mr blur

mr blur's Journal

January 21, 2013

The fascist origins of much of the Vatican's wealth

How the Vatican built a secret property empire using Mussolini's millions

Papacy used offshore tax havens to create £500m international portfolio, featuring real estate in UK, France and Switzerland

Few passing London tourists would ever guess that the premises of Bulgari, the upmarket jewellers in New Bond Street, had anything to do with the pope. Nor indeed the nearby headquarters of the wealthy investment bank Altium Capital, on the corner of St James's Square and Pall Mall.

But these office blocks in one of London's most expensive districts are part of a surprising secret commercial property empire owned by the Vatican.

Behind a disguised offshore company structure, the church's international portfolio has been built up over the years, using cash originally handed over by Mussolini in return for papal recognition of the Italian fascist regime in 1929.

Since then the international value of Mussolini's nest-egg has mounted until it now exceeds £500m. In 2006, at the height of the recent property bubble, the Vatican spent £15m of those funds to buy 30 St James's Square. Other UK properties are at 168 New Bond Street and in the city of Coventry. It also owns blocks of flats in Paris and Switzerland.

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/21/vatican-secret-property-empire-mussolini

No wonder Ratzo can afford all those shoes.

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Hometown: Chichester
Home country: U.K.
Member since: Tue Sep 2, 2003, 06:34 PM
Number of posts: 7,753

About mr blur

SEPTEMBER 1st.>> So you banned me, as I expected, but after 13 years at DU is 'Troll' really the best justification you three mighty Hillbot brains could come up with? Troll? I thought that you were OK with trolls. Or is that just pro-Clinton trolls? Plenty of those at DU, some with 15 or more hides. Troll? So is this your idea of *punishment*? You don't think I wanted to stay, do you? If I did, I wouldn't have left. See how that works? You would all be funny if you weren't so...sad. -------------------------- SEPTEMBER 8th.>> Oh, and muriel_volestrangler - after all these years I thought we were on the same page. I guess I was wrong. You think: "for Mr Blur to do so with ignorant comparisons to Thatcher was misleading, as well (I suspect it shows an inability on his part to think of women as politicians, seeing them instead as some special exception to the norm of men being charge)." Congratulations: arrogance, stupidity, rudeness and condescension all in one (clumsily constructed) sentence. "He should stick to a far left purity site."? Well, certainly no danger of running into you NeoCons there. I guess you kept your eyes and ears closed back in the '80s, as you seem to be doing now. ------------------------------NOVEMBER 7th >> Want a treat here on Dramaqueen Underground? Slum it on over to the Religion Group and catch The rug Monologues; this miserable piece of shit is so toxic that not even the other religious loonies want to be seen talking to him. Even Prayer Warriors have some standards. I guess that's what you get for constantly (and desperately) propping up a cult of misogynistic bigots and child-molesters. ------------------------------- NOVEMBER 16th >>And now all you $hillary-worshippers can watch Dump trashing your country and tell yourselves, "I did this!" To borrow one of skimmer 's phrases: Sucks to be you. ------------------------------------------ NOVEMBER 30th> BainsBane, what a dumb fuck you are. One of the worst here. ----------------------------DECEMBER 23rd> b.t.w., Guillameb is Baby Justin with an eighth grade education. ------------------------------MARCH 5th> I see that the old shitstain rug tried to assuage his self-righteous sinful guilt by trying to deny himself the pleasures of exposing atheists for Lent. Sadly, he couldn't go forty days without showing his followers how smart he thinks he is and now he's back puking his bile over Religion. QED, eh?