November 23, 2001
Law Offices Of Jonathan Levy and Thomas Dewey Easton
Tel. 513-528-0586 Jlevy1@cinci.rr.com
Vatican Bank Top 10 Money Laundering Destination
According to one global source, the Vatican is the main destination for
over $55 billion in illegal Italian money laundering and the number 8
destination worldwide for laundered money, ranked well ahead of such
offshore havens as the Bahamas, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.
In a recent report by the London Telegraph and the Inside Fraud Bulletin,
the Vatican was named as a top "cut out" country along with the offshore
banking centers of Nauru, Macao, and Mauritius. A "cut out" country is one
whose banking secrecy makes it is all but impossible to trace laundered
funds back to their source.
The Vatican Bank is desperately resisting a legal action for an accounting
of stolen World War II assets in a San Francisco Federal court (Alperin v.
Vatican Bank) filed by Serb and Jewish Holocaust survivors. Contrary to the
above reports, a declaration filed under penalty of perjury by the Vatican
Bank's attorney, Franzo Grande Stevens, states in part that the Vatican
Bank's "fundamental purpose is to promote pious acts" and that its
depositors "are essentially limited to Vatican state employees, members of
the Holy See, religious orders, and persons who deposit money destined, at
least in part, for works of piety." Stevens also declared to the court that
the Pope controls the Vatican Bank and that bank records are not retained
after ten years.
It seems that the Vatican Bank, a major illegal money laundering operation,
is hiding behind the benign image of John Paul II. Given the Vatican Bank's
alleged involvement with Nazi loot and current links to organized crime, a
reckoning cannot be far off. The accumulating evidence points to a more
piratical than pietical Vatican Bank
For more information see: www.vaticanbankclaims.com
Law Offices of Jonathan Levy and Thomas Dewey Easton
Jlevy1@cinci.rr.com Tel 513-528-0586
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