Vatican Bank

God's banker was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge, pockets full of bricks.

The Istituto per le Opere di Religione: sovereign, audited by no national regulator, and central to the century's best-documented financial noir — Sindona (poisoned in prison by caffeine-laced espresso after saying he'd talk), Calvi (Blackfriars Bridge), Ambrosiano's $1.3 billion hole, for which the IOR paid $244 million 'in recognition of moral involvement' while admitting nothing. Marcinkus, its American chief, avoided Italian process behind Vatican walls. Reforms since 2014 closed thousands of accounts. It connects P2, BCCI-era laundering, and the archive's oldest institution-shaped question mark.