The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia by Paul L. Williams

the buried Ustashi treasure was removed from
the monastery in Zagreb to Rome and from Rome to Naples, where
the gold and silver were melted into bars under the supervision of the
Mafia. From Naples the bars of pure gold and silver reportedly were
transferred by the Mafiosi to Vatican City for deposit in Franciscan
accounts within the Vatican Bank where the fortune, valued in excess
of $80 million, disappeared within its vast vault.4

    More money came to the Vatican from Croatia. On May 7, 1945,
288 kilograms of gold was removed from the Croatian National Bank
and the state treasury. According to a report filed by Office of
Strategic Services (OSS) agent Emerson Bigelow on October 21,
1946, British soldiers managed to confiscate 150 kilograms of gold at
the Italian border, but the remaining money made its way to the Holy
See, where it was stored away in the Vatican Bank for "safe keeping."5
    In addition to the Croatian Nazi gold, the Vatican amassed millions from the sale of false passports to fleeing war criminals and the
establishment of the infamous "ratline." The "ratline" was the name
for an underground railroad by which Nazi officials escaped from justice for their war crimes. Through the Vatican ratline, the Ustashi
high command moved from Trieste, to Rome, to Geneva, and on to
neutral countries, primarily Argentina, where they could spend their
days unpunished and unnoticcd.6
    A key figure in these nefarious activities was Fr. Krunoslav Dragonovic, a Franciscan monk who became a member of the Ustashi high
command. On one occasion, Father Dragonovic smuggled fifty kilograms of gold from Croatia to Rome in two shipping crates.7 After
supervising the massacre of thousands of Serbs in New Croatia, Father
Dragonovic was recalled to Rome in 1943, where he was appointed
head of the College of San Girolamo degli Illirici. Located in Rome,
the Vatican-sponsored seminary became a center for Croats seeking
religious instruction and ordination to the priesthood. Later, San
Girolamo came to serve as the headquarters for the postwar Ustashi
underground.' In a report of February 12, 1947, U.S. Army Counter
Intelligence Corps Agent Gowan wrote: "San Girolamo is honeycombed with cells of Ustasha operatives. In order to enter the
monastery, one must submit to a personal search for weapons and
identification.... The whole area is guarded by armed Ustasha youths
in civilian clothes, and the Ustashi salute is exchanged constantly."9
    Father Dragonovic presented himself as a Red Cross worker, but
according to U.S. intelligence, his real role was to provide an escape
route for Nazis to South America. A CIC confidential report of July
27, 1950, shows that the United States was willing to give Dragonovic free reign over the ratline because of the Vatican official's will ingness to arrange the escape of anti-Communist informants,
including Klaus Barbie, the head of the Gestapo in Lyons who had
tortured and killed thousands of Jews and members of the French
Resistance.10 From 1946 to 1947 Dragonovic kept Barbie under his
protective care at San Girolamo where the two regularly dined
together. CIA records show that Dragonovic remained on the payroll
of the U.S. Army throughout the 1950s. In 1958, after the death of
Pius XII, his papal protector, Dragonovic was expelled from the College of San Girolamo by orders of the Vatican Secretariat of State.
Despite the expulsion, he continued to serve the CIA by recruiting
Ustashi mercenaries to help the Dominican Republic in its fight
against Castro.

    The Vatican ratline, under Father Dragonovic's supervision,
became incredibly efficient and highly elaborate. Fleeing war criminals were sheltered within Vatican City and granted new identities.
Birth certificates, visas, passports, and other documentation were
manufactured, prepared, and delivered with amazing proficiency by a
small army of Vatican bureaucrats." Members of the Sicilian Mafia,
skilled in the