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CRIME

Historic Vatican fraud trial to expose London secrets

A once-powerful Catholic cardinal and nine others stand trial at the Vatican this week in an embezzlement scandal that allegedly saw charity funds used in a ruinous London property venture.

Historic Vatican fraud trial to expose London secrets
People walk by St. Peter's Square in the Vatican on July 14th, 2021. Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP

Ex-cardinal Angelo Becciu, who served as the equivalent of a papal chief of staff for Pope Francis before being fired last year, has been charged with crimes including embezzlement and abuse of office.

It is the first time a cardinal has been indicted by Vatican criminal prosecutors and Becciu, 73, will be the headliner of a trial set to last months.

The defendants face jail time or stiff fines if found guilty.

The alleged graft will have enraged Francis, 84, who has vowed an all-out war on corruption and has increased oversight of the Vatican’s finances, dogged for decades by scandal.

Tuesday’s hearing is expected to be purely technical and the trial, held in a makeshift courtroom in the Vatican Museums, may be adjourned to after the summer break.

It was not clear whether Becciu, stripped of his red biretta, would be present.

It followed a two-year probe into how the Secretariat of State — the key department in the Vatican’s central administration — managed its vast asset portfolio and, in particular, who knew what about a disastrous 350-million-euro ($415 million) London investment.

READ ALSO: The Vatican discloses property portfolio ahead of fraud trial

‘Substantial losses’ 
Two London-based Italian financiers were involved in buying the 17,000-sq metre building — a former Harrods warehouse in Chelsea intended for conversion into luxury apartments.

Gianluigi Torzi and Raffaele Mincione are charged with embezzlement, fraud and money laundering.

The building’s purchase at an inflated price meant “substantial losses for the Vatican, and dipped into resources intended for the Holy Father’s personal charitable work”, the Holy See said before the trial.

The first part of the purchase happened while Becciu was No. 2 at the Secretariat of State, and in charge of the purse strings.

Between 2013 and 2014, the Secretariat of State borrowed over 200 million dollars, mainly from Credit Suisse, to invest in Mincione’s Luxembourg fund.

Half went to buying part of the London property.

The rest was for stock market investments, but Mincione used it for high-risk ventures. The Holy See, which had no control over where the money went, tried to pull out in 2018.

Taking control 
Torzi was brought in and tasked with brokering the purchase of the rest of the building and cutting ties with Mincione — but he instead allegedly joined forces with him.

He arranged for the Holy See to give Mincione £40 million (48 million euros; $55 million) for the shares in the part of the London building it did not already own.

But Torzi then allegedly inserted a clause into the paperwork which gave himself control of the property. He is accused of demanding 15 million euros to relinquish control.

Mincione and Torzi were helped, prosecutors claim, by Enrico Crasso, a former Vatican investment manager, and employee Fabrizio Tirabassi, both of whom face a series of charges including fraud.

Embarrassingly for Francis, among those standing trial are two men previously tasked with regulating Holy See finances, including the former head of its financial regulator, Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart.

‘The Cardinal’s lady’
Becciu has been charged with embezzlement and abuse of office over the purchase of the London property.

He has also been charged in relation to donations totalling over 800,000 euros he is accused of making to a charity run by his brother.

Becciu is also linked to defendant Cecilia Marogna — dubbed “the Cardinal’s lady” by the Italian press — accused of pocketing money earmarked for freeing captive priests and nuns abroad.

Prosecutors claim the top hierarchy in the Vatican — including pope ally Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Becciu’s boss — were in favour of the London venture, without realising what was going on.

Becciu, who has denied any wrongdoing, says he is the victim of a plot.

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CRIME

Indians march to end ‘slavery’ after worker death shakes Italy

Thousands of Indian farm labourers urged an end to "slavery" in Italy on Tuesday after the gruesome death of a worker shone a light on the brutal exploitation of undocumented migrants.

Indians march to end 'slavery' after worker death shakes Italy

Satnam Singh, 31, who had been working without legal papers, died last week after his arm was sliced off by a machine. The farmer he was working for dumped him by the road, along with his severed limb.

“He was thrown out like a dog. There is exploitation every day, we suffer it every day, it must end now,” said Gurmukh Singh, head of the Indian community in the Lazio region of central Italy.

“We come here to work, not to die,” he told AFP.

Children held up colourful signs reading “Justice for Satnam Singh” as the procession snaked through Latina, a city in a rural area south of Rome that is home to tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers.

Indians have worked in the Agro Pontino – the Pontine Marshes – since the mid-1980s, harvesting pumpkins, leeks, beans and tomatoes, and working on flower farms or in buffalo mozzarella production.

Singh’s death is being investigated, but it has sparked a wider debate in Italy over how to tackle systemic abuses in the agriculture sector, where use of undocumented workers and their abuse by farmers or gangmasters is rife.

“Satnam died in one day, I die every day. Because I too am a labour victim,” said Parambar Singh, whose eye was seriously hurt in a work accident.

“My boss said he couldn’t take me to hospital because I didn’t have a contract,” said the 33-year-old, who has struggled to work since.

“I have been waiting 10 months for justice,” he said.

Paid a pittance

The workers get paid an average of 20 euros ($21) a day for up to 14 hours labour, according to the Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, which analyses working conditions in the agriculture industry.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants to Italy, while increasing pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers to tackle labour shortages.

But according to the Confagricoltura agribusiness association, only around 30 percent of workers given a visa actually travel to Italy, meaning there are never enough labourers to meet farmers’ needs.

This month, Meloni said Italy’s visa system was being exploited by organised crime groups to smuggle in illegal migrants.

She condemned the circumstances of Singh’s death, saying they were “inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people”.

“I hope that this barbarism will be harshly punished,” she told her cabinet ministers last week.

Italy’s financial police identified nearly 60,000 undocumented workers from January 2023 to June 2024.

But Italy’s largest trade union CGIL estimates that as many as 230,000 people – over a quarter of the country’s seasonal agricultural workers – do not have a contract.

While some are Italian, most are undocumented foreigners.

Female workers fare particularly badly, earning even less than their male counterparts and in some cases suffering sexual exploitation, it says.

“We all need regular job contracts, not to be trapped in this slavery,” said Kaur Akveer, a 37-year-old who was part of a group of women in colourful saris marching behind the community leaders.

“Satnam was like my brother. He must be the last Indian to die,” she said.

By AFP’s Ella Ide

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