Nunzio Scarano, a Monsignor and former Vatican accountant, is already on trial for an alleged plot to smuggle 20 million Euros from Switzerland into Italy.
Today, he is the subject of an additional charge related to laundering millions through the Vatican Bank.
Scarano has been on trial and under house arrest since December 3. The trial relates to an alleged conspiracy to smuggle ~ 20 Million Euros (or, as some Germans call them, Teuros), out of Switzerland for shipbuilder friends of the Monsignor in Salerno, Sicily.
According to Reuters, via NBC News, the new charges relate to suspected laundering via Scarano's accounts at the Vatican Bank, and attempted concealment of the scheme. Reuter's attributes this to Scarano's defense counsel, Silverio Sica.
Police said Scarano and two other people served with arrest warrants on Tuesday were suspected of laundering and making false statements. Sica said one of the arrested was a priest friend of Scarano, who was suspended from his job at the Vatican last year.
A police statement said millions of euros in "false donations" from offshore companies moved through Scarano's accounts at the Vatican bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion.
They said millions of euros worth of bank accounts and real estate holdings were in the process of being confiscated as part of the police operation in Salerno that coincided with the issuing of the arrest warrants.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.