Vatican says Italian arrest shows reform is real

VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Ines San Martin
Vatican correspondent May 25, 2016

ROME—Under Pope Francis, the Vatican has been pursuing financial reform, with the goal, as one senior prelate put it, of making money management “boringly successful.” The recent house arrest of a Roman construction magnate is being touted as proof that the new systems adopted under Francis are working.

Angelo Proietti, the owner and manager of an Italian construction company called “Edil Ars,” was placed under house arrest last Thursday on aggravated fraudulent bankruptcy charges, with the police seizing several accounts he held in the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), commonly referred as the “Vatican bank.”

Proietti was detained for allegedly siphoning off 8 million Euro from his building and art renovation contractor company. In addition, he’s accused of looting more of the company’s assets after it merged with another firm called Emiroma Srl.

Both companies declared bankruptcy in 2014.

On Wednesday the Vatican released a statement saying that the Holy See had initiated the investigation back in 2013, “taking action on the basis of Suspicious Transaction Reports relating to Mr. Proietti, seizing all the relevant financial resources.”

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