September 21, 2010

Vatican Bank accused of money laundering

POLITICS/RELIGION - The head of the Vatican Bank is being investigated for money laundering and police have frozen 23 million euros ($30.2 million USD) of the bank's funds.

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who has been head of the Vatican Bank (aka the Institute for Religious Works or IOR) for a year, and another executive from IOR are under investigation because of suspicious bank transactions.

One of the transactions was a transfer of 20 million euros to a German branch of a U.S. bank and another of 3 million euros to an Italian bank.

Gotti Tedeschi, a devout Catholic, is also a close adviser to Italian Treasury Minister Giulio Tremonti, heads the Italian unit of the Spanish Banco Santander, and serves on the board of several major Italian banks. If he is found guilty of money laundering it could hurt his business partners.

This is hardly the first scandal within the Vatican Bank.

In 1982 the Vatican Bank was involved in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy’s largest private bank. The Vatican Bank owned a stake in the bank. Banco Ambrosiano's president Roberto Calvi was found hanged under London’s Blackfriars Bridge in 1982 and allegations of conspiracy and murder have swirled ever since.

Investigators could not determine whether Calvi was murdered or committed suicide. The head of the Vatican Bank at the time was American Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who later died in 2006.

The Vatican denied any responsibility for the falsified collapse of Banco Ambrosiano and denied all knowledge of where the missing funds went.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments containing links will be marked as spam and not approved. We moderate every comment. If you want to advertise on this blog it is $30 per link.

Affordable Website Design & SEO

Looking for a quality professional website designer? Why not go where the smart money is?! Toronto Website Design and Toronto SEO. Get free SEO advice from people who really know the business.

Featured Posts

The Sarcasm Symbol
Ever had some confusion online or with your cellphone when someone fails to catch the sarcasm? Well now with the SarcMark you can ge...
Behold, the Scorpion Hydrogen Supercar
CARS - To the right is the future of supercars... it is a hydrogen supercar called the Scorpion. The Scorpion from Ronn Motors in Texas is t...
Documents show Stephen Harper misusing public funds
CANADA - According to 950+ pages of documents obtained by the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act the Privy Coun...
Pink's Rosie the Riveter
ENTERTAINMENT - What I like about this video is how it meshes different social movements like feminism, veganism, anti-capitalism...
California's Dustbowl
ENVIRONMENT - The photo on the right is a farm in California that has been put up for sale. Its just one of thousands of farms that are n...
Is Steampunk the New Goth???
GOTHIC - Watch out what you see on the subway late at night because while in 2001 you might have seen some pretty freakish goths, by 20...
Do you have enough Ice Water in your diet?
HEALTH - A Calorie (large C) is a measurement of the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a litre of water (1 kg's worth) ...
North Korean timeline towards Inevitable War
POLITICS - The following is timeline of events that have occurred on the Korean Peninsula. 1945 - Japan surrenders to the United States a...
Judgment Day is Tomorrow, so sayeth Cult
RELIGION - According to a cult based in California, Judgement Day is tomorrow (May 21st 2011) and Jesus Christ will return to the Earth a...
Sex in Space Forbidden
SEX/TECHNOLOGY - Sex in outer space is a big no-no according to NASA. Not for professional astronauts at least, but the growing numb...

Popular Posts / Last 30 Days