Rome Newsroom, Jan 12, 2021 / 13:00 pm
A Rome court has ruled that the search and seizure of money and other valuables from the home of a suspended Vatican official last November was "illegitimate" and ordered the cash to be returned, according to Italian media reports.
Fabrizio Tirabassi was a lay official at the Secretariat of State until his suspension, together with four other employees, in 2019. According to sources close to the Secretariat for the Economy, Tirabassi oversaw several financial transactions at the secretariat which are now under investigation.
In November 2020, Vatican gendarmes and Italian financial police searched two of Tirabassi's properties, in Rome and in Celano, a town in central Italy where Tirabassi was born.
The search, which was focused on computers and documents, reportedly uncovered bundles of banknotes amounting to 600,000 euros ($713,000), around 200,000 euros of which was reportedly found in an old shoebox.