Cardinal Peccio: Torzi’s arrest is not an “earthquake”

CNA Staff, June 9 2020 / 03:00 AM (CNA). – Cardinal Angelo Picchio said that the arrest of a businessman at the Real Estate Deal Center in the Vatican will not have broader implications and that this work in the Vatican “will continue as before.”

Commenting on the June 5 arrest of Gianluigi Torzi, the former Foreign Ministry, he said he did not know the Italian businessman who was accused by Vatican representatives of fraud, extortion, money laundering and other crimes. Becciu also defended investing hundreds of millions of euros in London property at 60 Sloane Avenue, and said it still represented good value for money.

“I don’t know Torzi, I didn’t take long when the facts were attributed [Torzi] Happened, “Tell Becciu Adnkronos after Torzi’s arrest was announced.

Before becoming a cardinal in June 2018, Becciu was the second official of the Vatican Secretariat, which invested hundreds of millions of euros in London ownership between 2014-2018. Torzi acted as a middleman, commission broker, for the State Department, completing the purchase in 2018 and 2019.

Adenkronos’ report provides Peccho’s account of his role in the Vatican. Pecchio insists that Turzi’s participation in the project came after the Cardinal became head of the Saints Cause in the summer of 2018, but the original investment in the building was a sound decision.

“Are you sure this building was a waste? But there was no doubt that if it was sold now it would double the cost – 148 million euros when I was there, if there was [additional expenses] Then I ask who made them, I am no longer there. “

On Saturday, the cardinal dismissed the idea that Turzi’s arrest would lead to a broader “earthquake” in Korea, describing it as a “journalistic fiction.”

Becciu concluded an interview with his announcement that “[Torzi] He will have to respond to a specific crime that he alone is responsible for. The Vatican will continue as before. ”

CNA reported that between 2014 and 2018, the State Department paid around $ 300 million for the building, purchased from Italian businessman Raffaele Mincione. Misionioni arranged the initial investment for the secretariat through an investment fund through which he managed hundreds of millions of euros for the state secretariat.

The sale was completed by Gutt SA, a Luxembourg-owned holding company owned by Torzi.

According to a press release issued by the Holy See, Torzi was arrested on Friday in connection with “well-known events related to the sale of London property on Sloane Street, which included a network of companies where some Foreign Ministry officials were present.”

In May, CNA reported that in November 2018, an unofficial Foreign Ministry official was appointed as director of Gutt, for a period of one month. This official, Fabrizio Terrassi, was suspended from his post in October 2019, after a raid by Vatican investigators.

In his remarks to Adnkronos this weekend, Peccio reiterated his previous denial that the investment used money from Peter Pence, a voluntary fund that Catholics and parishes sent to the Holy See around the world to support the Pope’s ministry.

The Vatican News reported on Saturday that the investments made by the Secretariat in the Mincione Global Opportunities Fund of Athens amounted to 200 million euros. It is reported that Mincione invested this money in the building he owns, and other projects of Mincione, which it described as a “conflict of interest”.

On November 4, 2019, CNA reported that in 2015 Cardinal Becciu appears to have attempted to conceal on the Vatican budgets nearly 200 million of loans linked to the deal by canceling it against the value of the property in London, an accounting process banned by financial policies approved by Pope Francis In the year 2014.

This apparent attempt to withhold loans was revealed by the state of the economy, then led by Cardinal George Bell. Senior officials in the economics department told CNA in 2019 that Becciu told Bell that the cardinal was “interfering in sovereign business” by looking at trust transactions with the Swiss bank, BSI.

The BSI was closed by the Swiss banking authorities in 2017, after an investigation found systematic violations to protect against money laundering.

On Saturday, Becciu said that Torzi’s involvement in the London real estate deal came only after he left the secretariat.

In May, CNA reported that Swiss authorities had frozen tens of millions of euros in several bank accounts as part of the Vatican’s investigation of the deal.

On June 6, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that among the frozen funds several million were under the control of Msgr. Alberto Berlaska.

Berlasca worked under Becciu for nearly a decade as head of the Administrative Office of the First Division of the Secretariat until July 2019, when he was transferred to the Apostolic Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the Holy See. Berlaska worked as a court prosecutor, until his office and home were raided by investigators in February.

In an interview with Il Giornale newspaper on Monday, Perlasca denied that he had any Swiss bank accounts and was “ready to sue anyone claiming otherwise”.

Berlaska said: “There was a lot of confusion, I hope I am not aware, between personal accounts and State Department accounts, which, however, I had no signature authority because only chiefs possessed them. I only had the ability to sign in with another president. I don’t remember having to use it at all, because there was no need. In other words: I couldn’t move a single cent. “

Berlaska said he personally lodged a complaint against Torzi in 2018, allegedly forging the businessman to her.

Corriere also reported that the Swiss authorities had confiscated accounts owned by Mancioni as part of the investigation, as well as those that were under the control of Enrico Crasso, who had also administered the investments of the Holy See through the Centurion Global Fund.

He told Crasso Corriere that the accounts related to him were only under his management and not personal accounts. Previously, CNA reported Centurion contacts with several institutions subject to allegations of money laundering.

On Saturday, Misionioni denied any involvement with Turzi, beyond working with him as the broker chosen by the secretariat to complete the purchase of real estate.

In an interview with Adnkronos, Mincione said that apart from Torzi knowing a little as a social knowledge, his contact with him is limited to Torzi’s mandate to act on behalf of the Secretariat, introduced by Archbishop Edgar Peña Barra, who replaced Becciu as sostituto in 2018.

In the interview, Misionioni insisted that his dealings with the Secretariat were all legitimate, and that the Holy See could still make a profit on London property.

Misionioni seemed to imply that responsibility for Turzi’s involvement could ultimately rest with Pope Francis, saying “There is a picture of Turzi with the Pope, I have.” [Torzi] I got this job by Peña Barra, [who was himself] Appointed by the Pope. “It is unclear why or how Misiononi will have a picture of Torzi with the Pope, especially if the two businessmen are not close.

CNA previously reported that Torzi, along with his family, was received in a private session with Pope Francis on December 26, 2018. Repeated requests, over several months, to the Holy See asking how the meeting was arranged went unanswered.

On the same day that Mincione was interviewed with Adnkronos, a picture began showing Torzi and his wife with Pope Francis online.

Berlasca told Il Giornale that “it seems very bad to call the Holy Father directly on this issue.”

“I know that at the end of December 2018, there was a meeting with him, but no representative was invited to the administrative office,” Berlasca said.

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