by Erin Elizabeth, Health Nut News:

Prosecutors at the Vatican seized “documents and electronic devices” on Tuesday from some of its highest offices as part of a finance probe, a Vatican statement said.

According to the statement, the activities were carried out to acquire documents and electronic devices from individual offices of the First Section of the Secretariat of State and the State Financial Information Authority (FIA).

The raid was authorized by prosecutor Gian Piero Milano and his deputy Alessandro Diddi. The Vatican said of the operation:

“(it was) linked to the complaints presented at the beginning of last summer by the Institute for Works of Religion and the Office of the General Auditor, regarding financial transactions carried out over time.”¹

It said the heads of the departments involved had been informed ahead of the raid but gave no additional details. It was believed to be the first time the two departments were searched for evidence involving alleged financial crimes. A senior Vatican source said he thought the operation had to do with real estate transactions.

The Secretariat of State is the most influential department in the Vatican. It is the nerve center of its bureaucracy and diplomacy and the administrative core of the worldwide Catholic Church. It works closely with Pope Francis.

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Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart is the financial controller of the FIA, which has authority of all other Vatican departments.

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The FIA is an anti-money laundering authority designed to lend transparency to operation carried out by the Institute of Religious Works (IOR), which serves as the Vatican Bank. The bank’s stated purpose is to manage funds for the Church, Vatican employees, religious institutes, and Catholic charities. Thousands of accounts have been closed at the bank.

For decades, the bank was embroiled in many financial scandals as Italians with no right to have accounts opened them with the cooperation of corrupt insiders.

Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, the Vatican has made a concerted effort to clean up its often murky financial reputation.

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In a trial that began in 2018 and is still in progress, a former head of the Vatican bank and an Italian lawyer went on trial to face charges of money laundering and embezzlement through real estate deals.

The AIF said reports of questionable financial activity in the Vatican reached a six-year low last year. Officials commented the downward trend indicates reforms are in place.

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