JPMorgan Complicit In Vatican Bank Money-Laundering

The Council of Europe presented a preliminary report in Strasbourg Wednesday on massive money-laundering by the Vatican.  As JP Morgan was the Vatican’s chief bank until the scandal broke, The Morgue may soon have a much bigger scandal and PR nightmare on its hands than a simply $9 billion derivatives loss.
‘It is clear that JPMorgan is complicit in money-laundering in Europe with the Vatican, having abetted Vatican bank money-laundering and fraud by allowing IRS-defined suspicious transactions pass through their institution.‘

From the Silver Vigilante:

This financial account allegedly processed more than a billion euros for the Vatican bank through last year. Italian investigators suspect the account was used to launder funds from “dubious sources.” According to the strict anti-money-laundering laws to which financial institutions are supposed to be held, JPMorgan should be considered a primary suspect in massive money-laundering operations in Europe, centered at the Vatican bank. Considering the blatant record amassed by the Vatican – it’s fraudulent and illegal dealings – JPMorgan worked as one of the pope’s banksters with complete disregard for moral hazard. It was not until JPMorgan was caught naked in bed with the pope, engaging in massive and illegal transfers, did the bank begin scrutinizing the Vatican’s financial dealings to which it was an accomplice.  To this point, the mainstream media has focused on the shadyness of the Vatican – an age old story, literally – and not directly implicated JPMorgan in yet further financial crimes.

The transfers did not come with information regarding account holders or purposes for the transfers. Of that amount, 20 million pounds apparently was heading to the Vatican’s JPMorgan account in Frankfurt. The other 3 million euros were heading for an account at a different bank in Rome.

Federal prosecutors in Rome froze the funds. Investigations followed implicating Tedeschi, for one, in violating anti-money laundering regulations. Then, JPMorgan leaped into action late, and “started asking Vatican officials where the money that had been regularly flowing through the Milan account was actually coming from. But they didn’t get any satisfactory answers. As a result, the bank then gave the IOR an internal classification as a high-risk client and started monitoring its transactions for clues that might point to money-laundering.”

Early this year, JPMorgan closed the IORs transfer account in Milan. The bank wrote that anti-money-laundering regulations no longer make available “additional deposits or withdrawals via account No. 1365.” Cardinal Secretary of State Bertone rewrote Benedict’s decree, restating that monitoring of the Vatican bank is only permissible with the consent of Bertone himself. An undated and anonymous document, which, according to the Roman daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, comes from “the very top,” reads that there is a “concrete risk of a rating downgrade and, thereby, of a significant loss in the prestige of the Holy See.”

It is clear that JPMorgan is complicit in money-laundering in Europe with the Vatican, having abetted Vatican bank money-laundering and fraud by allowing IRS-defined suspicious transactions pass through their institution. The bank, knowing full well what it was dealing with, shucked its financial responsibility and put the Vatican’s critical transfers through, never questioning or putting the transactions through the basic financial scrutiny. The US Press has been silent, and the banks $9 billion transaction has taken over the headlines – a rehash of an old story. In the meantime, JPMorgan has partaken in the illegal and unconscionable with some of civilization’s deepest-entrenched institutions, in this case the twenty century-old religious center of Catholicism.

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