Inside The Vatican, Part 2

Ratzinger in the Hitler Youth program

See “Inside the Vatican”, part 1 here

“Tedeschi reportedly gave copies of the documents to his closest confidantes and told them: “If I am killed, the reason for my death is in here. I’ve seen things in the Vatican that would frighten anyone.”

The Vatican Inc., possibly the greatest holder of tax-free real estate on the planet has a long-standing history of shady dealings with Italian and German Fascists. In fact, as detailed in “The Guardian”, The Vatican got it’s big boost from the Italian dictator Mussolini:

“Behind a disguised offshore company structure, the church’s international portfolio has been built up over the years, using cash originally handed over by Mussolini in return for papal recognition of the Italian fascist regime in 1929….
-British wartime records from the National Archives in Kew complete the picture. They confirm Profima SA as the Vatican’s own holding company, accused at the time of “engaging in activities contrary to Allied interests”. Files from officials at Britain’s Ministry of Economic Warfare at the end of the war criticised the pope’s financier, Bernardino Nogara, who controlled the investment of more than £50m cash from the Mussolini windfall.
Nogara’s “shady activities” were detailed in intercepted 1945 cable traffic from the Vatican to a contact in Geneva, according to the British, who discussed whether to blacklist Profima as a result….
-Earlier in the war, in 1943, the British accused Nogara of similar “dirty work”, by shifting Italian bank shares into Profima’s hands in order to “whitewash” them and present the bank as being controlled by Swiss neutrals. This was described as “manipulation” of Vatican finances to serve “extraneous political ends”.
The Mussolini money was dramatically important to the Vatican’s finances…
-The Mussolini money was dramatically important to the Vatican’s finances. John Pollard, a Cambridge historian, says in Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: “The papacy was now financially secure. It would never be poor again.”

“The Telegraph U.K.” describes the removal of Mr. Tedeschi (quoted at top of this report) from the Vatican Bank:

“Appointed in 2009, the 67-year-old banker was sacked as head of the Vatican’s bank on May 24 – the day after the Pope’s butler was arrested on suspicion of stealing confidential letters from Benedict’s desk and leaking them to journalists.
Mr Gotti Tedeschi was allegedly ousted by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as the Vatican secretary of state is the Pope’s deputy, in a dispute over efforts to improve the transparency of the scandal-ridden bank, known formally as the Institute for Religious Works.”

Tedeschi apparantly compiled a “dirty laundry list” against The Vatican and Italian politicians as an insurance policy against his possible murder:

“Mr Gotti Tedeschi appeared to have compiled the dossier as a means of him defending himself against charges of incompetency, mismanagement and possible money laundering.
The reforms were intended to clean up the Vatican’s finances so that it could be included on the OECD’s “white list” of countries least at risk from money laundering and other financial irregularities.
Earlier this year the city state was listed as a “jurisdiction of concern” for money laundering in the US State Department’s annual International Narcotics Control Strategy report.
Mr Gotti Tedeschi was so fearful for his safety that he hired bodyguards and sought advice from a private investigation agency, the Italian media reported.
The sensational claims evoked memories of one of the Vatican’s darkest chapters – the mysterious death in 1982 of Roberto Calvi, nicknamed “God’s Banker”, who was president of Italy’s largest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano.
After the bank, which had close links with the Vatican, went bankrupt, Calvi was found hanged from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London, amid suspicions that he had been murdered by mafia godfathers as punishment for losing money they had invested in the bank.
“Gotti Tedeschi was nicknamed ‘the Pope’s banker’ and he feared meeting the same end as ‘God’s banker,’” said Il Fatto Quotidiano, a daily newspaper with a reputation for investigative reporting.
The secret dossier allegedly compiled by Mr Gotti Tedeschi was discovered by Carabinieri police after they raided his home and office in Milan and Piacenza, both in northern Italy, on Tuesday.
He was questioned by prosecutors for up to nine hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, during which he reportedly told them: “I’m afraid for my life”.

As described by “The Mail U.K.”, The Vatican is still involved in money laundering:

“Drug enforcement chiefs have for the first time identified the Vatican as a possible centre for money laundering from criminal activity.
The report by the American State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy lists the Holy See as one of 68 countries including Yemen, Algeria and North Korea, describing it as a ‘country of concern’ for money laundering or other financial crimes.
Officials said they had placed the Vatican on its watch list because of the ‘huge amount of cash’ that flows into the tiny city state and also because it was still unclear how effective anti money laundering legislation introduced last year by Pope Benedict XVI had been…

And here’s more on the death of previous Vatican banker, Roberto Calvi:
The Telegraph U.K.

“Roberto Calvi, who earned his nickname for his close ties to the Vatican Bank, was found hanged beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London amid strong suspicions that he was murdered.
Ayda Suarez Levy, the widow of a Bolivian druglord, claims that Calvi was laundering drug cartel money through an account in Nassau, in the Bahamas, on behalf of South American drug lords.
The Cocaine King sheds new light on Calvi’s death, which remains one of the Vatican’s darkest chapters and most contested mysteries.
Mrs Levy, the widow of Roberto Suarez Gomez, claimed in an interview on Italian television on Monday that Mr Calvi was her husband’s “Italian contact”…
-Ms Levy recounted an encounter involving her husband and Gunter Sachs, a multi-millionaire German playboy who was the third husband of Brigitte Bardot.
She said that six months before Calvi’s death, she and her husband met Mr Sachs on a trip to Switzerland and they discussed the Italian banker.
Mr Sachs, who committed suicide in his Swiss chalet last year at the age of 78, reportedly told the Bolivian drug baron: “Calvi is very scared because Pablo Escobar wants his money back from the bank in Nassau.”
The Bahamas bank that he was referring to was an affiliate of Banco Ambrosiano, which was Italy’s biggest private bank when it collapsed in 1982.
It was headed by Mr Calvi, who had close ties to the Vatican’s bank, formally known as the Istituto per le Opere di Religion – the Institute for Religious Works.
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We have just barely touched on all the angles of the Vatican money-laundering schemes. As we see above, these have been life-or-death issues with a cast of villains from Mussolini to the Fascist P2 Masonic lodge that operated as a “shadow government”, also linked to Calvi’s death.

In Part 3 we will begin looking at the connection between The Vatican and Nazi Germany before, during and after the Second World War.

Tags: Drug Cartels, Fascism, Gotti Tedeschi, money laundering, Mussolini, Nazis, P2 Masonic Lodge, Pope Benedict, Ratzinger, Roberto Calvi, The Vatican

This entry was posted on February 20, 2013 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Hidden History, Tell the truth and run !. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.