VATICAN CITY
Catholic Online
Obama admin list Vatican as ‘potential money-laundering center’
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
3/9/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
It isn’t, but the US State Department has listed it anyway.
The US State Department has added an unlikely name to the list of countries that are considered money-laundering centers – the Vatican. The listing was published Wednesday in the 2012 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, and lists 190 countries.
WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) – The list is divided into three categories, primary concern, concern, and monitored. The Vatican has been listed with 67 other countries which also includes Poland, Egypt, Ireland, Hungary, and Chile.
A State Department official did confess that the Vatican had recently established programs to prevent money laundering.
The apology continued, as Susan Pittman of the State Department explained, “To be considered a jurisdiction of concern merely indicates that there is a vulnerability to a financial system by money launderers. With the large volumes of international currency that goes through the Holy See, it is a system that makes it vulnerable as a potential money-laundering center.”
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