(Strasbourg) – “The Holy See has corrected most of the technical deficiencies of its legal and regulatory provisions”: this has been stated by the Council of Europe (CoE) today, in a notice that announces the publication of the second “Progress Report of the Holy See on the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism”, made by Moneyval, the Council’s organisation responsible for such area. Now, the Holy See shall deliver “effective results in terms of criminal procedures, sentences and confiscations”, the notice explains. Following more thorough investigations, 4,800 accounts of the Istituto opere di religione (Ior) have been closed, measures have been taken to correct deficiencies in the identification of other account holders, and “groups of clients entitled to hold accounts” with IOR have been restricted. From January to September 2015, 329 suspect transactions have been reported, and 29 investigations have been opened for money laundering, with 11 million euros frozen, but, three years after the first Report, “no indictment or criminal proceedings” have been initiated yet. Hence the call to act, so that “the Gendarmerie and the public prosecutor may conduct financial investigations about the origins of such cases, so that the pending investigations may deliver effective results”. The next Report will be published in 2017. The Secretary General of the CoE, Thorbjørn Jagland, congratulated the Holy See “on the progress made since 2012”.