[Vision2020] God's Boys Help The Rich, Not The Poor

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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June 28, 2013
Cleric Arrested in $26 Million Plot, Leaving New Blot on Vatican Bank By RACHEL
DONADIO<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/d/rachel_donadio/index.html>and
ELISABETTA
POVOLEDO<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/elisabetta_povoledo/index.html>

ROME — A Vatican official. A private plane. And 20 million euros in cash.

Claiming to have foiled a caper worthy of Hollywood, or at least Cinecittà,
the Italian police on Friday arrested a prelate and two others on
corruption charges, saying that the priest plotted last summer to help
wealthy friends sneak the money, the equivalent of about $26 million, into
Italy while evading financial controls.

Along with the prelate, a financial broker and a military police agent
deployed to the Italian Secret Service were arrested after an investigation
that developed out of a broader three-year inquiry into the Vatican Bank.
The case is the latest black mark on the bank, which under Pope Francis and
Pope Benedict XVI has been trying to shake its image as a secretive tax and
money laundering haven and bring itself into compliance with European norms
so it can use the euro.

Rome prosecutors say the three men hired a private plane last July with the
intention of bringing the cash into Italy from Locarno, Switzerland. The
money was to be carried by the Secret Service agent, Giovanni Maria Zito,
who would not be required to declare it at the border. But the scheme fell
through, the prosecutors said, as the three began bickering and,
eventually, lost their nerve. Cellphones used by the three in arranging the
money transfer were later burned, prosecutors said.

The European Union and the United States have served notice in recent years
that they will no longer tolerate the wall of secrecy in tax havens like
Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. As a result, major account
holders have been growing increasingly nervous.

Nello Rossi, the Rome prosecutor who led the investigation, said that
discussions picked up on wiretaps seemed to indicate that the 20 million
euros in Switzerland was tied to the D’Amico family, Salerno shipping
magnates.

Even before his arrest on Friday, the prelate, Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, was
known to the authorities. An employee of Deutsche Bank before entering the
priesthood, and until recently an accountant in a top Vatican financial
office that oversees the Catholic Church’s real estate holdings, Monsignor
Scarano was under investigation by magistrates in Salerno on accusations
that he illegally moved $730,000 in cash from his account in the Vatican
Bank to Italian banks, his lawyer said.

Monsignor Scarano’s lawyer, Silverio Sica, said his client would contest
the charges. “I am certain he will want to speak to prosecutors to clarify
his position,” Mr. Sica said. He added that Monsignor Scarano had had no
previous dealings with the police or with judicial investigations.

In a statement on Friday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico
Lombardi, said that Monsignor Scarano had been suspended from his position
at the Vatican “more than a month ago, ever since his superiors were
informed that he was under investigation.”

He added that the Holy See “has not yet received any requests from the
competent Italian authorities, but confirms its willingness for full
collaboration,” and that the Vatican’s internal financial watchdog was
following the matter and would take, “if necessary, the appropriate
measures in its competency.”

Only priests, members of religious orders, Catholic institutions, employees
of the State of Vatican City and diplomats accredited to the Holy See are
allowed to keep accounts at the Vatican Bank, known as the Institute for
Works of Religion. But rumors have long swirled that accounts were being
used as fronts for other interests, including organized crime and Italian
politicians.

In the Salerno case, prosecutors accuse Monsignor Scarano of having
illegally moved 560,000 euros, equivalent to $730,000, from his account in
the Vatican Bank. Mr. Sica said that the monsignor had told prosecutors
that the money came from a “generous donor” and was intended to finance a
hospice for terminally ill patients in Salerno.

According to Mr. Sica, the prelate needed the sum to pay off a mortgage on
a personal apartment. Because of “controversial reasons of a family
nature,” Monsignor Scarano had been advised to ask 56 friends to accept
10,000 euros apiece, in exchange for money transfers in the same amount,
Mr. Sica said. All 56 are also being investigated by Salerno prosecutors.

The authorities, who have accused Monsignor Scarano of laundering the
money, said he had another reason. “He split the money up so it wouldn’t be
as noticeable,” said Franco Roberti, the chief prosecutor of Salerno.

The investigation came about after Monsignor Scarano reported a break-in at
his apartment late last year, during which the thieves made off with
precious paintings and silver artifacts. That led to questions about where
the art had come from, Mr. Sica said, and then to the discovery of the
moving of the 560,000 euros.

The arrests Friday were the most dramatic events to emerge from the Rome
prosecutors’ investigation into the Vatican Bank since 2010, when
prosecutors seized $30 million from two external accounts used by the
Vatican Bank and placed its then-president and director general under
investigation. The money was later ordered unfrozen after the Vatican
created an internal financial watchdog in 2010, but it has not yet been
released.

The collaboration between the Vatican and investigators in the case was
virtually unprecedented, Giacomo Galeazzi, who follows the Vatican for the
Turin newspaper La Stampa, said in a telephone interview. In the past, the
Vatican had always resisted when asked to assist in judicial matters, he
said, citing a famous kidnapping case that involved the daughter of a
Vatican employee; the case of Roberto Calvi, a banker with close ties to
the Vatican who was found dead in 1982; and the investigation into the
assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.

“This time the collaboration is real, and the Vatican has announced that it
would do its own internal investigation,” Mr. Galeazzi said. “That marks a
real change of climate.” That change can be attributed in part to Pope
Francis, but also to the influence of the American Catholic Church. The
American cardinals “were very upfront about the need to clean up the
Vatican Bank,” he said. “This pope could not deny the prosecutors any
assistance.”


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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