Banca Nazionale del Lavoro

Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is a bank in Rome that in 1989 belonged to the Italian state. A cable from the United States embassy described it as "an upstart bank by Italian standards, dating only to 1913 and owing its growth to its role as the key bank for the government in the 1920s and 30s," with the treasury as majority shareholder. Its branch in Atlanta was raided by the FBI on August 4, 1989, in the affair described at BNL Scandal.¹

What Rome Knew

The bank's internal auditor, Luigi Sardelli, reported problems in the Atlanta branch in the fall of 1988. The director general, Giacomo Pedde, told him that October that it was premature to discipline the branch manager, Christopher Drogoul, and the report went unread in Rome until the raid. Pedde also telephoned the head of his financial division to say that a contract of the steel maker Danieli should get personal attention. Two days later Danieli signed to supply a rolling mill worth 140 million marks to the Nassr enterprise in Iraq. The loan was originated by the bank's branch in Udine and booked through Atlanta. "Why not New York," Representative Henry B. Gonzalez asked, "especially since Sardelli had already reported problems in Atlanta to his superiors?" The chairman, Nerio Nesi, and Pedde were forced to resign soon after the disclosure. Both refused to testify in the United States. By September 1992 Pedde had been indicted in Italy over transactions with Iran.¹²

Cantoni and Secchia

Nesi's successor was Giampiero Cantoni, whose ties to the Italian Socialist Party and to the former prime minister Bettino Craxi were, in the words of a State Department cable, a prerequisite for the appointment. The new director general, Paolo Savona, was close to President Francesco Cossiga and to Guido Carli. A recapitalization begun under Nesi brought in the state insurer INA and the state pension system INPS and cut the treasury's direct holding from 75 to 56 percent.¹

Cantoni and Savona called on Ambassador Peter Secchia in October, having arranged the meeting on the flight home from Cossiga's visit to the United States. Cantoni said that his American lawyers were urging him to raise the matter to a "political" level, and that racketeering charges might be brought and assets frozen. On March 16, 1990, an executive vice president named DeVito told the embassy's economic officer that the bank might soon be indicted, that "the matter was urgent," and that he believed the Department of Justice had taken the investigation out of the hands of the United States attorney in Atlanta. On July 25, 1990, a week before the invasion of Kuwait, Cantoni again "made a pitch for the U.S. government to go slowly before making indictments." Gonzalez told the House that "on numerous occasions Mr. Cantoni approached United States Ambassador to Italy, Peter Secchia, about achieving damage control," and that less than ten days after one such request the White House telephoned the prosecutor in Atlanta.¹