Inquiry finds 'clear failings' at Vatican Bank

Bank under fire after arrests and resignations.

Vatican City:  A preliminary inquiry by the Vatican bank after the arrest of a Vatican prelate on suspicion of trying to smuggle huge sums of money into Italy from Switzerland found "clear failings" at the institution, a source close to the bank said on Thursday.

The board of the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), held a meeting on Thursday that also addressed the shock resignation of its two top managers on Monday. The meeting had not been made public.

At the meeting Ernst von Freyberg, the bank's German president, told the other four board members of the preliminary results of an internal investigation.

It discovered "clear failings that should serve as stark reminder of the urgency of improving the IOR's processes," Freyberg told the board, the senior source told Reuters.

The Vatican was rocked last Friday by the arrest of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who is accused of plotting with two other people to smuggle 20 million euros ($25.8 million) into Italy from Switzerland for rich friends in southern Italy.

Scarano, 61, who worked as a senior accountant in the Vatican's financial administration and had close and regular contacts with the Vatican bank, was arrested along with an Italian secret service agent and a financial intermediary.

Scarano is accused of money laundering in a separate investigation in the southern city of Salerno, his hometown.

Source: Huffington Post