ROME
Reuters

ROME | Fri Sep 20, 2013

(Reuters) – A prelate and former Vatican finance official at the center of a money-laundering investigation will appear in court on December 3, judicial sources said on Friday.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano is accused along with a secret service agent and a financial broker of conspiring to smuggle millions of euros out of Switzerland for rich shipbuilder friends in his home town of Salerno, near Naples, in southern Italy.

The case has added to the clouds over the Vatican Bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR).

Although no evidence has emerged that could link the IOR directly to the charges against Scarano, the bank was already caught up in an investigation into suspected money laundering, which eventually led investigators to him.