Exclusive: Prosecutor freezes accounts of ex-Vatican bank heads

By Philip Pullella
Reuters
December 6, 2014

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2014/12/06/exclusive-prosecutor-freezes-accounts-of-ex-vatican-bank-heads/

An exterior view of the round tower of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) in Vatican City in 2011.

The Vatican’s top prosecutor has frozen 16 million euros in bank accounts owned by two former Vatican bank managers and a lawyer as part of an investigation into the sale of Vatican-owned real estate in the 2000s, according to the freezing order and other legal documents.

Prosecutor Gian Piero Milano said he suspected the three men, former bank president Angelo Caloia, ex-director general Lelio Scaletti, and lawyer Gabriele Liuzzo, of embezzling money while managing the sale of 29 buildings sold by the Vatican bank to mainly Italian buyers between 2001 and 2008, according to a copy of the freezing order reviewed by Reuters.

The money in the three men’s bank accounts “stems from embezzlement they were engaged in,” Milano said in the October 27 sequester order.

Milano’s investigation follows an audit of the Vatican bank by non-Vatican financial consultants commissioned last year by the bank’s current management. The Vatican bank earlier this year also filed a legal complaint against the three men. The men have not been charged.

The Vatican spokesman on Saturday issued a statement confirming the freezing but gave no names, amounts or other details.

The Vatican bank said in a separate statement that it had pressed charges against the three as part of its “commitment to transparency and zero tolerance, including with regard to matters that relate to a more distant past”. The bank statement also gave no details, citing “the ongoing judicial enquiry”.