As part of an investigation into the sale of Vatican-owned real estate and allegations of embezzlement, two former Vatican bank managers and a lawyer had 16 million euros frozen by the Vatican's top prosecutor, the Vatican said Saturday.
Charges had already been pressed against the three suspects months ago by the bank, the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), and now the "accounts held by the concerned individuals at the IOR have recently been seized," reported Reuters.
The prosecutor, Gian Piero Milano, said he suspected the men were involved in embezzling money while selling 29 buildings on behalf of the Vatican bank between 2001 and 2008, according to a copy of the asset freezing order obtained by Reuters.
Milano said in an Oct. 27 sequester order that the money in the accounts of the three men "stems from embezzlement they were engaged in."
The men involved are former Vatican bank president Angelo Caloia, ex-director general Lelio Scaletti and lawyer Gabriele Liuzzo.
Prosecutors claim in the freezing order that the men routinely under-represented proceeds from real estate sales in the Vatican's official books, and then took the difference between the real sale prices and the amount officially recorded, often in cash, according to Reuters.
In a separate statement issued by the Vatican bank, it said charges had been pressed against the three as part of its "commitment to transparency and zero tolerance, including with regard to matters that relate to a more distant past," but said that it could not give details due to the "ongoing judicial enquiry."
Improving Vatican transparency has been accelerated under Pope Francis, and his 2013 election came with a personal mandate to make the church more accountable to the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics worldwide.
The mandate was largely in response to a 2012 report from Moneyval, a department of the Council of Europe, which criticized the church, and specifically the IOR, for non-compliance with global financial transparency and anti-money laundering norms.
The report gave the church negative grades in seven out of 16 "core" and "key" recommendations, and said the Vatican was particularly lacking in its anti-terror finance measures and financial oversight, reported The Telegraph.
