ROME
ABC News (US)
[with video]
By NICK SCHIFRIN (@nickschifrin) and GIULIA SAUDELLI
LONDON. June 28, 2013
Is the world’s holiest bank riddled with corruption?
Many are asking that question today after a senior Vatican accountant was accused of plotting to sneak $26 million in bags of cash into Italy by stashing them away on a private jet, with the help of a former Italian spy.
The accountant, the former spy and an Italian financial broker have all been arrested in a case that highlights the Vatican’s continuing challenge to eliminate fraud within the famously secretive Vatican Bank.
Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who was the head of analytic accounts at the Holy See’s property-management agency, has been accused of fraud, corruption and slander. He was the middle-man in a complex plot that involved secretly flying his friends’ money from Switzerland to Italy, evading customs and driving to his house in an armored convoy in order to avoid taxes, according to prosecutors.
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