Vatican Officials: Swiss Bank Suspected of Money Laundering Led to Pell Conflict

Catholic World Report ^ | 11/21/19 | Ed Condon

[marshmallow]

Pell was reportedly reprimanded for “interfering in sovereign business” by looking into the Vatican Secretariat of State’s dealings with a Swiss bank with a long track record of violating fraud safeguards.

The Holy See’s relationship with a disreputable Swiss bank triggered an internal dispute between the Secretariat of State and Vatican financial authorities. At the center of the conflict was a multimillion-dollar line of credit used to fund a controversial investment in London property speculation.

Sources inside the Vatican’s Prefecture for the Economy confirmed to CNA that a substantial part of the $200 million used to finance the Secretariat of State’s purchase of a luxury development at 60 Sloane Avenue came through credit extended by BSI, a Swiss bank with a long track record of violating money-laundering and fraud safeguards in its dealings with sovereign wealth funds.

In 2018, BSI was the subject of a damning report by FINMA, the Swiss financial regulator, which concluded that the bank was in “serious breaches of the statutory due diligence requirements in relation to money laundering and serious violations of the principles of adequate risk management and appropriate organization.”

The bank was absorbed by the EFG Group last year. The merger was approved by FINMA on the condition that it was “fully integrated and dissolved” within a year and that no BSI employee be given a senior management role in EFG. Had the merger not been approved by FINMA, BSI would have had its banking license revoked and the business shuttered.

On Nov. 4, CNA reported that in 2015 Cardinal Angelo Becciu attempted to disguise $200 million loans on Vatican balance sheets by cancelling them out against the value of the property purchased in the London neighborhood of Chelsea, an accounting maneuver prohibited by financial policies approved by Pope Francis in 2014.

[oldasrocks]

You mean Biden hid his slush money there?

[Rockingham]

More than simple stealing is involved. In return for fees and favors, the Mafia and other shady Italian and European operators have at times used the Vatican Bank and other Vatican financial relationships to launder money and transfer it about undetected by international watchdogs and police agencies. In part, in our disordered world, this kind of irregularity arises out of the need of the Vatican to pay bribes and ransoms and move cash about for the sake of its clerics, churches, and congregations. For example, with John Paul II as Pope, the Vatican had a major role in helping the CIA get cash and material support to Poland’s Solidarity and other anti-Communist organizations.