Meet the mobster who claims he helped whack Pope John Paul I over stock fraud

by Joseph Saraceno
Colombo gangster Anthony Raimondi (left) claims he was present in 1978 when fellow conspirators killed Pope John Paul I (above) with cyanide — because the pontiff threatened to expose a stock fraud by Vatican bank insiders — in the new book “When the Bullet Hits the Bone.”

He helped kill the pope — so his pals could stay out of hell.

That’s the shocking claim from longtime Colombo gangster Anthony Raimondi, who says that, in 1978, he went to Italy with a team of hit men who whacked John Paul I. They allegedly poisoned him with cyanide just 33 days into the pontiff’s reign, according to Raimondi’s new book, “When the Bullet Hits the Bone,” out now from Page Publishing. MORE