A Rome prosecutor on Friday asked
for sentences of one year in jail for former Vatican Bank (IOR)
Director-General Paolo Cipriani and 10 months for his former
deputy Massimo Tulli a trial into suspected breaches of Italy's
anti-money-laundering norms linked to two suspicious operations
that led to the 2010 seizure of 23 million euros, later returned
to the Holy See's bank.
The Vatican Bank, or Institute for Religious Works (IOR),
operated in Italy without authorization for 40 years, Rome
prosecutors say in the case.
Investigators say IOR acted as a bank without central bank
authorization until 2011, when the Bank of Italy told credit
institutions to consider it a non-EU bank. At that point, IOR
moved some of its banking activities to Germany.
However, Italian banks effectively stopped dealing with the
IOR in 2010 after the Bank of Italy ordered them to enforce
strict anti-money laundering criteria to continue working with
it.
From January 1 to February 12, 2013, the Bank of Italy
froze all credit card and ATM transactions inside the Vatican
City over its failure to fully implement international
anti-money laundering standards.
The Council of Europe's Moneyval agency, a monitoring
group of financial experts, in 2015 praised the Vatican's
progress in trying to get onto the white list of countries with
strong credentials on combatting financial crime.
In January 2014, the Vatican Bank resumed normal relations
with Italy after implementing moves to prevent money laundering
and other financial crimes.
photo: Pope Francis meets with IOR staff in N0vember 2015
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