via Reuters:
VATICAN CITY(Reuters) - Vatican financial investigators suspect a department of the Holy See which oversees real estate and investments was used in the past for possible money laundering, insider trading and market manipulation, according to a report seen by Reuters. The information in the confidential document, which covers the period from 2000 to 2011, has been passed on to Italian and Swiss investigators for their checks because some activity tied to the accounts allegedly took place in these countries, a senior Vatican source said.
Showing posts with label money laundering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money laundering. Show all posts
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Norway Sues Catholic Church for 'Fraud'
via Naharnet.com:
Norway is claiming 4.6 million euros ($5.1 million) compensation from the Catholic church for exaggerating membership numbers to obtain more state aid, the Oslo diocese said Monday. The diocese, its bishop and the financial officer are suspected of fraudulently registering thousands of people on its membership lists between 2010 and 2014, which enabled it to obtain 50 million kroner (more than $6.0 million or 5.8 million euros) in state subsidies. Norway's church denies engaging in fraud but has admitted its past methods were "unsatisfactory."
In Norway, a predominantly Protestant country, the state provides subsidies to organized religions, the size of which is determined by the number of members. The Dagbladet daily, which first broke the story, said the diocese had received a letter from the administration on Monday calling for the 40.6 million krone overpayment to be refunded. A spokeswoman for the diocese, Lisa Wade, confirmed the contents of the letter. She told AFP that the church would not be paying the sum and would take the matter up with the culture ministry. We have a very different understanding of the law," she said. "It's complex. It's not like it's a clear-cut case."
Norway's Roman Catholic minority had 140,000 registered members in 2014, more than double the number in 2010.
To explain the jump, the Church has claimed it benefited from a large wave of Catholic immigrants, notably Poles, who practiced their religion but did not register with the Church, which in turn cost the Church more but did not result in increased state subsidies.
Their names have now been removed from the list. More than 21,000 other cases have yet to be clarified. Police raided the Catholic Church's offices on February 26 on suspicions of "aggravated fraud."
Norway is claiming 4.6 million euros ($5.1 million) compensation from the Catholic church for exaggerating membership numbers to obtain more state aid, the Oslo diocese said Monday. The diocese, its bishop and the financial officer are suspected of fraudulently registering thousands of people on its membership lists between 2010 and 2014, which enabled it to obtain 50 million kroner (more than $6.0 million or 5.8 million euros) in state subsidies. Norway's church denies engaging in fraud but has admitted its past methods were "unsatisfactory."
In Norway, a predominantly Protestant country, the state provides subsidies to organized religions, the size of which is determined by the number of members. The Dagbladet daily, which first broke the story, said the diocese had received a letter from the administration on Monday calling for the 40.6 million krone overpayment to be refunded. A spokeswoman for the diocese, Lisa Wade, confirmed the contents of the letter. She told AFP that the church would not be paying the sum and would take the matter up with the culture ministry. We have a very different understanding of the law," she said. "It's complex. It's not like it's a clear-cut case."
Norway's Roman Catholic minority had 140,000 registered members in 2014, more than double the number in 2010.
To explain the jump, the Church has claimed it benefited from a large wave of Catholic immigrants, notably Poles, who practiced their religion but did not register with the Church, which in turn cost the Church more but did not result in increased state subsidies.
Their names have now been removed from the list. More than 21,000 other cases have yet to be clarified. Police raided the Catholic Church's offices on February 26 on suspicions of "aggravated fraud."
Monday, September 15, 2014
Organised crime in Italy: "I am an 'illuminato'"
via Spiegel:
The shadowy Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, has become one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the Western world through its dominance of the European cocaine trade. For the first time, local syndicate bosses described their business model to SPIEGEL. It's a mixture of entrepreneurial talent, skillful management and deadly ruthlessness...For the meeting with SPIEGEL, Carlo has suggested a café in a town outside Munich. He is sitting in the shade of tall trees, a fit man in his late 50s, with alert eyes and a shaved head. He explains why men like him never go to prison, even though they bring cocaine to Germany by the ton...A diamond set in a gold ring flashes for a moment, and then Carlo continues where he left off: "I am an 'illuminato,'" he says, speaking German with an Italian accent. In mafia circles, a distinction is made between "illuminati" ("enlightened ones") and "manovali" ("henchmen"). The diamond is a sign of Carlo's high rank...Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has long had its sights set on the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia. The 'Ndrangheta was responsible for almost all of the attention-grabbing mafia crimes committed on German soil in recent years...According to an internal BKA report, Germany is a key hub in the European cocaine trade as a "transit and organization country."..He is wearing a black shirt, black trousers and black loafers -- elegant Italian products, all made of high-quality materials. He was baptized at 18, he says.
He is referring to the secret ritual in which he was accepted into the "onorata società," or "honored society," as the 'Ndrangheta calls itself. His uncle brought him into the organization. This is often the case in such organizations, where cohesion is based on kinship and there are few traitors as a result.
In Italy, such turncoats are known as "pentiti," or "the repentant ones." They are mafia members who, after being arrested, break the "omertà," or vow of silence, and tell all. They become key witnesses for the prosecution. According to statistics compiled by the Italian judiciary, until 2008 there were about 1,000 pentiti affiliated with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, 2,000 with the Camorra in Naples -- but only 42 with the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta. Members of the 'Ndrangheta, known as 'Ndranghetisti, do not taint the blood of their families through betrayal.
..."Our customers in Germany are mostly pimps and a large biker gang," says Carlo. "We deliver in units of 50 to 70 kilograms (110 to 154 pounds), often to brothels." He says that he doesn't know what happens to the cocaine there. The 'Ndrangheta are careful not to take risks by committing ordinary crimes. "We don't deal drugs on German streets,"...The BKA report states that the Calabrian mafia has developed "deep-seated structures" in Germany, complete with "leaders from individual clans, as well as killers."...The experts with Germany's BKA have studied the current structure of the 'Ndrangheta. According to the BKA report, the syndicate is "no longer structured horizontally in individual family clans, but, like the Cosa Nostra, in the form of a pyramid."...To this day, strategic alliances are formed between families in the 'Ndrangheta through marriage..."We want to go to the source of government contracts and subsidies, politics," says Carlo.
Getting into Politics
A case that was uncovered in 2010 shows how the 'Ndrangheta is doing this. Italians who live in Germany have the right to vote in Italy. This prompted the Farao clan to send some of its members to Baden-Württemberg in 2008 with suitcases full of cash, which they used to buy their fellow Italians' votes in a parliamentary election.
This is how Nicola Di Girolamo, 51, a member of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL), is believed to have gained his seat in the Senate in Rome. He was arrested in early 2010 on charges of having helped the 'Ndrangheta to launder about €2 billion through Italian telephone companies, with the help of straw men...
related, via The Economist. Ndrangheta is the same organization that the ITCCS has accused of supplying children for human hunting parties attended by royalty:
FROM modest beginnings as the local mafia of Calabria, at the toe of the Italian boot, the ’Ndrangheta has spread far and wide. It has penetrated Italy’s financial and industrial heartlands, Lombardy and Piedmont, more than any other organised-crime group. It has a dominant position in the transatlantic cocaine trade, building on alliances with Colombian and then Mexican mobsters. One study put its turnover in 2013 at over €50 billion ($69 billion).
But who controls the ’Ndrangheta? The question is central to one of Italy’s longest-running mafia trials, which is expected to end shortly after almost three years. The trial arose from an investigation code-named “Operation Goal” that led in 2010 to more than 40 arrests. Among the accused are members of the most notorious families in Reggio di Calabria...The earliest hint of a hidden ’Ndrangheta emerged in 2007, during an investigation overseen by Mr Lombardo into how the group tried to profit from the construction of a new motorway. Eavesdropping on a trade unionist, Sebastiano Altomonte, police heard him describe his contacts with ’Ndrangheta leaders and explain to his wife that they were split between “the visible and the invisible, which was born a couple of years ago”. He was among the “invisibles”, he said. It was previously believed that a co-ordinating body, the Provincia, was the ’Ndrangheta’s high command; it also has an assembly called the Crimine (“Crime”), believed to meet once a year during the pilgrimage to a sanctuary in the Aspromonte uplands.
As the judges who convicted Mr Altomonte and others noted, his remarks open up “an entirely new scenario” in which there exists a separate (and perhaps higher) level of ’Ndrangheta leadership previously unknown to investigators. The police began a painstaking process of revisiting old cases and reinterrogating state witnesses (known as pentiti). Some pentiti acknowledged the existence of a hidden level; others did not. But, says Mr Lombardo, that was to be expected: according to Mr Altomonte, even some bosses are unaware of the ’Ndrangheta’s invisible arm.
Not all the evidence in support of his view has been presented in court; what has been is tenuous yet intriguing. One pentito described a Fellini-esque visit with a top ’Ndrangheta man to an office like a notary’s in the posh Rome district of Parioli. He spoke of a “kind of confessional” in the corridor where he had to wait and a plaque bearing odd letters matching one in the home of his clan’s boss.
The shadowy Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta, has become one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the Western world through its dominance of the European cocaine trade. For the first time, local syndicate bosses described their business model to SPIEGEL. It's a mixture of entrepreneurial talent, skillful management and deadly ruthlessness...For the meeting with SPIEGEL, Carlo has suggested a café in a town outside Munich. He is sitting in the shade of tall trees, a fit man in his late 50s, with alert eyes and a shaved head. He explains why men like him never go to prison, even though they bring cocaine to Germany by the ton...A diamond set in a gold ring flashes for a moment, and then Carlo continues where he left off: "I am an 'illuminato,'" he says, speaking German with an Italian accent. In mafia circles, a distinction is made between "illuminati" ("enlightened ones") and "manovali" ("henchmen"). The diamond is a sign of Carlo's high rank...Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has long had its sights set on the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia. The 'Ndrangheta was responsible for almost all of the attention-grabbing mafia crimes committed on German soil in recent years...According to an internal BKA report, Germany is a key hub in the European cocaine trade as a "transit and organization country."..He is wearing a black shirt, black trousers and black loafers -- elegant Italian products, all made of high-quality materials. He was baptized at 18, he says.
He is referring to the secret ritual in which he was accepted into the "onorata società," or "honored society," as the 'Ndrangheta calls itself. His uncle brought him into the organization. This is often the case in such organizations, where cohesion is based on kinship and there are few traitors as a result.
In Italy, such turncoats are known as "pentiti," or "the repentant ones." They are mafia members who, after being arrested, break the "omertà," or vow of silence, and tell all. They become key witnesses for the prosecution. According to statistics compiled by the Italian judiciary, until 2008 there were about 1,000 pentiti affiliated with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, 2,000 with the Camorra in Naples -- but only 42 with the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta. Members of the 'Ndrangheta, known as 'Ndranghetisti, do not taint the blood of their families through betrayal.
..."Our customers in Germany are mostly pimps and a large biker gang," says Carlo. "We deliver in units of 50 to 70 kilograms (110 to 154 pounds), often to brothels." He says that he doesn't know what happens to the cocaine there. The 'Ndrangheta are careful not to take risks by committing ordinary crimes. "We don't deal drugs on German streets,"...The BKA report states that the Calabrian mafia has developed "deep-seated structures" in Germany, complete with "leaders from individual clans, as well as killers."...The experts with Germany's BKA have studied the current structure of the 'Ndrangheta. According to the BKA report, the syndicate is "no longer structured horizontally in individual family clans, but, like the Cosa Nostra, in the form of a pyramid."...To this day, strategic alliances are formed between families in the 'Ndrangheta through marriage..."We want to go to the source of government contracts and subsidies, politics," says Carlo.
Getting into Politics
A case that was uncovered in 2010 shows how the 'Ndrangheta is doing this. Italians who live in Germany have the right to vote in Italy. This prompted the Farao clan to send some of its members to Baden-Württemberg in 2008 with suitcases full of cash, which they used to buy their fellow Italians' votes in a parliamentary election.
This is how Nicola Di Girolamo, 51, a member of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL), is believed to have gained his seat in the Senate in Rome. He was arrested in early 2010 on charges of having helped the 'Ndrangheta to launder about €2 billion through Italian telephone companies, with the help of straw men...
related, via The Economist. Ndrangheta is the same organization that the ITCCS has accused of supplying children for human hunting parties attended by royalty:
FROM modest beginnings as the local mafia of Calabria, at the toe of the Italian boot, the ’Ndrangheta has spread far and wide. It has penetrated Italy’s financial and industrial heartlands, Lombardy and Piedmont, more than any other organised-crime group. It has a dominant position in the transatlantic cocaine trade, building on alliances with Colombian and then Mexican mobsters. One study put its turnover in 2013 at over €50 billion ($69 billion).
But who controls the ’Ndrangheta? The question is central to one of Italy’s longest-running mafia trials, which is expected to end shortly after almost three years. The trial arose from an investigation code-named “Operation Goal” that led in 2010 to more than 40 arrests. Among the accused are members of the most notorious families in Reggio di Calabria...The earliest hint of a hidden ’Ndrangheta emerged in 2007, during an investigation overseen by Mr Lombardo into how the group tried to profit from the construction of a new motorway. Eavesdropping on a trade unionist, Sebastiano Altomonte, police heard him describe his contacts with ’Ndrangheta leaders and explain to his wife that they were split between “the visible and the invisible, which was born a couple of years ago”. He was among the “invisibles”, he said. It was previously believed that a co-ordinating body, the Provincia, was the ’Ndrangheta’s high command; it also has an assembly called the Crimine (“Crime”), believed to meet once a year during the pilgrimage to a sanctuary in the Aspromonte uplands.
As the judges who convicted Mr Altomonte and others noted, his remarks open up “an entirely new scenario” in which there exists a separate (and perhaps higher) level of ’Ndrangheta leadership previously unknown to investigators. The police began a painstaking process of revisiting old cases and reinterrogating state witnesses (known as pentiti). Some pentiti acknowledged the existence of a hidden level; others did not. But, says Mr Lombardo, that was to be expected: according to Mr Altomonte, even some bosses are unaware of the ’Ndrangheta’s invisible arm.
Not all the evidence in support of his view has been presented in court; what has been is tenuous yet intriguing. One pentito described a Fellini-esque visit with a top ’Ndrangheta man to an office like a notary’s in the posh Rome district of Parioli. He spoke of a “kind of confessional” in the corridor where he had to wait and a plaque bearing odd letters matching one in the home of his clan’s boss.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Catholic charities' vanishing donations, inmate neglect
source: Forbes, via Occupy the Vatican:
They call her the ‘Angel of Mercy’. She was compassion incarnate; she didn’t think twice before touching a leper on the road or cleaning a festering wound on an unfortunate soul...The world knows her as Mother Teresa...When one pays a visit to Mother House, the heart of the 58-year-old Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, one doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary... it is calm and pious, a world away from the cacophony outside on the busy A.J.C. Bose road.
But the cacophony is threatening to spill inside the Missionaries. Followers and volunteers are questioning the quality of service given in the care centers. They feel the Missionaries’ care centers are allergic to using modern-day therapy and technology to care for the inhabitants. Often untrained volunteers are given tasks that would normally require one to be trained in medicine and therapy...The discord is most pronounced in the first home that Mother Teresa set up in 1952–Nirmal Hriday, the Home for Dying Destitutes...It presently has 99 inmates, served by six sisters and dozens of volunteers, mostly young foreigners...It is the kind of work that inspired Hemley Gonzalez, who lived on the other side of the world in Miami, United States. A migrant from Cuba, Gonzalez had grown up in a poor neighborhood and was inspired after reading a biography of Mother Teresa. “I wanted to come to India and serve in Kalighat (the place where Nirmal Hriday is situated),” he recounts over the phone. Gonzales, who runs a real estate business in Miami, reached Kolkata in December 2008 and stayed for two months.
“I was shocked to see the negligence. Needles were washed in cold water and reused and expired medicines were given to the inmates. There were people who had chance to live if given proper care,” says Hemley. He narrates incidents of an untrained volunteer wrongly feeding a paralyzed inmate, who choked to his death; and another where an infected toe of an inmate was cut without anesthesia. “I have decided to go back to Kolkata to start a charity that will be called ‘Responsible Charity.’ Each donation will be made public and professional medical help will be given,” says Hemley, who now runs a campaign on Facebook called ‘Stop Missionaries of Charity,’ and has over 2,000 members...volunteers also cite the need for a well-planned rehabilitation for the sick who go back to the streets once they recover. “Some were sent back to the streets of their own will, but some against it,” says a European volunteer who has been coming to Nirmal Hriday since 2006. She cites the example of an “old lady” suffering from diabetes and incapable of walking. “We were told she was sent to another centre outside Kolkata but just few days later someone saw her on the street close to our centre… We were worried but could not do much.”
...Gonzalez questions why money can’t be used to improve the service at the homes run by the sisters. “Even the inmates soiled and infected clothes are washed by hands. Why can’t they buy a washing machine?” he asks.
It has become a sensitive issue since 2005 when a British television crew filmed children at Daya Dan, a care centre, tied to their beds. Questions arouse about the “primitive practices and lack of using modern methods of teaching.” The incident forced Mother House to release a statement saying, “We value constructive criticism and admit that there is always room for improvement.” Volunteers, who come in dozens from countries like Spain and Italy, have separately narrated incidents about sisters resorting to “shaking violently” or “beating” to discipline the challenged children..."Unfortunately, we are still in the dark when it comes to their financial records,” says Gonzalez.
In early 2000, Susan Shields, a former Missionaries sister who left the organization “unhappy”, created a furor by saying she herself had “written receipts of $50,000″ in donation but there was no sign of the “flood of money.” Forbes India talked to a volunteer in the Los Angeles office of Missionaries of Charity who admitted that “even when bread was over at the soup kitchens, none was bought unless donated.” A report in German magazine Stern, revealed that in 1991 only seven percent of the donation received at Missionaries of Charity was used for charity. Former volunteers and people close to the Mother House revealed that the Vatican, home to the Pope, has control over the “monetary matters” ever since Missionaries of Charity came under its fold in 1965.
When asked about how much money the Charity gets annually, the then superior general Sister Nirmala in a rare media interview a few years ago remarked “Countless.” When asked how much it was, she answered, “God knows. He is our banker.” Forbes India’s request for details was turned down at the Mother House.
They call her the ‘Angel of Mercy’. She was compassion incarnate; she didn’t think twice before touching a leper on the road or cleaning a festering wound on an unfortunate soul...The world knows her as Mother Teresa...When one pays a visit to Mother House, the heart of the 58-year-old Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, one doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary... it is calm and pious, a world away from the cacophony outside on the busy A.J.C. Bose road.
But the cacophony is threatening to spill inside the Missionaries. Followers and volunteers are questioning the quality of service given in the care centers. They feel the Missionaries’ care centers are allergic to using modern-day therapy and technology to care for the inhabitants. Often untrained volunteers are given tasks that would normally require one to be trained in medicine and therapy...The discord is most pronounced in the first home that Mother Teresa set up in 1952–Nirmal Hriday, the Home for Dying Destitutes...It presently has 99 inmates, served by six sisters and dozens of volunteers, mostly young foreigners...It is the kind of work that inspired Hemley Gonzalez, who lived on the other side of the world in Miami, United States. A migrant from Cuba, Gonzalez had grown up in a poor neighborhood and was inspired after reading a biography of Mother Teresa. “I wanted to come to India and serve in Kalighat (the place where Nirmal Hriday is situated),” he recounts over the phone. Gonzales, who runs a real estate business in Miami, reached Kolkata in December 2008 and stayed for two months.
“I was shocked to see the negligence. Needles were washed in cold water and reused and expired medicines were given to the inmates. There were people who had chance to live if given proper care,” says Hemley. He narrates incidents of an untrained volunteer wrongly feeding a paralyzed inmate, who choked to his death; and another where an infected toe of an inmate was cut without anesthesia. “I have decided to go back to Kolkata to start a charity that will be called ‘Responsible Charity.’ Each donation will be made public and professional medical help will be given,” says Hemley, who now runs a campaign on Facebook called ‘Stop Missionaries of Charity,’ and has over 2,000 members...volunteers also cite the need for a well-planned rehabilitation for the sick who go back to the streets once they recover. “Some were sent back to the streets of their own will, but some against it,” says a European volunteer who has been coming to Nirmal Hriday since 2006. She cites the example of an “old lady” suffering from diabetes and incapable of walking. “We were told she was sent to another centre outside Kolkata but just few days later someone saw her on the street close to our centre… We were worried but could not do much.”
...Gonzalez questions why money can’t be used to improve the service at the homes run by the sisters. “Even the inmates soiled and infected clothes are washed by hands. Why can’t they buy a washing machine?” he asks.
It has become a sensitive issue since 2005 when a British television crew filmed children at Daya Dan, a care centre, tied to their beds. Questions arouse about the “primitive practices and lack of using modern methods of teaching.” The incident forced Mother House to release a statement saying, “We value constructive criticism and admit that there is always room for improvement.” Volunteers, who come in dozens from countries like Spain and Italy, have separately narrated incidents about sisters resorting to “shaking violently” or “beating” to discipline the challenged children..."Unfortunately, we are still in the dark when it comes to their financial records,” says Gonzalez.
In early 2000, Susan Shields, a former Missionaries sister who left the organization “unhappy”, created a furor by saying she herself had “written receipts of $50,000″ in donation but there was no sign of the “flood of money.” Forbes India talked to a volunteer in the Los Angeles office of Missionaries of Charity who admitted that “even when bread was over at the soup kitchens, none was bought unless donated.” A report in German magazine Stern, revealed that in 1991 only seven percent of the donation received at Missionaries of Charity was used for charity. Former volunteers and people close to the Mother House revealed that the Vatican, home to the Pope, has control over the “monetary matters” ever since Missionaries of Charity came under its fold in 1965.
When asked about how much money the Charity gets annually, the then superior general Sister Nirmala in a rare media interview a few years ago remarked “Countless.” When asked how much it was, she answered, “God knows. He is our banker.” Forbes India’s request for details was turned down at the Mother House.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Prosecutors investigate Vatican Bank mafia link
via: The Telegraph
Anti Mafia prosecutors have asked the secretive Vatican Bank to disclose details of an account held by a priest in connection with a money laundering and fraud investigation, it emerged on Sunday.
The official request was made more than a month ago but so far the Vatican Bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, has refused to disclose any records of the account held by father Ninni Treppiedi – who is currently suspended from serving as a priest.
Investigators want to know more about vast sums of money that are said to have passed through his account to establish if they were money laundering operations by on the run Mafia Godfather, Matteo Messina Denaro.
The reports emerged in the Italian media and came just two weeks after the head of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was sacked amid claims of power struggles and corruption within the Holy See which have been linked to the leaking of sensitive documents belonging to Pope Benedict XVI.
More in line with a Dan Brown thriller, it is not the first time that the Vatican Bank has been embroiled in claims of Mafia money laundering. Thirty years ago this month financier Roberto Calvi was found hanging under London's Blackfriars Bridge with cash and bricks stuffed into his pockets.
Initially City of London police recorded the death as suicide but Italian authorities believe it was murder after it emerged Calvi, known as God's Banker because of his links to the Vatican Bank, had been trying to launder millions of pounds of mob money via its accounts and through his own Banco Ambrosiano which had collapsed spectacularly. more...
Anti Mafia prosecutors have asked the secretive Vatican Bank to disclose details of an account held by a priest in connection with a money laundering and fraud investigation, it emerged on Sunday.
The official request was made more than a month ago but so far the Vatican Bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, has refused to disclose any records of the account held by father Ninni Treppiedi – who is currently suspended from serving as a priest.
Investigators want to know more about vast sums of money that are said to have passed through his account to establish if they were money laundering operations by on the run Mafia Godfather, Matteo Messina Denaro.
The reports emerged in the Italian media and came just two weeks after the head of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was sacked amid claims of power struggles and corruption within the Holy See which have been linked to the leaking of sensitive documents belonging to Pope Benedict XVI.
More in line with a Dan Brown thriller, it is not the first time that the Vatican Bank has been embroiled in claims of Mafia money laundering. Thirty years ago this month financier Roberto Calvi was found hanging under London's Blackfriars Bridge with cash and bricks stuffed into his pockets.
Initially City of London police recorded the death as suicide but Italian authorities believe it was murder after it emerged Calvi, known as God's Banker because of his links to the Vatican Bank, had been trying to launder millions of pounds of mob money via its accounts and through his own Banco Ambrosiano which had collapsed spectacularly. more...
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Government officials tight-lipped on bank scandal investigation
via:The Tribune
Published On:Tuesday, August 09, 2011
GOVERNMENT officials remain tightlipped over why the Bahamas government has failed to co-operate with a longstanding, multi-million dollar bank scandal investigation.
Since tracing several hundred million of missing funds to accounts in the Bahamas in 2005, sources claim that local authorities have ignored official requests for assistance - the most recent of which was sent in 2008...The tale of murder, Mafia plots, international money laundering schemes, and clandestine Masonic sects, placed the Bahamas branch of the bank, Banco Ambrosiano Overseas Limited, at the very centre of the scandal.
According to the press in Italy and the UK, Italian prosecutors are looking for funds allegedly squirreled away by former bank chairman Roberto Calvi, known as "God's banker" because the Vatican Bank was the largest shareholder. more:
Published On:Tuesday, August 09, 2011
GOVERNMENT officials remain tightlipped over why the Bahamas government has failed to co-operate with a longstanding, multi-million dollar bank scandal investigation.
Since tracing several hundred million of missing funds to accounts in the Bahamas in 2005, sources claim that local authorities have ignored official requests for assistance - the most recent of which was sent in 2008...The tale of murder, Mafia plots, international money laundering schemes, and clandestine Masonic sects, placed the Bahamas branch of the bank, Banco Ambrosiano Overseas Limited, at the very centre of the scandal.
According to the press in Italy and the UK, Italian prosecutors are looking for funds allegedly squirreled away by former bank chairman Roberto Calvi, known as "God's banker" because the Vatican Bank was the largest shareholder. more:
Vatican Bank hit by financial scandal... again
I'm a bit late on this post but it's better late than never.
Investigators are closing in on the Pope's bank, dissatisfied by claims that it will change its ways
By Victor Simpson and Nicole Winfield
Sunday, 19 December 2010
This is no ordinary bank. The ATMs are in Latin, priests use a private entrance, and a life-sized portrait of Pope Benedict XVI hangs on the wall. Nevertheless, l'Istituto per le Opere di Religione (the Institute for Religious Works) is a bank, and it is under harsh new scrutiny, including money-laundering allegations that led police to seize €23m (£19.5m) in Vatican assets in September. Critics say the case shows that the "Vatican Bank" has never shed its penchant for secrecy and scandal.
The Vatican calls the seizure of assets a "misunderstanding" and expresses optimism that it will be cleared up quickly. But 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 the 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. more...
Investigators are closing in on the Pope's bank, dissatisfied by claims that it will change its ways
By Victor Simpson and Nicole Winfield
Sunday, 19 December 2010
This is no ordinary bank. The ATMs are in Latin, priests use a private entrance, and a life-sized portrait of Pope Benedict XVI hangs on the wall. Nevertheless, l'Istituto per le Opere di Religione (the Institute for Religious Works) is a bank, and it is under harsh new scrutiny, including money-laundering allegations that led police to seize €23m (£19.5m) in Vatican assets in September. Critics say the case shows that the "Vatican Bank" has never shed its penchant for secrecy and scandal.
The Vatican calls the seizure of assets a "misunderstanding" and expresses optimism that it will be cleared up quickly. But 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 the 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. more...
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