The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the Bank of Italy's financialintelligenceunit tipped off Italy's tax police last week, after two suspicious transactions were reported between the Vatican Bank and two different Italian banks.
In recent months, the bank hired as its chief legal officer Stuart Levey from the U.S. Treasury, where he led the U.S. government's financial-intelligence unit focused on tracking terrorism finance and money laundering.
This fellowship was established in memory of Nico Colchester, who died in 1996 at the age of 49, after an outstanding career at the Financial Times, The Economist and the Economist IntelligenceUnit.