot got spread around all five organized-crime families at a social club in Brooklyn on Cortelyou Road.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were there for hours, counting the money and giving everybody their end,\u201d Raimondi writes. \u201cThe bosses came down from all the families personally .\u2009.\u2009. They were getting millions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone was warned to keep low profiles and not make extravagant purchases. But several didn\u2019t \u2014 and were systematically rubbed out, Raimondi writes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael Vecchione, a former top prosecutor at the Brooklyn DA\u2019s office who went after Colombo mobsters and has written three books on crime-fighting, is dubious. \u201cI do remember the name Raimondi coming up, but I never heard anything about Meyer Lansky being involved in the Lufthansa heist,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there\u2019s no way to verify what this guy is saying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the author, he claims he managed to avoid prosecution for years, because he and his crew paid millions of dollars from his own loansharking and clubs to Mayor Ed Koch, with Koch aide Bess Myerson acting as bag lady.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had illegal casinos, shylock money, and Koch got a piece of everything and we never had a problem with the law,\u201d he writes. \u201cI\u2019d take the package for Bess and bring it to [a friend\u2019s] house, where she would come and collect it. I\u2019d put it in a regular canvas bag, and she would just put it in her briefcase.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Raimondi, a hulking and fiercely loyal Colombo member nicknamed Pluto, has a fascinating personal story as well, as he had regular contact with notable gangland figures such as Carmine Galante, Allie Boy Persico and Joe Colombo.<\/span><\/p>\n

He alleges he dodged life in federal prison for a murder he committed as a teen in Brooklyn after the Army recruited him to become a sniper during the Vietnam War.<\/span><\/p>\n

His job, Raimondi claims, was to drop in behind enemy lines in Cambodia and assassinate North Vietnamese fighters, which he says he did ruthlessly.<\/span><\/p>\n

He allegedly returned to the US with a clean record and threw himself into mob business, benefitting from the help of Lansky, who, Raimondi writes, \u201ctaught me so many different ways of shaking down a guy. He also taught me so many ways to kill a guy, because Meyer was deadly. Don\u2019t let nobody fool you: Meyer killed a lot of men in his time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Raimondi, who is now fighting cancer and living in Brooklyn, said he decided to quit the life and tell his story because \u201cI don\u2019t need this s\u2013t any more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll the old guys either went to prison or they died or went into witness protection,\u201d he told The Post.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe new guys didn\u2019t do things the old way. I said, you know what, time to leave.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope John Paul I was killed by mobsters after he threatened to expose a massive stock fraud run by Vatican insiders, claims new book<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Hidden_and_Revisionist_History"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=196613"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196652,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196613\/revisions\/196652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=196613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=196613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=196613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}