Intrigue surrounding banker will not lie down and die

Even from beyond the grave, intrigue and mystery continue to surround Italian banking legend, the late Enrico Cuccia, one time chairman of the Milan investment bank, Mediobanca. Last weekend, Cuccia's family reported that his body had been snatched from the family mausoleum in Meina, near Lago Maggiore, just nine months after he was buried there following his death last June at the age of 92.

In his life, an element of secrecy tended to surround Sicilian-born Cuccia.

The man often referred to as the "father of Italian capitalism" and "the gatekeeper", given that for a long period in post-war Italy just about every major business deal in the land passed through his hands, was also a natural recluse.

In a country where conspiracy theories are a way of life, Cuccia's resolute shunning of publicity inevitably engendered endless speculation, not to say intrigue. To their surprise, "Cuccia-watchers" are at it again this week, speculating on the mysterious disappearance of his body some time last week.

The alarm was originally raised last Friday by Cuccia's long-time housekeeper, Ida Bentivegna. She had gone to place fresh flowers on his grave, only to discover that the family vault appeared to have been vandalised. When Cuccia's son, Beniamino, arrived next day to inspect the damage, he found that the marble side to the tomb had been cracked open and the coffin and corpse removed.

Given that the housekeeper had not visited the grave since March 13th, investigators are not even sure, for the time being at least, exactly when the body was removed. Forensic evidence may well soon resolve the timing of the "body-snatching" but a total mystery remains as to the who and why of this strange crime.

Inevitably, the first explanation is extortion, given that organised (and less organised) crime has been known to ransom dead bodies. However, the Cuccia family claim that no ransom-seekers have so far contacted them.

A second, more exotic, explanation is that the body has been robbed by a group of satanists who might want to use it for some sort of ritual ceremony. This speculation is based on nothing more than a recent minor wave of graveyard vandalism in Northern Italy, apparently traced to so-called satanist cults.

A third explanation was provided earlier this week by journalist Maurizio Blondet, who claimed that Cuccia had been a member of the Frankists, a heretical Jewish sect founded in Poland in the 18th century. According to Mr Blondet, sect members might have stolen Cuccia's body to worship it in the belief that it had magical powers.

Those who knew Mr Cuccia well and recall his deeply religious beliefs - he was a daily Catholic communicant - tend to treat this particular speculation with a larger than usual grain of salt.

Another explanation was supplied on Monday by a group called "Unemployed Revolutionaries" who, in the course of a phone call to the national news agency, ANSA, claimed that they had stolen the body as a "symbolic gesture".

On Tuesday, ANSA received yet another claim, this time by anonymous letter, from someone who claimed that he had been ruined on the stock exchange, adding that Cuccia was principal among those who caused his financial woes. This correspondent offered to hand back the body just as soon as the Milan bourse's key MIB 30 Index (the top 30 quoted companies) showed radical improvement.

Further intrigue was added earlier this week by the testimony of 70-year-old Bruna R., from the village of Meina. She claimed that two men and a woman, all of them with "southern" accents, had been seen around the village last autumn. Furthermore, she claims, one of the trio had asked her where he might find "the grave of that lad with all the money". Although state prosecutor Fabrizio Argentieri has stated several times this week that he rules out "nothing", even terrorism, it is clear that police believe that extortion will provide the key to the case. A ransom demand (if one has not already been made) is expected shortly.

In the meantime, a final ironic twist to the story comes from the fact that Enrico Cuccia's body has been stolen at the very moment that Mediobanca is involved in a major upheaval, as its shareholders, who control about 50 per cent of the bank, struggle to have a say. On Tuesday, shareholders voted to appoint two vice-chairmen to work alongside chief executive Vincenzo Maranghi in the implementation of a new "corporate governance" pact.

Even if the new agreement does not contain major changes, market analysts point out that giving shareholders a greater say in board appointments represents a loosening of Medio banca's grip on its empire.

That grip had, of course, been fashioned by Cuccia who, working often independently of both clients and shareholders, had woven together a spider's web of interconnecting companies largely financed and administered by the "salotto buono" or establishment elite of Italian "family" capitalism, including companies such as FIAT, Olivetti, Pirelli, Montecatini, Edison, Assicurazioni Generali and many others.

A man who tended to adopt an elitist attitude to business practices, Cuccia, in his realpolitik way, was fond of the motto that "shares should be weighed not counted".

Then, too, there was his famous pronouncement during testimony at the trial of Michele Sindona, the former chairman of the Banca Privata Italiana, subsequently convicted for ordering the murder of Giorgio Ambrosoli, the man appointed as liquidator of the Banca Privata.

In an April 1979 conversation with Cuccia, a furious Sindona had threatened not only Cuccia's own son, but also swore that he would have Ambrosoli "taken out". Three months later, in July 1979, Giorgio Ambrosoli was murdered outside his Milan apartment building, shot by a Mafia hit-man called William Arico who had been hired by Sindona.

Asked by a lawyer acting on behalf of Giorgio Ambrosoli's widow as to why he had never told anyone of the threat on Ambrosoli's life, Cuccia replied: "Ambrosoli had already been threatened many times . . . I'm also convinced that in matters like this, silence is the best option."

Doubtless, he would still take that line.