Vatican Money Too Dirty Even for J P Morgan – Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Can the Catholic Church’s Vatican banking system be laundering money for drugs, arms and human trafficking?  Good question.  In all likelihood, this Vatican account closed by J P Morgan had to be closed because of Vatican secrecy and refusal to comply with the simplest of banking rules worldwide.

JP Morgan closes Vatican bank's account

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Morgan+closes+Vatican+bank+account/6327334/story.html

Thirty years after it was entangled in a scandal involving the mafia, money laundering and the mysterious death of the man nicknamed "God's banker," the Vatican bank faces fresh controversy. 

The bank - formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion or IOR - has suffered the ignominy of having one of its accounts closed by JP Morgan after stone-walling requests for information.

The sanction came less than two weeks after the U.S. State Department listed the Vatican as being potentially vulnerable to money laundering.
A Milan affiliate of JP Morgan said it will shut the account by the end of the month after revealing Vatican bankers had been "unable to respond" to requests for details about payments into the account. 

A spokesman for JP Morgan in Milan declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.

The Milan branch had been seeking information since 2010, when the Vatican bank was accused by authorities in Rome of contravening money-laundering regulations. 

In an unusual move, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the Vatican bank, was placed under investigation and a judge in Rome ordered a freeze on $30 million held in one of the bank's accounts. 

The scandal prompted the Vatican bank to initiate anti-money-laundering legislation, which is currently being debated by the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.

My thanks to Betty Clermont’s recent Daily Kos article that shed some well defined light on the above tidbit presented in the global MSM.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/15/1074617/-The-Mightiest-SuperPAC-of-All

The Mightiest SuperPAC of All

Integration in an international monetary network Each bishop, archbishop and cardinal is hand-picked by the pope and each “official” Catholic organization is tied to the pope through its approving hierarch. Also obedient to the pope are lay associations like the Knights of Columbus which, as of 2007, claimed assets of over $14 billion. Supreme Knight, Carl Anderson, former member of the Reagan administration, sits on the Board of Superintendence of the Vatican Bank or IOR (Istituto per le Opere di Religione). They are all part of a world-wide financial network run from the Vatican. 

A popular misconception is that the Vatican itself is sitting on top of some huge fortune. Relative to other hordes, that’s not the case. The IOR itself is reported to hold only $5 billion on deposit.  The art, antiquities and architectural treasures actually cost the Vatican a great deal of money to preserve. The real value comes from having been an unregulated “offshore” tax haven for Italian account holders and a clearing house for the international financial community to move clandestine funds around the globe.

It was reported this week that the Vatican was included in a list of 67 Countries which could be potentially susceptible to money-laundering according to the U.S. Department of State’s annual drug-trafficking report. “To be considered a jurisdiction of concern merely indicates that there is a vulnerability to a financial system by money launderers. With the large volumes of international currency that goes through the Holy See, it is a system that makes it vulnerable as a potential money-laundering center” said Susan Pittman of the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.  

The London Telegraph had reported that the Vatican Bank was the eighth most popular destination for laundered money, ahead of the Bahamas, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The reason for this is that you cannot trace any movement of cash within the bank. “This corruption is continuing on a regular basis in the Vatican,” claimed attorney Jonathan Levy. “There’s no reason for a religion to have a bank that does worldwide commercial activities, dealing in gold, dealing in insurance, dealing in property and then hiding behind the Roman Catholic Church.”