Vatican Bank Mentioned in Stolen Computer Files

By Fiorenza Sarzanini
Corriere della Sera
November 5, 2015

http://www.corriere.it/english/15_novembre_04/vatican-bank-mentioned-stolen-computer-files-3eefc85e-82eb-11e5-a218-19a04df8a451.shtml

ROME Various confidential documents have been stolen but not yet made public, secret papers that recount events in recent years at the IOR, the Vatican bank. Some of the documents have ended up in two books on the Vatican, due to be released tomorrow, while others are being pursued by investigators from the Vatican Gendarmerie, and could lead to new, sensational developments. This is why investigations are now focusing on various computer experts with hacking skills who may have helped Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui find and copy the leaked documents. The Vatican gendarmerie has been keeping an eye on them for some time. Further evidence is thought to have been provided by the computer and mobile phone of Monsignor Vallejo Balda. By analysing the contacts of the high-ranking prelate, it was possible to reconstruct his network of relations in recent months. The data stored on his computer and phone may in fact provide confirmation of information gleaned from telephone tapping and other checks carried out since last May. It should also be considered that a few weeks ago Monsignor Vallejo Balda began to suspect he was under investigation, leading him to make moves that ultimately betrayed him. After being summoned to the Vatican, Chaouqui also had the distinct feeling that she had been framed, which is why she decided to cooperate.

She swears she is a victim and hasn’t done anything wrong. According to indiscretions, investigators are also focusing on the role played by her husband, a computer expert who worked for a long time on the last-level system of the Holy See.ROME Various confidential documents have been stolen but not yet made public, secret papers that recount events in recent years at the IOR, the Vatican bank. Some of the documents have ended up in two books on the Vatican, due to be released tomorrow, while others are being pursued by investigators from the Vatican Gendarmerie, and could lead to new, sensational developments. This is why investigations are now focusing on various computer experts with hacking skills who may have helped Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui find and copy the leaked documents. The Vatican gendarmerie has been keeping an eye on them for some time. Further evidence is thought to have been provided by the computer and mobile phone of Monsignor Vallejo Balda. By analysing the contacts of the high-ranking prelate, it was possible to reconstruct his network of relations in recent months. The data stored on his computer and phone may in fact provide confirmation of information gleaned from telephone tapping and other checks carried out since last May. It should also be considered that a few weeks ago Monsignor Vallejo Balda began to suspect he was under investigation, leading him to make moves that ultimately betrayed him. After being summoned to the Vatican, Chaouqui also had the distinct feeling that she had been framed, which is why she decided to cooperate.

The investigative strategy involves calling in new potential suspects simply as “people with knowledge of the case”, in order to ensure their willingness to cooperate. Some of them in fact work at the Vatican and in addition to possible legal consequences, risk losing their jobs. The scenario is similar to that of three and a half years ago, when it was discovered that although there were various “spies”, only one paid the consequences – at least officially –, namely the secretary of Pope Benedict XVI, Paolo Gabriele. The stakes this time are even higher, since the programme of renewal pursued by the Pope is involved, but especially because economic and financial aspects of the Holy See are at issue.

The IOR remains at the heart of this new investigation on Vatican moles because, despite commitments to cooperate fully with the Italian judiciary, widespread reticence has marked relations with prosecutors in charge of investigations into accounts held with the IOR or links with other banks, above all Deutsche Bank. This reinforces the suspicion that the latest leak may actually regard the identity of the account holders, and transactions performed to bypass checks. Consequently, and since it is contained in confidential documents, the information may also be used for blackmail.

The existence of these accounts, numbering at least a hundred, and mostly encrypted in order to conceal the names of the people who opened and used them, was confirmed by the new senior management of the IOR, who however stressed that the accounts in question would soon be closed. The account holders are in fact lay people, while the IOR’s bylaws prohibit the bank from having customers outside the Church. The announcement that the accounts would be frozen was in fact made precisely in the light of the Vatican’s new policy of transparency. That’s not how things went, however. Various deposit accounts, including those used for the transit of illicit proceeds, as documented by Italian judicial inquiries, are still operational. This fact may have fuelled the interest of those who stole documents from the computer system and from the databank of Cosea, the Commission appointed to study the Vatican’s economic and administrative difficulties, of which Balda and Chaouqui were members.