Conspiracy Nation

Vol. 6 Num. 65

VATICAN BANK MONEY LAUNDERING RING SUSPECTED

A Reuters wire service story (Sat, 2 Dec 1995 8:50:06 PST) and an Associated Press wire service story (Sat, 2 Dec 1995 17:00:06 PST) both tell of a suspected Vatican Bank money laundering ring.

According to Reuters, the allegations have been highlighted by the arrest Saturday, December 2nd, of a 72-year-old retired CIA agent, Roger D'Onofrio, near Naples, Italy. It is suspected that D'Onofrio "used his CIA contacts to help an international ring launder money and traffick in arms, drugs and radioactive materials."

The Associated Press story adds that Italian police have linked him to various Swiss bank accounts. Also implicated in the affair has been Cardinal Ricard Maria Carles, the archbishop of Barcelona, Spain.

Articles in Italian and Spanish newspapers have charged the Cardinal with helping supervise "the laundering of some $65 million in lire into dollars through the Vatican bank."

Although both Cardinal Carles and the Vatican have denied these allegations, Prosecutor Alfredo Ormanni casts doubt on their denials: he says that an Italian financial expert, Riccardo Marocco, in a wiretapped telephone conversation, specifically named Cardinal Carles "as the Spanish contact for the money laundering ring."

Chicago researcher Sherman Skolnick adds additional elements to the story. He says that not only have they grabbed the ex-CIA agent, but that, according to foreign journalists he has talked to, D'Onofrio "has confessed that he is the head of a team that [has done] the work arranging the money laundering on behalf of the Mafia and the CIA through the Vatican Bank, and that his team were the ones that poisoned [the late Pope] John Paul I."

Skolnick is pursuing leads that may show a link between the arrest of D'Onofrio and the tragic assassination recently of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The Chicago investigator says that Israeli journalists have confided in him that Israeli intelligence appears to be behind D'Onofrio's arrest. States Mr. Skolnick: "My Israeli sources claim that the Mossad is gloating over it; that they arranged it because of this thing about the Pope and this whole business I was telling you about." [See CN 6.45 at ftp.shout.net pub/users/bigred for background.]

Now looking into what he sees as a possible Chicago-Israel-Italy connection to the Rabin assassination, Skolnick questions an under-reported visit to Chicago this week by Ariel Sharon, a prominent Israeli.

Why was Sharon in Chicago? Was it just to give a speech, as reported? Or was there another reason? Why too, wonders Skolnick, was Jonathan Pollard's father also in Chicago this week?

Mr. Skolnick, editor of Hotline News (312-731-1100) and co-host of a highly popular public access cable TV program in Chicago, admits that this is a story he is still at work developing. Still, one wonders why the American press hasn't paid more attention to at least some aspects of it -- at least to the arrest of the retired CIA agent and the charges of Vatican Bank money laundering.

Says Skolnick: "If there was an honest press, you know how *big* that story would be?

That should make headlines! Nothin.

It's on National Public Radio. And even the story on National Public Radio was not complete. I encourage distribution of 'Conspiracy Nation'."

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