JACKSON, Miss. -- Five state insurance commissioners have sued the Vatican, alleging the church was involved in a more than $200 million insurance fraud scheme by now jailed financier Martin Frankel, according to the Associated Press.

The federal lawsuit, filed May 9 by insurance commissioners in Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas, accuses the Vatican and Monsignor Emilio Colagiovanni of racketeering and fraud. The suit was filed in Mississippi since 70 percent of the money allegedly stolen was taken from Mississippi companies, said Lee Harrell, Mississippi's deputy insurance commissioner.

"We're not trying to embarrass the Vatican, we're just trying to do what we have to do under the statutes," Harrell said. "We wouldn't be suing them if we didn't think they did some things wrong and that they owed us money."

The lawsuit claims Vatican officials and Colagiovanni either helped Frankel or concealed his use of pseudonyms and partners to buy small insurance companies in those states, which have reputations for lax insurance regulations. Frankel siphoned money from the companies through his unlicensed brokerage operated out of his Greenwich, Conn., home, according to the states.

Frankel was arrested in Germany in 1999 and is jailed in Rhode Island awaiting trial in U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., on charges of racketeering, fraud and conspiracy, according to the Associated Press.

Colagiovanni was arrested in August 2001 on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money in connection with a multimillion-dollar insurance scam.