Tommaso di Ruzza, the head of the Vatican Financial watchdog has been relieved of his duty, this was disclosed by the Vatican Secretary of State who named an official of the Bank of Italy, Giuseppe Schlitzer as his replacement. Asides removing di Ruzza, Pope Francis did not renew the AIF’s president, Rene Bruelhart mandate. The raids and scandals over the AIF’s leadership replacement have raised eyebrows about the Vatican’s murky finances and Francis’ failure to truly reform them. Di Ruzza played great effort in rewriting the Vatican’s AML laws and helped to control the Vatican’s association with the Council of Europe’s Moneyval evaluators. While leading the agency, di Ruzza and Bruelhart secured agreements with over 60 nations to share financial information to the combat of money laundering and tax evasion.
In his discussion with The Associated Press, di Ruzza showed his appreciation to the Pope for allowing him to serve the Holy See. The purchase of a take in a luxury residence London was the reason for the investigations of allegations of corruption in the Secretariat of States in 2012 by the Vatican prosecutors. The AIF got involved in March 2019, after the deal was closed when the No. 2 in the secretariat of state filed a suspicious transaction report that prompted AIF to launch a five-nation intelligence investigation to trace the financial flows from the deal and try to nab the people who had allegedly defrauded the Vatican.
