Cops seize $30m from Vatican bank

Sep 23, 2010 |

Reuters

Rome, Sept. 22: An “error of procedure” at the Vatican bank is being exploited to attack the Vatican with a money-laundering investigation, the bank’s president said in an interview published on Wednesday.

Vatican bank officials are under investigation for suspected money laundering and police have frozen 23 million euros ($30.21 million) of its funds, Italian judicial sources said on Tuesday.

The bank’s president, Mr Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, said he felt humiliated by the investigation and that it was all centred around a mistake.

“An error of procedure is being used as an excuse to attack the institute, its president and the Vatican in general,” Mr Gotti Tedeschi said. He said the operation in question “was a normal treasury operation and it involved a transfer from accounts of the Vatican bank to other accounts of the Vatican bank.”

He added that in the past 10 months the bank “has been adapting all its internal procedures to be in harmony with international transparency standards.”

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