Having only seen the GF movies for the first time recently, I couldn't help but look for seemingly the only place on the nets where there is still an ongoing discussion of these masterpieces (meaning I and II).

Anyway, I think that for Michael to come into the limelight with his charities and openly purchasing a controlling interest in a big international corporation such as Immobiliare, his fortune had to be legit by the definitions of US and international laws, not just by his own .
And it had to be that way for some time. Otherwise he'd have been up to his neck in IRS before he could blink.

Which is why the notion that Immobiliare would give him legitimacy makes zero sense.

And frankly, it is unclear whether he lost the money deposited in the bank of Vatican or not. On the one hand, the idea of this particular bank going bust seems ridiculous even in a fictional movie. And Michael certainly didn't behave like somebody who'd just lost the better part of a billion.

OTOH, Keinszig going on the run with a trunk full of money and getting mysteriously killed is modeled on RL events where a bank did go bust. So?

Of course, in terms of recovering the money, it also made no sense to whack Keinszig and the Archbishop, who were the only people who may have been able to get at least part of it back, once properly intimidated...


So, yea, this plot-line is really murky and unsatisfying. It should have gotten either more space and detail or less, IMHO.