Pope To Shed Light On Vatican's Murky Banking

The Vatican has created a financial watchdog agency and issued new laws to fight money laundering and terrorist financing in a major effort to shed its image as a tax haven that for years has been mired in secrecy.
Which go into effect April 1, were passed Thursday as the Vatican’s own bank remains implicated in a money-laundering investigation that resulted in 23 million euros ($31 million) being seized.
Religious Works, or IOR, is one of several Vatican offices that are covered by the new financial transparency rules, which were adopted primarily to comply with European Union norms. The Vatican city state’s governing administration, the department that controls the pope’s vast real estate holdings, even the Holy See’s pharmacy.
But it also manages ATMs inside Vatican City and the pension system for the Vatican’s thousands of employees. But bank officials say there are some 40,000-45,000 among religious congregations, clergy, Vatican officials and lay people with Vatican connections.said he was issuing the decrees because he wanted the Vatican to join other countries that have cracked down on legal loopholes that have allowed criminals to exploit the financial sector.
 independent Vatican compliance agency, the Financial Information Authority, tasked with ensuring all Vatican financial transactions comply with the new laws. The watchdog will also share information with international financial organizations.can be passed onto prosecutors at the Vatican tribunal. Its work is conducted in secret  - but the norms stress that secrecy won’t get in the way of cooperating with law enforcement agencies.
Vatican to train anyone for terrorist acts or to provide them with chemical or bacteriological weapons.  for prostitution or other reasons, or who traffic in human organs now face eight to 20 years behind bars. It’s now even a crime to pollute the Vatican’s soil, water or atmosphere: those guilty face up to a year in prison.
EU norms on money-laundering and terror financing and shed its reputation in the financial world as a secrecy-obsessed tax haven whose bank was implicated in one of Italy’s largest fraud cases.
Rome prosecutors on Sept. 21 seized ¤23 million and placed Gotti Tedeschi and his deputy under investigation, alleging the bank broke the law by trying to transfer money without identifying the sender or recipient. But Rome courts have twice refused to release the money, with a judge earlier this month saying nothing had changed in the way the Vatican guards the identity of its clients.has said he has been working since then to get the Vatican to come into compliance with the norms of the Financial Action Task Force  - the Paris-based policymaking body that helps develop anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing legislation.