Court documents show that Vatican Bank deliberately flouted
anti-laundering laws "with the aim of hiding the ownership,
destination and origin of the capital".
The documents also reveal that clergy acted as fronts for
corrupt businessmen and Mafia.
The financial impropriety could not come at a worse time for the
Vatican, already hit by revelations that it sheltered paedophile
priests.
The corruption probe has given new hope to Holocaust survivors
who tried unsuccessfully to sue in the United States, alleging that
Nazi loot was stored in the Vatican Bank.