A former Vatican official has reported that the Secretariat of State asked Italian intelligence officials to check their offices for electronic surveillance—and may have asked the same officials to conduct surveillance on others—in the latest revelation from testimony in the landmark finance trial.

Vincenzo Mauriello, a layman who worked for the Secretariat of State, told investigators that Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the deputy Secretary of State, sought help from Italian officials, rather than from the Vatican’s own Gendarmerie, to test the possibility that someone was seeking confidential information about Vatican finances. Mauriello testified that the Italian officials also spoke with officials of the Secretariat of State about conducting their own espionage on other individuals.