Vatican gains access to Swiss fund details

Vatican investigators have been given the green light to examine the secretive network of Swiss funds and accounts managed for the Holy See by manager Enrico Crasso.

Cardinal George Pell at home on Friday. Picture: Victor Sokolowicz

Vatican investigators have been given the green light to examine the secretive network of Swiss funds and accounts managed for the Holy See by its long-time investment manager, Enrico Crasso, the banker believed to be at the heart of its ongoing financial and property scandals.

The decision, by the Swiss Federal Court, was hailed by a senior source in Rome as a potential “nuclear bomb” and is believed to have been handed down on October 13. However, the news only emerged on Swiss financial crimes website Gotham City, and was published on Friday by the Italian Huffington Post.

The cache of documents and paperwork requested by Vatican investigators centre on the financial records of AZ Swiss and Partners, owners of a company founded by Enrico Crasso when he left banking giant Credit Suisse in 2014.

Crasso has administered funds belonging to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State for decades but his company has spent nearly a year fighting the formal request from Vatican investigators to open its records to scrutiny.

A rogatory letter, a legal demand from the legal system of one country to the legal system of another, was filed with Swiss authorities in December last year.

It cited demands for information relating to “investment schemes that are neither transparent nor compliant with normal real estate investment practices”. This appears to be a clear signal pointing to the controversial property deal in London’s exclusive Sloane Square.

This was allegedly authorised by the Sardinian-born Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who was removed suddenly by Pope Francis in September in the wake of allegations that he had authorised the use of millions of euros raised for Vatican charity funds in speculative and dangerous investments.

Becciu, a former deputy head of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, was the long-term nemesis of the team originally led by Cardinal George Pell and Vatican Auditor General Libero Milone, and tasked in 2014 with cleaning up the Vatican finances. The allegations include the siphoning of some €700,000 ($1.13m) to a co-operative run by his brother, Tonino, which in turn, created work for companies run by two other brothers.

Cardinal Becciu denies all wrongdoing.

The Australian reported on Saturday that a new book by Italian investigative journalist Gian Luigi Nuzzi, has revealed lurid new details of the campaign of intimidation launched by the Vatican old guard against the financial reforms.

The transactions Vatican investigators are now homing in on are reported to have unfolded between November 2018 and May 2019 and the crimes alleged include “abuse of authority, embezzlement, corruption, money laundering and use of the proceeds of criminal activities”.

Swiss authorities are reported to have now ruled that access be granted to the documents on the basis that when “foreign authorities ask for information to reconstruct criminal asset flows, it is generally considered that they need the entirety of the relative documentation in order to clarify which persons or legal entities are involved”.

Crasso first made headlines in Italy last year when he was also named as the manager of the Centurion Global Fund which was revealed to have used ­Vatican funds under its management for Hollywood films, including the Elton John biopic Rocketman. Centurion Global Fund is believed to have held some €70m, with the Holy See’s Secretariat of State providing two thirds of this.

The Catholic News Agency has reported that as part of the Holy See’s first request for help from Swiss authorities, tens of millions of euros were frozen in bank accounts.