Born into a poor family at Patti, a small comune (municipality) in the province of Messina (Sicily), to a Neapolitan father, a florist who specialized in funeral wreaths,[2] and a Sicilian mother, Sindona was educated by the Jesuits, and showed very early in his life an unusual aptitude for mathematics and economics.

After landing on Sicily the Allied Forces gave important posts to the mafia, to reduce the influence of Communists and for them to organise the distribution of food aid.

According to the Mafia pentito (repentant) Francesco Marino Mannoia, Sindona laundered the proceeds of heroin trafficking for the Bontade-Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino network.

[4][failed verification][clarification needed] Within a year of being chosen by the Gambino family to manage their heroin profits, Sindona bought his first bank.

[citation needed] In 1972, Sindona's Fasco International Holding purchased a controlling interest in Long Island's Franklin National Bank from Laurence Tisch.

On 8 October 1974 the bank was declared insolvent due to mismanagement and fraud, involving losses in foreign currency speculation and poor loan policies.

Shortly before he was killed, the American Mafia hitman William Arico, a convicted bank robber, invoked the name of Giulio Andreotti – the influential Christian Democrat politician close to Sindona – in a threatening phone call taped by Ambrosoli.

[15] The federal court in Manhattan, in addition to the 25-year prison sentence for the failure of the Franklin National Bank,[16] fined Sindona $207,000.