Thirty years after the money laundering scandal that badly shook the Catholic church in the 1980s, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) – the Vatican's bank – is again at the centre of a financial scandal relating to money laundering.

On June 29, Bishop Nunzio Scarano, the former chief accounting officer for the agency that manages the Vatican's assets was arrested over claims he used the IOR to repatriate money hidden in Switzerland.

On July 3, the Public Prosecutor of Rome opened a money laundering investigation against the Director General of the IOR, Paolo Cipriani, and his number two, Massimo Tulli.

They are being investigated over a number of ​​suspicious transactions worth more than €1m. Both men resigned earlier this week.

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