'Monsignor 500 Euros' ..., by Hannah Roberts, Daily Mail UK, January 21, 2014

'Monsignor 500 Euros' ...

By Hannah Roberts
Daily Mail UK
January 21, 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2543268/Monsignor-500-Euros-trial-plotting-smuggle-20million-euros-16-5million-Italy-arrested-using-Vatican-bank-accounts-launder-money.html

Scarano allegedly gave his clients cash from the Vatican bank in exchange for cheques marked as charitable donations and a certificate of donation from the church.

The Vatican bank, formerly known as the Institute for Religious Operas, IOR, and Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who used to be the chief accountant for the Vatican's property portfolio.

The Vatican bank, formerly known as the Institute for Religious Operas, IOR, and Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who used to be the chief accountant for the Vatican's property portfolio.

'Hurt': Pope Francis is upset about the Scarano case.

Until his arrest in June last year Scarano was chief accountant for the Vatican's property portfolio. He denies charges that he conspired with a former Italian secret service agent and a financial broker in a failed bid to bring the cash from Switzerland to Italy in a military plane, avoiding customs.

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Investigators yesterday ordered the seizure of assets, and froze bank accounts with a combined value of six million euros.

Financial police in the southern city of Salerno said that Scarano's Vatican bank accounts had been used to transfer millions of euros in fictitious donations from offshore companies.

Scarano allegedly gave his clients cash from the Vatican bank in exchange for cheques marked as charitable donations and a certificate of donation from the church.

But his lawyer has said his client was merely taking money from donors who thought they were funding a home for the terminally ill. Silverio Sica said: 'We continue to strongly maintain the good faith of Don Nunzio Scarano and his absolute certainty that the money came from legitimate donations.'

Some of the cheques were allegedly made out for as much as half a million euros.

His clients included doctors, lawyers, architects and businessmen, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The scandal-hit Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), has been tarnished by scandal for 30 years.

Pope Francis has said he was ‘hurt’ by the Scarano case last year, the latest in a series that have cast a cloud of suspicion over financial dealings at ‘God’ s bank’.

The Pope has made a number of reforms to introduce greater financial transparency and fight money laundering at the IOR.

In December the Council of Europe's Moneyval agency, a monitoring group of financial experts, praised the Vatican's progress, as it seeks to get on the 'white list' of countries with strong credentials on combatting financial crime.

Last week Francis sacked all but one member of a commission appointed by Benedict to oversee the bank.