VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Businessweek
By Carol Matlack
It sounds like a thriller plot: A Vatican cleric, a spy, and a financier accused of conspiring to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) out of Switzerland aboard a private jet. In fact, it’s the latest scandal to hit the Vatican bank, prompting Pope Francis to make sweeping management changes.
The Holy See removed the bank’s longtime director and deputy director on July 1, three days after Monsignor Nunzio Scarano and two other men were arrested in connection with the alleged smuggling scheme. Scarano has denied the allegations.
Since his installation in March, the pope also has appointed a trusted aide to help supervise the bank while naming a special commission to investigate charges of corruption and money laundering that have dogged the institution for decades. The bank also is to start publishing its financial accounts for the first time. Now the Vatican has even reached across the Atlantic for help, recruiting Washington, D.C.-based Promontory Financial Group to conduct a forensic review and screen the bank’s client relationships. The effort will be led by Elizabeth McCaul, a former New York state banking supervisor based in Promontory’s New York City office, and Rafaele Cosimo, an expert in bank governance and operations who works for Promontory in Europe.
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