Swiss court orders full access to Vatican financial investigation documents

Vatican investigators were granted full access to Swiss banking records relating to longtime Vatican investment manager Enrico Crasso. The decision recently announced by a Swiss federal court is the latest development in the ongoing financial scandal surrounding the purchase of a building in London by the Secretariat of State in 2018.

According to the Huffington Post, the decision was issued on October 13 but only published this week. The documents to be delivered to the Vatican include the company's financial documents to Az Swiss & Partners. Az Swiss owns Sogenel Capital Holding, the company Crassus founded after leaving Credit Suisse in 2014.

Although the company tried to block full access to its documents by Vatican investigators, the Swiss judges ruled that "when foreign authorities ask for information to reconstruct flows of criminal assets, it is generally believed that they need the entirety of the documentation. related, in order to clarify which legal persons or entities are involved. "

Vatican prosecutors have been working with Swiss authorities since the submission of the letters rogatory in December last year. Letters of letters are formal requests for judicial assistance from the courts of one country to the courts of another country.

CNA previously reported that, in response to the Holy See's request for cooperation in its investigation into Vatican finances, the Swiss authorities froze tens of millions of euros in bank accounts and sent bank documents and registers to Vatican prosecutors.

Crassus, a former Credit Suisse banker, has long been a financial advisor to the Vatican, including introducing the Secretariat of State to entrepreneur Raffaele Mincione, through whom the secretariat continued to invest hundreds of millions of euros and purchase the London building. at 60, Sloane Avenue, which was purchased in stages between 2014 and 2018.

The Huffington Post reported on November 27 that the Swiss decision also cited the Vatican's original request for letter citing "investment schemes that are neither transparent nor compliant with normal real estate investment practices," referencing the controversial London agreement.

In particular, Vatican investors noted that the commitment of Vatican funds on deposit with Swiss banks, including Peter's Pence, to guarantee hundreds of millions of euros in loans from the same banks "represents strong circumstantial evidence that represented a ploy to avoid make] visible. "

Prosecutors argue that the use of liquid assets as collateral to secure loans from investment banks, instead of investing Vatican money directly, appears designed to protect investments from detection and scrutiny.

In November last year, the CNA reported a similar case in 2015, when Cardinal Angelo Becciu then substitute at the Secretariat of State attempted to disguise $ 200 million loans on Vatican budgets by deleting them from the value of the property in the London neighborhood. of Chelsea, an accounting maneuver prohibited by the financial policies approved by Pope Francis in 2014.

The CNA also reported that the attempt to hide off-book loans was detected by the Prefecture for the Economy, then led by Cardinal George Pell.

Senior officials from the Prefecture for the Economy told CNA that when Pell began asking for details of loans, particularly those involving BSI, then Archbishop Becciu called the cardinal to the Secretariat of State for a "rebuke".

Crassus' Centurion Global Fund, in which the Secretariat of State was the largest investor, is linked to several institutions linked to money laundering allegations and investigations, according to a CNA investigation.

Earlier this month, Crassus defended his management of Church funds controlled by the Secretariat of State, saying the investments he made "were not secret."

In an October 4 interview with Corriere della Sera, Crasso also denied managing "confidential" accounts for Becciu's family.

Crassus was named last month in reports that Cardinal Angelo Becciu has used millions of euros of Vatican charitable funds in speculative and risky investments, including loans for projects owned and operated by Becciu's brothers.

On September 24, Becciu was asked by Pope Francis to resign from his Vatican post and from the rights of cardinals following the report. In a press conference, the cardinal distanced himself from Crassus, saying he had not followed his actions "step by step".

According to Becciu, Crassus would inform him of what investments he was making, "but it's not like he was telling me the ramifications of all these investments"