Vatican Bank's chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, who is known to
the Pontiff, and director general Paolo Cipriani - are being
investigated.
The probe was launched after tax police in Rome were alerted to
two suspicious transactions totaling £19million.
It is not the first time the bank, known as the Istituto per le
Opere Religiose, has been implicated in money laundering - it
was previously linked to the £2billion collapse of another bank,
Credito Ambrosiano.
Then governor Archbishop Paul Marcinkus escaped investigation by
claiming Vatican immunity but Ambrosiano's president Roberto Calvi
was found hanging under The City of London's Blackfriars Bridge
after escaping from the Mafia in Italy.
Calvi was known as God's Banker because of his connections to
the Vatican Bank.
Archbishop Marcinkus died in 2006, never explaining his
involvement with Calvi.
### He famously once said: 'You can't run the Church on Hail
Mary's.'