Vatican Priest Accused of Money Smuggling-Laundering

Nunzio Scarano

Interesting article today from the Christian Science Monitor about a priest at the Vatican, Rev. Nunzio Scarano, who was caught along with two cohorts trying to smuggle 26 million dollars in cash on a plane going from Switzerland to Italy. The money was owned by a family that has a shipping company in Naples. He was apparently going to "privately" deposit the money into a Vatican bank either to help the family avoid paying taxes on it, or perhaps to launder it in the case that it might have been illegally gotten money.

What caught my attention more than anything was the fact that all three men met through their membership in the Constantine Order of St. George, a society of ecclesiastical knights who's history is sketchy at best. The article also mentions the last great Vatican banking scandal in the 1980s when the chairman of an Italian bank in which the Vatican was the primary shareholder was found hanging dead under the Blackfriars Bridge and five members of the Italian Mafia were tried for his murder, but all were acquitted for lack of evidence.

In short, I think it's great that Pope Francis is doing his best to straighten out the Vatican banking mess, but if big money and the Mafia are involved, he's going to have a very difficult undertaking ahead of him. We may start seeing dead priests hanging from bridges in the near future.

The article is here.

Mafia President Trump?

Let's talk about just a few of Donald Trump's mob ties:

Phillip Wasserman - Trump uses Wasserman's company to promote free lunch seminars that are in reality high pressure sales pitches. Wasserman resigned from the Florida Bar rather than face disciplinary action. According to thechicagosyndicate.com, "The Florida Supreme Court found him guilty of charging excessive fees, failure to act with diligence, improper trust-account maintenance and even paying a disciplinary fine with a bad check." Wasserman openly admits that many of his family members are involved with the Chicago Mob, but will say nothing of his own involvement.

Genovese Mafia Family - From a July 2001 Time Magazine article: "Even the currently troubled Donald Trump has allegedly paid his Genovese dues, perhaps unwittingly. Last month Trump took the stand in Manhattan's federal court to deny that he knowingly hired 200 illegal Polish aliens to demolish a building in Manhattan in 1980 to make way for his glittering Trump Tower. Members of Housewreckers Local 95, who also accuse their own president in the scheme, allege that Trump was able to avoid making payments that would now total $1 million (including interest) into the union's pension funds. % "You can bet there was a wise guy somewhere in the background," says an FBI specialist on the Genovese family. Says labor consultant Daniel Sullivan, an FBI source on the Mob who has testified in the case: "It's a classic Mob relationship. Trump or his people had to have a deal to get such a sweetheart contract."

Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno and Paul Castellano, both of the Gambino Mob - Wayne Barrett, political writer for the Village Voice named several crime families connected to Trump's building and real estate ventures in his 1991 book, _Trump: The Deals and the Downfall_, where he showed copies of numerous government documents and personal interviews backing his claims. Salerno and Castellano's S&A Concrete company was one that was used several times, including all the concrete used in the Trump Towers.

Roy Cohn - Well known lawyer to the mob has handled numerous suits for Trump over the years. Barrett claims Trump was like a son to Cohn.

John Cody - Boss of that same Gambino owned concrete company. Trump rented a condo to his girlfriend, and then after Cody went to prison, Trump tried to sue her for unpaid rent. That is, until she filed court papers accusing Trump of taking kickbacks from an architect working on her apartment. Trump settled out of court giving her a half million dollars.

Robert Hopkins - Lucchese crime family associate who ran the biggest illegal numbers operation in New York out of his Trump Tower condo, according to court records cited in the book.