Vatican Bank 'allowed clergy to act as front for Mafia and corrupt businessmen'
The Vatican Bank is under new scrutiny in a case involving money-laundering
allegations that led police to seize €23m (£19.25m) in September.
The Vatican calls the seizure of assets a "misunderstanding" and expresses
optimism it will be quickly cleared up. But fresh court documents show that
prosecutors say the Vatican Bank deliberately flouted anti-laundering laws
"with the aim of hiding the ownership, destination and origin of the
capital". The documents also reveal investigators' suspicions that clergy
may have acted as fronts for corrupt businessmen and Mafia.
The documents pinpoint two transactions that have not been reported: one in
2009 involving the use of a false name, and another in 2010 in which the
Vatican Bank withdrew €650,000 from an Italian bank account but ignored bank
requests to disclose where the money was headed.
The new allegations of financial impropriety could not come at a worse time
for the Vatican, already hit by revelations that it sheltered paedophile
priests. The corruption probe has given new hope to Holocaust survivors who
tried unsuccessfully to sue in the United States, alleging that Nazi loot
was stored in the Vatican Bank.
Yet the scandal is hardly the first for the bank, already distinguished from
other banks by the fact that its cash machines are in Latin and priests use
a private entrance.
In 1986, a Vatican financial adviser died after drinking cyanide-laced coffee
in prison. Another, Roberto Calvi, was found dangling from a rope under
London's Blackfriars Bridge in 1982, his pockets stuffed with money and
stones. The incidents blackened the bank's reputation, raised suspicions of
ties with the Mafia, and cost the Vatican hundreds of millions of dollars in
legal clashes with Italian authorities.
On 21 September, financial police seized assets from a Vatican Bank account.
Investigators said the Vatican had failed to furnish information on the
origin or destination of the funds as required by Italian law.
The bulk of the money, €20 million, was destined for the American JP Morgan
bank branch in Frankfurt, Germany, with the remainder going to Banca del
Fucino, an Italian bank.
Prosecutors alleged the Vatican ignored regulations that foreign banks must
communicate to Italian financial authorities where their money has come
from. All banks have declined to comment.
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