A Malta-based investment fund linked to the Vatican has been fined €68,899 by Malta’s anti-money laundering unit for regulatory breaches.

The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) found that Centurion Global Fund SICAV plc did not establish where its customers got their money from.

The FIAU said "a compliance examination report revealed instances where the company failed to obtain the necessary supporting documentation for the transactions executed by customers, particularly concerning their source of wealth and source of funds".

Centurian Global Fund is a Malta-based investment vehicle that offers collective investment schemes and is run by the Vatican's external money manager.

The Vatican's state secretariat had used Centurion Global Fund to invest in Hollywood films, European start-up companies and energy enterprises using money that reportedly came from donations of Catholics across the globe. 

It was reported the investments lost money while its managers scooped millions of euros in fees, raising concerns over whether that was an appropriate use of donation money.

The FIAU raised concerns over whether the company's checks and balances were robust enough to detect potential money laundering concerns in investments that amounted to several millions.

It said "the company was not implementing robust and timely controls over the investments undertaken by its customers, especially when nominee entities were investing for and on behalf of end customers".

"The processing of millions of euros without adequate checks in place was identified as an unmanaged risk that could have led to the unintentional facilitation of money laundering and the financing of terrorism," it concluded.

It also noted, however, that when "adverse" media reports emerged on one of its clients, the company did take the necessary steps to raise its client's low-risk rating to medium and eventually a high-risk one.

In 2020, Pope Francis had ordered the Hole See's secretary of state to transfer all of its financial holdings to another Vatican office, amid a corruption investigation into hundreds of millions of dollars of donations and investments.

Francis had told the secretary of state that one of the reasons behind his decision was the office's investment in Malta's Centurion Global Fund.