VATICAN CITY (AP) – Vatican prosecutors have indicted the former president of the Vatican bank and his lawyer on embezzlement charges, holding them responsible for losses of more than 50 million euros ($62 million) from real estate sales.
The trial of Angelo Caloia and his lawyer, Gabriele Liuzzo, begins March 15. A third suspect died while under investigation.
The Institute for Religious Works said late Friday that Caloia and his lawyer were charged with alleged embezzlement and self-laundering between 2001 and 2008, when the bank disposed of “a considerable part of its real estate assets.”
The scam allegedly involved the suspects selling Vatican-owned real estate at under value prices to offshore companies that then resold the buildings at market rates, with the suspects allegedly profiting from the difference, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The IOR, as the bank is known, is joining a civil case alongside the criminal trial to try to recover some of the losses.