THE REVELATIONS OF wrongdoing currently rocking the Vatican bank couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Swiss-born anti-money laundering expert hired to lead the Holy See’s push for greater financial transparency.
Rene Bruelhart was heading to Sun City, South Africa, for the annual meeting of the Egmont Group, a gathering of financial information agencies from 130 countries, when the Vatican announced that its top two bank managers had resigned amid a blossoming financial scandal. The two executives were responsible for implementing the Vatican bank’s much-touted anti-money laundering efforts. But their resignations indicated — at the very least — that they hadn’t fully embraced the full scope of reform that was needed.
Despite latest news, the Holy See won a coveted membership in the Egmont Group on Wednesday, joining a club that aims to share financial information in the global fight against money laundering and terror financing.
For Bruelhart, dubbed the “James Bond of the financial world” by some media, joining Egmont meant that the Vatican now has more help in combating financial crimes — even if it can’t root them out entirely.
“With this membership, we are a credible player in the international and global fight against money laundering and terror finance,” Bruelhart said in a telephone interview Thursday from Sun City. “They trust us. That is very important.”
What is this Egmont Group?
The Egmont Group, which was created in 1995, aims to smooth the exchange of information among its members and improve cooperation in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. Its members are the financial intelligence units of countries’ central banks — the departments that collect and investigate reports of suspicious financial transactions.
Bruelhart headed Liechtenstein’s financial intelligence unit for eight years, and led the Egmont Group for two before being tapped by the Vatican as a consultant last year. The Holy See eventually named him director of its own financial intelligence unit to oversee all its financial activities. Then-Pope Benedict XVI created the Financial Intelligence Authority, or AIF, in 2010 as part of the Vatican’s push to comply with international norms to fight money laundering.
The Vatican’s newborn AIF was faulted on several fronts when it was evaluated last year by the Council of Europe’s Moneyval committee, which helps countries when it comes to following regulations on transparency. A new evaluation is scheduled for December.
Bruelhart has said that amended laws and regulations are in the works ahead of the follow-up Moneyval evaluation, and that for now the Holy See was content to have passed the milestone with Egmont. Asked how Egmont could have cleared the Holy See when there are still clearly problems at the bank, Bruelhart stressed the Egmont evaluation criteria was transparent and formal, with on-site visits and evaluations of its legislative framework and regulations. He said:
No country in the world is 100 per cent perfect.What’s important is if something is happening, you have the competent authority and you have the tools and measures to take relevant action.
The Vatican has certainly shown that it is far from perfect.
Vatican plagued by financial scandal for decades
Last week, Pope Francis named five people to head a commission of inquiry into the Vatican bank, the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR, to get to the root of the problems that have plagued it for decades and mired the Vatican in scandal over the years. Two days later, a Vatican monsignor was arrested in a 20 million euro money smuggling plot; the Vatican said it would cooperate with Italian investigators.
On Monday, the top two managers at the IOR resigned. Their boss, bank president Ernst von Freyberg, had just weeks earlier praised their collaboration as “truly happy” and helpful as the bank worked to comply with anti-money-laundering norms. By Monday, von Freyberg said it was clear that the bank needed new leadership “to increase the pace” of the IOR’s transformation — a suggestion that the managers had in some way held back that transformation.
The next step for Bruelhart is to ink a bilateral agreement with Italy to share financial information — a critical step given that the Italians have been the harshest critics of the Vatican’s murky financial dealings, convinced that people have used the IOR to shield money from Italian tax authorities. As it is, Italian prosecutors have various investigations under way targeting the Vatican bank and people who may have used it for less than holy ends.
“We’ve identified the countries which are of relevance and important for us, and amongst them is Italy,” Bruelhart said.
- Nicole Winfield
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