Showing posts with label IOR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IOR. Show all posts
Saturday, May 03, 2025
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Vatican report shows 'significant progress' in supervision of financial activities
Posted: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 7:01 pm
The Financial Intelligence Authority of the Holy See and Vatican City State (AIF) has presented its Annual Report for 2013. The report reviews the activities and statistics of AIF for 2013.
The year 2013 has seen a significant strengthening of the legal and institutional framework of the Holy See and Vatican City State to effectively combat financial crime, an institutionalisation of international collaboration of the competent authority of the Holy See with its foreign counterparts, and a massively improved performance in monitoring potential financial wrongdoing.
"In 2013 we have taken further decisive steps to foster the legal framework, and, at the same time, to make it work in practice" said Rene Brulhart, Director of the AIF. He continued: "The Evaluation conducted by Moneyval, the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism of the Council of Europe, in December 2013, and our statistics allow us to say that today we have a proper and equivalent system in place to prevent and fight financial crime. A system that is well in line with international standards."
The AIF has recorded a notable uptake in suspicious transaction reports (STR), from six in 2012 to 202 in 2013. This increase reflects both the development of the legal framework and a substantial improvement in the operational performance of the supervised entities with regard to the prevention of financial crime. Five reports have been passed on to the Vatican Promoter of Justice for further investigation by judicial authorities.
The number of requests from AIF submitted to foreign authorities has increased from one in 2012 to 28; the number of requests received by the AIF from foreign authorities has risen from 3 in 2012 to 53 in 2013.
"This increase is also due to international cooperation fostered by a series of bilateral agreements we have concluded," said Brulhart. In 2013, AIF became a member of the Egmont Group, the global network of Financial Intelligence Units, and signed various bilateral agreements to institutionalize mutual collaboration in the area of anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism. Memoranda of Understanding have been signed with Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the United States.
As already observed in 2012, the number of declarations of cash above the amount of EUR 10,000 has decreased again in 2013 to 1,557 declarations for outgoing cash (2012: 1,782) and 550 declarations for incoming cash (2012: 598). This is due to an increased monitoring by the competent authorities and the introduction of reinforced procedures at the supervised entities.
Through two Motu Proprio in July and August 2013, the Holy Father extended the competencies of the Holy See authorities, particularly AIF, and aligned the legal framework with international standards. By way of a third Motu Proprio in November 2013, the Holy Father responded to the requirements set forth by the extension of responsibilities of the AIF by issuing a new Statute for the AIF. In essence, the new Statute has built the AIF on two pillars, supervision and financial intelligence, and has clarified some aspects with regard to the governance, e.g. required professional and financial skills for key personnel of the AIF's bodies.
In the initial trimester of 2014, AIF conducted the first ordinary on-site inspection of the IOR to verify the implementation of the measures taken to prevent and counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism pursuant to the Law XVIII of 8 October 2013.
The inspection has shown substantial progress made by the IOR over the past 12 months. As a result of the inspection, AIF has developed an action plan for the full adaption of procedures to the requirements of Law XVIII and the implementation of further organizational and procedural improvements.
The Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF) is the competent authority of the Holy See/Vatican City State for supervision and financial intelligence for the prevention and countering of money-laundering and financing of terrorism.
Established by Pope Benedict XVI with the Apostolic Letter in form of Motu Proprio of 30 December 2010, AIF carries out its institutional activity according to the Statute attached to the above mentioned Motu Proprio and the Law n. CXXVII of 30 December 2010, as subsequently amended and integrated.
In July 2013, AIF became a member of the Egmont Group. Currently, AIF has signed Memoranda of Understanding for the international exchange of information with financial intelligence units of other states, such as Australia, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, Monaco, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and the United States of America.
Source: VIS
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Monday, July 01, 2013
Vatican Bank Director Resigns Amid Scandal
The director of the Vatican bank and his deputy have resigned over a financial scandal that has already seen one monsignor jailed.
In a statement, the Vatican said Paolo Cipriani and his deputy Massimo Tulli stepped down "in the best interest of the institute and the Holy See".
Mr Cipriani, along with the bank's then-president, was placed under investigation by Rome prosecutors in 2010 for alleged violations of Italy's anti-money laundering rules after financial police seized €23m (£19.7m) from a Vatican account at a Rome bank.
Neither has been charged and the money was eventually ordered to be released.
But the bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), has remained under the spotlight amid concerns it has been used as an offshore tax haven.
Last week, a Vatican accountant was arrested as part of the broadening investigation into IOR.
Monsignor Nunzio Scarano is accused of corruption and slander in connection with a plot to smuggle €20m (£17.1m) into Italy from Switzerland without reporting it to customs officials.
Scarano, dubbed "Don 500" by the Italian media because of his alleged favourite euro banknote, admitted under questioning on Monday that his behaviour was wrong, but insisted that he was only trying to help out friends.
According to wiretapped phone conversations, Scarano was in regular contact with both Mr Cipriani and Mr Tulli to get the required bank approval to move large amounts of cash into and out of his IOR accounts.
Current IOR president, Ernst von Freyberg, will serve as interim director, a Vatican statement said.
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Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Vatican Bank Probe Threatens New Scandal for Beleaguered Pope
David Gibson
Religion Reporter
VATICAN CITY -- The head of the Vatican bank is being investigated on suspicion of money laundering, Italian law enforcement officials said on Tuesday, a bad omen for the Catholic Church as it struggles to overcome the scandal of clergy sexual abuse.
Italian authorities said that besides bank chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, chief executive Paolo Cipriani was also a target of the probe. And Italian prosecutors said they have seized $30 million in Vatican assets held in another Italian bank, Credito Artigiano.
Reports in the Italian press said that investigators suspect influential people who reside here in Italy are using the Vatican bank -- which is housed in a huge stone tower behind the Vatican walls -- as a "screen" to hide fraudulent dealings or evade taxes.
The Vatican responded in a strongly worded statement saying it was "perplexed and astonished" at the investigation and was expressing "the maximum confidence in the president and in the chief executive of the IOR" -- the acronym for the bank's formal Italian name, Instituto per le Opere Religiose, or the Institute for Religious Works.
The IOR, which was created during World War II, manages bank accounts for religious orders and Catholic associations and benefits from Vatican offshore status.
But the Vatican bank is perhaps best known for its role in a sinister scandal in the early 1980s while it was under the direction of the late American archbishop, Paul Marcinkus. (The events inspired a plotline in the "Godfather III" movie.)
The IOR eventually paid out more than $240 million to creditors in connection with its role in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy's largest private bank.
News of the investigation is certainly unwelcome press for Pope Benedict XVI, who just returned Sunday night from a four-day visit to Britain during which he met with sexual abuse victims and issued his most forthright apologies yet on the abuse crisis, winning him better-than-expected reviews for what was a challenging trip to the largely secular island nation.
Moreover, bank chairman Gotti Tedeschi, a conservative Italian economist with a sterling reputation, was appointed just a year ago to move the IOR "towards greater transparency and better business practices," as Vatican-watcher John Allen put it.
Both executives are accused of violating legislation passed in 2007 that requires banks to disclose information on financial operations.
The revelations also put the spotlight on Gotti Tedeschi, who was an unusually high-profile appointment for a post where discretion and a low profile had been valued, especially in recent years.
For example, in a speech last September just before his appointment as head of the IOR, Gotti Tedeschi, a daily communicant at Mass, argued that beyond the United States' "debt addiction," a main reason for the financial crisis was that people did not follow the Catholic Church's ban on birth control, which in turn led to "the rejection of life and the suppression of childbirth."
Gotti Tedeschi, 65, likes to say that he has five children, "all from the same mother." As a profile last year by Vatican expert Sandro Magister noted, he worked for years in Milan, Italy's financial capital. "He gets up very early in the morning, like a monk," driving his BMW to work, reading the newspapers in his office, then heading to Mass, "every morning, without fail."
He taught financial ethics at the Milan's Sacred Heart University, and his economic thought seems an unusual mixture of conservative and liberal tendencies.
Gotti Tedeschi cites free-market Catholic champions like Americans Michael Novak and Father Robert Sirico as influences, and he likes the work of Friedrich Hayek, Glenn Beck's favorite economist, as well as the "clash of civilizations" thesis of Samuel Huntington.
In 2007 he signed a 13-point manifesto spearheaded by the former leader of Italy's Radical Party which proposed a 20 percent "flat tax," tax credits for health care and education and tax exemption for overtime work, among other things.
Yet he also helped Pope Benedict on his social justice encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" (Charity in Truth), which has been blasted by conservatives in America for its critiques of capitalism and the financial system. And he believes in "the superiority of a capitalism inspired by Christian morality," and specifically a Catholic morality.
In fact, in his 2004 book, "Money and Paradise: The Global Economy and the Catholic World," Gotti Tedeschi argued that capitalism was born in Italy -- "the home of Catholicism" -- in the 13th century as a result of the writings of Franciscan theologians, and at a time "when Protestantism, to which Max Weber's famous thesis attributes the birth of the 'spirit of capitalism,' was yet to arrive."
Protestantism, he said, was arguably responsible for "defects" in capitalism, such as profiteering and a laissez-faire dedication to "the law of the strongest."
Source
.
P.S.
1. Highlights added for emphasis.
2. Signore Ettore Gotti Tedeschi bears a striking resemblance to another financial wizard - Bernie-to Madoff-i.
.
Religion Reporter
VATICAN CITY -- The head of the Vatican bank is being investigated on suspicion of money laundering, Italian law enforcement officials said on Tuesday, a bad omen for the Catholic Church as it struggles to overcome the scandal of clergy sexual abuse.
Italian authorities said that besides bank chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, chief executive Paolo Cipriani was also a target of the probe. And Italian prosecutors said they have seized $30 million in Vatican assets held in another Italian bank, Credito Artigiano.
Reports in the Italian press said that investigators suspect influential people who reside here in Italy are using the Vatican bank -- which is housed in a huge stone tower behind the Vatican walls -- as a "screen" to hide fraudulent dealings or evade taxes.
The Vatican responded in a strongly worded statement saying it was "perplexed and astonished" at the investigation and was expressing "the maximum confidence in the president and in the chief executive of the IOR" -- the acronym for the bank's formal Italian name, Instituto per le Opere Religiose, or the Institute for Religious Works.
The IOR, which was created during World War II, manages bank accounts for religious orders and Catholic associations and benefits from Vatican offshore status.
But the Vatican bank is perhaps best known for its role in a sinister scandal in the early 1980s while it was under the direction of the late American archbishop, Paul Marcinkus. (The events inspired a plotline in the "Godfather III" movie.)
The IOR eventually paid out more than $240 million to creditors in connection with its role in the fraudulent bankruptcy of Banco Ambrosiano, then Italy's largest private bank.
News of the investigation is certainly unwelcome press for Pope Benedict XVI, who just returned Sunday night from a four-day visit to Britain during which he met with sexual abuse victims and issued his most forthright apologies yet on the abuse crisis, winning him better-than-expected reviews for what was a challenging trip to the largely secular island nation.
Moreover, bank chairman Gotti Tedeschi, a conservative Italian economist with a sterling reputation, was appointed just a year ago to move the IOR "towards greater transparency and better business practices," as Vatican-watcher John Allen put it.
Both executives are accused of violating legislation passed in 2007 that requires banks to disclose information on financial operations.
The revelations also put the spotlight on Gotti Tedeschi, who was an unusually high-profile appointment for a post where discretion and a low profile had been valued, especially in recent years.
For example, in a speech last September just before his appointment as head of the IOR, Gotti Tedeschi, a daily communicant at Mass, argued that beyond the United States' "debt addiction," a main reason for the financial crisis was that people did not follow the Catholic Church's ban on birth control, which in turn led to "the rejection of life and the suppression of childbirth."
Gotti Tedeschi, 65, likes to say that he has five children, "all from the same mother." As a profile last year by Vatican expert Sandro Magister noted, he worked for years in Milan, Italy's financial capital. "He gets up very early in the morning, like a monk," driving his BMW to work, reading the newspapers in his office, then heading to Mass, "every morning, without fail."
He taught financial ethics at the Milan's Sacred Heart University, and his economic thought seems an unusual mixture of conservative and liberal tendencies.
Gotti Tedeschi cites free-market Catholic champions like Americans Michael Novak and Father Robert Sirico as influences, and he likes the work of Friedrich Hayek, Glenn Beck's favorite economist, as well as the "clash of civilizations" thesis of Samuel Huntington.
In 2007 he signed a 13-point manifesto spearheaded by the former leader of Italy's Radical Party which proposed a 20 percent "flat tax," tax credits for health care and education and tax exemption for overtime work, among other things.
Yet he also helped Pope Benedict on his social justice encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" (Charity in Truth), which has been blasted by conservatives in America for its critiques of capitalism and the financial system. And he believes in "the superiority of a capitalism inspired by Christian morality," and specifically a Catholic morality.
In fact, in his 2004 book, "Money and Paradise: The Global Economy and the Catholic World," Gotti Tedeschi argued that capitalism was born in Italy -- "the home of Catholicism" -- in the 13th century as a result of the writings of Franciscan theologians, and at a time "when Protestantism, to which Max Weber's famous thesis attributes the birth of the 'spirit of capitalism,' was yet to arrive."
Protestantism, he said, was arguably responsible for "defects" in capitalism, such as profiteering and a laissez-faire dedication to "the law of the strongest."
Source
.
P.S.
1. Highlights added for emphasis.
2. Signore Ettore Gotti Tedeschi bears a striking resemblance to another financial wizard - Bernie-to Madoff-i.
.
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