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Rome, Italy (AHN) – The prosecutors in Italy have launched an investigation into top executives of the Vatican Bank for violating money laundering laws and freezed $30 million in assets from the Istituto per le Opere di Religione. Authorities also ordered an inquiry against the group’s Chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi.

Responding to this development, the Holy See expressed surprise and claimed that their financial transactions are transparent. Vatican Secretariat of State or IOR also rebutted the claims and said that it was “perplexed and astonished” at the investigation. The prosecutors accused the executives of not disclosing Vatican’s financial operations to the country’s Central Bank – a law, which was put in place three years ago to stamp out money laundering.

However, the Vatican insisted that the Holy See had already transferred the necessary information to the Bank of Italy.

“The Holy See’s authorities’ evident willingness to be fully transparent regarding IOR’s financial operations is well known,” it added.

This is not the first time the Vatican Bank faced a fraud scandal. In the 1980s, a series of scandals had tainted its image.

The latest probe began after Bank of Italy’s financial intelligence office found two IOR operations suspicious and froze it earlier this month. In the first one, an amount of $26 billion was transferred to JP Morgan Frankfurt, while around $4 billion was transferred to Italian bank Banca del Fucino.

The Vatican said that these money transfers were between different IOR bank accounts, adding that the IOR need not have to follow the same regulations like other Italian financial institutions.

“IOR authorities have long worked and met with the Bank of Italy and with the competent international organizations to place the Holy See on a money laundering and terrorism white list, ” the Vatican said.

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