What began as a financial investment by the Vatican Bank ended as a million-dollar scandal with a trace to Switzerland.
Jul 7, 2026, 5:14 amJul 7, 2026, 5:14 am
The Vatican wants its money back, some of which is said to be in a Swiss bank. View from St. Peter’s Basilica to St. Peter’s Square.Image: Jose R. Martinez
Pope Leo XIV is in the process of reducing the position of the Vatican Bank IOR. It deprives it of its exclusive position in financial investments by the Holy See. The Holy Father has very good reasons for this: The melodious name – IOR stands for Istituto per le Opera di Religione, in German: Institute for Religious Works – has repeatedly been synonymous with scandals and the misuse of church funds in recent decades.
One of these cases is reverberating before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona. The current management of the Vatican Bank is demanding legal assistance from Switzerland: bank documents and the continuation of an account freeze at a private bank in Geneva. It’s about seven million euros, which is said to be related to a large suspected fraud case involving the Vatican Bank.
The background is the “scandalo Budapest”, as the Italian media call it. The focus is on former top officials of the IOR and external financial actors. In 2013, under the leadership at the time, the Vatican Bank invested, to put it simply, in a historic property: the old Stock Exchange Palace in Budapest.
According to Vatican investigators, the value of the building was inflated through tricks. And at the expense of the Vatican Bank. In its appeal decision, the Federal Criminal Court states that the Vatican estimates the damage to the IOR in the Budapest transaction to be at least 14 million euros.
Millions are said to have flowed to Geneva
Part of the money that was stolen from the IOR is said to have flowed into an account at a private bank in Geneva. The account was in the name of the foreign company that was now trying to prevent legal assistance from being sent to the Vatican. It is not clear from the decision who exactly is behind her. But it could be a Maltese branch of the Geneva private bank.
At the beginning of June, the Federal Criminal Court confirmed in principle the legal assistance approved by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The bank documents can be sent to the Vatican, but the account block remains in effect. However, the court made one reservation: it is unclear exactly how high the blocked amount should be. While the Vatican authorities assume around 7.97 million euros, the federal prosecutor’s office only found a payment of just under 7 million euros in the Swiss bank documents. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office must now clarify this difference with the Vatican authorities.
The presumption of innocence applies.
Long series of scandals surrounding the IOR
The Vatican Bank IOR has a long history of financial scandals. The most famous is the scandal surrounding the Ambrosiano bank of the Milan banker Roberto Calvi. The IOR was involved in the environment of the collapsed bank via offshore structures. Calvi was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982. Murdered probably with the involvement of the mafia. The Vatican did not acknowledge legal guilt, but later paid more than $200 million to creditor banks.
The scandals didn’t end there. In 2021, a Vatican court convicted former IOR president Angelo Caloia of embezzlement and money laundering. According to “Vatican News”, it was about real estate sales by the IOR and damage in the double-digit million range. In this case too, traces led to Switzerland – it was about money laundering. (schweiztoday.ch)