Pablo Escobar and other leading drug lords were encouraged—often by priests and bishops and by Roberto Calvi—to deposit their earnings in eight firms that had been set up by the Vatican as money laundries.1 Six of these firms—Astolfine SA, United Trading Corporation, Erin SA, Bellatrix SA, Belrose SA, and Starfield SA—were in Panama, a seventh—Manic SA—in Luxembourg, and the eighth—Nordeurop Establishment—in Liechtenstein. By 1978, when John Paul II ascended to the papal throne, the money coming in to these firms from the Medellin Cartel alone was enormous, since Escobar, at the height of his
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