Vatican works with Italian authorities to investigate source of leaks

The Vatican is cooperating with Italian prosecutors in an investigation into the leak of financial information related to the Vatican’s major financial trial that ended last year.

Italian media report that two men are being investigated for having gained unauthorized access hundreds of times to a database of suspicious financial activity shared with Italy by banks, which includes potentially compromising information about Italian politicians and defendants in the trial of the Vatican.

The database is used by anti-mafia prosecutors and judges in money laundering and terrorist financing cases.

A brief note to journalists from the Holy See Press Office said on Tuesday that Vatican prosecutor Alessandro Diddi and the commander of the Vatican gendarmes, Gianluca Gauzzi, met on September 17 with the prosecutor and the deputy prosecutor of Perugia (Italy).

The Perugia prosecutor has jurisdiction over the investigation of crimes committed by magistrates and prosecutors in Rome.

During the meeting, the two judicial offices agreed to collaborate on an ongoing investigation into “unauthorized access to a computer or telematics system,” a crime under Italian law, for the clandestine collection of information about individuals. In common Italian parlance, the action is often called “dossieraggio.”

It has not been publicly reported for what purpose the information was collected and whether it was done on behalf of anyone.

The Perugia prosecutor has accused a lieutenant of the Italian financial police, Pasquale Striano, who worked in the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Office, as well as one of the prosecutors of said office, Antonio Laudati, for having allegedly accessed non-public information. about possibly up to 172 politicians and other Italian media personalities.

Striano is also accused of being the source of reports published by two journalists from the Italian newspaper Domani, who are also being investigated for allegedly reporting protected information, informed the Italian newspaper Il Giornale.

Striano and Laudati have publicly denied the allegations.

According to the press office note, the Vatican prosecutor, Diddi, has also opened his own case regarding the “alleged illegal accesses (to information) carried out during the course of investigations in the well-known investigation into the purchase of the building of London”.

Il Giornale also reported last March about allegations that in 2019, an unknown person, possibly someone inside the Vatican, asked Striano to obtain information on at least five people, all of whom were later charged and convicted in the major Vatican financial trial that concluded in December 2023: Cardinal Angelo Becciu, Cecilia Marogna, Raffaele Mincione, Fabrizio Tirabasi and Gianluigi Torzi.

In 2019, the Vatican prosecutor’s office was in the early stages of the investigation into the Secretariat of State’s investment in London, building its case against the 10 people subsequently charged with crimes including financial fraud.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.