do roman catholics know monsignor arrested on charges of money laundering and embezzlement!

7/28/2019 Do Roman Catholics KnOw Monsignor Arrested on charges of money laundering and embezzlement!

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Do Roman CatholicsKnOw?

(Another) Monsignor preaches,

Do as I say (not as I do)!

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano arrested in

corruption plot!


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MonsignorNunzio Scaranosought return of$26Mvia Italian government plane

VATICAN CITY (AP) - The troubled Vatican bank says it is cooperating with Italian

investigators who arrested a Vatican official over an alleged plot to bring 20 million euros ($26

million) into Italy from Switzerland illegally.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a recently suspended accountant in one of the Vatican's main

finance departments, was arrested early Friday along with a secret service agent and a financier.

Vatican bank spokesman Max Hohenberg said the bank was cooperating and that its board hadlaunched an internal investigation.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, already under investigation in a purported money-laundering plot

involving the Vatican bank, is accused of fraud, corruption and slander stemming from the plot,

which never got off the ground, attorney Silverio Sica told The Associated Press.

It was the latest financial scandal to hit the Vatican and came just two days after Pope Francis

created a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank to get to the bottom of the problems thathave plagued it for decades and contributed to damaging the Vatican's reputation.

Sica said Scarano was a middleman in the Swiss operation. Friends had asked him to intervene

with a broker, Giovanni Carenzio, to return 20 million euros they had given him to invest. Sica

said Scarano persuaded Carenzio to return the money, and an Italian secret service agent,

Giovanni Maria Zito, went to Switzerland to bring the cash back aboard an Italian government

aircraft. Such a move would presumably prevent any reporting of the money coming into Italy.

The operation failed because Carenzio reneged on the deal, Sica said.

Zito, nevertheless, demanded his 400,000 euro commission. Scarano paid him an initial 200,000

euros by check, Sica said. But in a bid to not have the second installment of the commission


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deposited, Scarano filed a report for a missing 200,000 check, even though he knew Zito had it,

Sica said.

Carenzio and Zito also were arrested Wednesday along with Scarano, Sica said.

When asked how Scarano responded to the accusations, Sica said "I think that Don Nunzio will

respond to the questions."

An undated photo of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano in Salerno, Italy. A Vatican official already under investigation in a

purported money-laundering plot involving the Vatican bank was arrested Friday, June 28, 2013. AP Photo

It's not the only troubles facing Scarano.

Prosecutors in the southern city of Salerno have placed him under investigation for alleged

money-laundering stemming from his account at the Vatican's bank, called the Institute for

Religious Works, or IOR.


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The investigation concerns transactions Scarano, then an official at the Administration for the

Patrimony of the Apostolic See, made in 2009 in which he took 560,000 euros ($729,000) in

cash out of his personal IOR bank account and carried it out of the Vatican and into Italy to help

pay off a mortgage on his Salerno home.

To deposit the money into an Italian bank account - and to prevent family members from finding

out he had such a large chunk of cash - he asked 56 close friends to accept 10,000 euros apiece

in cash in exchange for a check or money transfer in the same amount, Sica said earlier this

week. Scarano was then able to deposit the amounts in his Italian account.

The original money came into Scarano's IOR account from donors who gave it to the

prelate thinking they were funding a home for the terminally ill in Salerno, Sica said.He

said the donors had "enormous" wealth and could offer such donations for his charitable efforts.

He said Scarano had given the names of the donors to prosecutors and insisted the origin of the

money was clean, that the transactions didn't constitute money-laundering, and that he only took

the money "temporarily" for his personal use.

The home for terminally ill hasn't been built, though the property has been identified, Sica said.

" He declares himself absolutely innocent,"Sica said of the Salerno investigation.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told the AP earlier this week that the

Vatican is taking the appropriate measures to deal with Scarano's case. There was no further

comment Friday from the Vatican about Scarano's arrest.

Francis has made clear he has no tolerance for corruption or for Vatican officials who use their

jobs for personal ambition or gain. He has said he wants a "poor" church and a church that is for

the poor, one that goes out to the "peripheries" to minister to those most needy. He has also

noted, tongue in cheek, that "St. Peter didn't have a bank account."

On Wednesday, he named five people to head a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank's

activities and legal status "to allow for a better harmonization with the universal mission of the

Apostolic See," according to the legal document he signed creating it.


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Two of them are Americans: Monsignor Peter Wells, the No. 3 official in the Vatican secretariat

of state, and Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy

See and current president of a pontifical academy.

American cardinals were among the most vocal in demanding a wholesale reform of the Vatican

bureaucracy - and the Vatican bank - in the meetings outlining the priorities for the new pope in

the run-up to the March conclave that elected Francis. The demands were raised following

revelations in leaked documents last year that told of dysfunction, petty turf wars and allegations

of corruption in the Holy See's governance.

It was the second time in as many weeks that Francis had intervened to get information out

of the IOR, a secretive institution best known for the scandals it has caused the Vatican. On

June 15, he filled a key vacancy in the bank's governing structure, tapping a trusted prelate to be

his eyes inside the bank.

By The Associated Press June 28, 2013 - 07:39 am

Read more:http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/06/monsignor-nunzio-scarano-arrested-in-corruption-plot-

90706.html#ixzz2XW8Xg8mH
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do roman catholics know monsignor arrested on charges of money laundering and embezzlement!

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