Corruption is Everywhere > Cardinal Imprisoned in Vatican for Embezzlement

Lest you think embezzlement in the Vatican is an unusual event, you should read David Yallop's

"In God's Name"

Cardinal is convicted of embezzlement

in Vatican financial trial

A Vatican tribunal on Saturday convicted a cardinal of embezzlement and sentenced him to 5 ½ years in prison in one of several verdicts handed down in a complicated financial trial that aired the city state’s dirty laundry and tested its justice system.

By:NEWS WIRES

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the first cardinal ever prosecuted by the Vatican criminal court, was absolved of several other charges and his nine co-defendants received a mixed outcome of some guilty verdicts and many acquittals of the nearly 50 charges brought against them during a 2 ½ year trial.

Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, said he respected the sentence but would appeal.

Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi said the outcome “showed we were correct.”

The trial focused on the Vatican secretariat of state’s 350 million euro investment in developing a former Harrod’s warehouse into luxury apartments. Prosecutors alleged Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions and then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros to cede control of the building.

Becciu was accused of embezzlement-related charges in two tangents of the London deal and faced up to seven years in prison.

In the end, he was convicted of embezzlement stemming from the original Vatican investment of 200 million euros into a fund that invested in the London property. The tribunal determined canon law prohibited using church assets in such a speculative investment.

He was also convicted of embezzlement for his 125,000 euro donation of Vatican money to a charity run by his brother in Sardinia and of using Vatican money to pay an intelligence analyst who in turn was convicted of using the money for herself.

The trial had raised questions about the rule of law in the city state and Francis’ power as absolute monarch, given that he wields supreme legislative, executive and judicial authority and had exercised it in ways the defense says jeopardized a fair trial.

The defense attorneys did praise Judge Giuseppe Pignatone's even-handedness and said they were able to present their arguments amply. But they lamented the Vatican’s outdated procedural norms gave prosecutors enormous leeway to withhold evidence and otherwise pursue their investigation nearly unimpeded.

Andrea Tornielli, the Vatican's editorial director, said the verdicts showed the defense had ample space to present their case and that the defense rights were respected. 

“The outcome of this trial tells us that the judges of the tribunal, as is right, acted with full independence based on documentary proofs and witnesses, not pre-confectioned theories," he wrote in an editorial in Vatican News.

Prosecutors had sought prison terms from three to 13 years and damages of over 400 million euros to try to recover the estimated 200 million euros they say the Holy See lost in the bad deals. 

In the end, the tribunal acquitted many of the suspects of many of the biggest charges, including fraud, corruption and money-laundering, determining in many cases that the crimes simply didn't exist. 

But it nevertheless ordered the confiscation of 166 million euros from them and payment of civil damages to Vatican offices of 200 million euros. One defendant, Becciu's former secretary Monsignor Mauro Carlino, was acquitted entirely.

The trial was initially seen as a sign of Francis' financial reforms and willingness to crack down on alleged financial misdeeds in the Vatican. But it had something of a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, with revelations of vendettas, espionage and even ransom payments to Islamic militants.

Much of the London case rested on the passage of the property from one London broker, Raffaele Mincione, to another in late 2018. Prosecutors allege the second broker, Gianluigi Torzi, hoodwinked the Vatican by maneuvering to secure full control of the building that he relinquished only when the Vatican paid him off 15 million euros.

For Vatican prosecutors, that amounted to extortion. For the defense — and a British judge who rejected Vatican requests to seize Torzi’s assets — it was a negotiated exit from a legally binding contract. 

In the end, the tribunal convicted Torzi of several charges, including extortion, and sentenced him to six years in prison. Mincione was convicted of embezzlement for the original London investment but was absolved of, among other things, of inflating the cost of the building when the Vatican bought into it.

It wasn't clear where the suspects would serve their time, if the convictions are upheld on appeal. The Vatican has a jail, but Torzi's whereabouts weren't immediately known and it wasn't clear how or whether other countries would extradite the defendants to serve any sentence.

The former heads of the Vatican financial intelligence agency, Tommaso di Ruzza and Rene Bruelhart, were absolved of the main charge of abuse of office. They were convicted only of failing to report a suspicious transaction involving Torzi to prosecutors and fined 1,750 euros apiece.

They had argued they couldn’t tip off Vatican prosecutors to the transaction because they had initiated their own cross-border financial intelligence-gathering operation into Torzi after Francis asked them to help the secretariat of state get possession of the property.

A Vatican official, Fabrizio Tirabassi, was convicted of extortion along with Torzi and a money-laundering charge. The Vatican’s long-time financial adviser, Enrico Crasso was convicted of several charges including embezzlement and sentenced to seven years in prison.

The original London investigation spawned two other tangents that involved the star defendant, Becciu, once one of Francis’ top advisers and himself considered a papal contender.

Prosecutors accused Becciu of embezzlement for sending 125,000 euros in Vatican money to a Sardinian charity run by his brother. Becciu argued that the local bishop requested the money to build a bakery to employ at-risk youths and that the money remained in the diocesan coffers.

The tribunal acknowledged the charitable ends of the donation but convicted him of embezzlement, given his brother's role.

Becciu was also accused of paying a Sardinian woman, Cecilia Marogna, for her intelligence services. Prosecutors traced some 575,000 euros in wire transfers from the Vatican to a Slovenian front company owned by Marogna and said she used the money to buy luxury goods and fund vacations.

Becciu said he thought the money was going to pay a British security firm to negotiate the release of Gloria Narvaez, a Colombian nun taken hostage by Islamic militants in Mali in 2017.

He said Francis authorized up to 1 million euros to liberate the nun, an astonishing claim that the Vatican was willing to make ransom payment to al-Qaida-linked militants.

(AP) 

Cardinal Angelo Becciu

Corruption is Everywhere > Mining Crypto in Russian Metro; Buying ICU Beds in Free Hospital in Lima; Presidential Coup; Vatican Cardinal $412 Million

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Two engineers for Russian Metro system under investigation after

covertly stealing electricity to mine cryptocurrency at work

22 Jul, 2021 15:34

© Global Look Press / Michael Gruber

The chief engineer of a Russian Metro system has handed in his resignation after being caught using the subway’s electricity grid substation to mine for bitcoin, consuming thousands of dollars of energy at the company’s expense.

That’s according to MUP Metroelectrotrans, the company that powers the Kazan Metro. Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan, a city around 800km (500 miles) east of Moscow.

The resignation comes after a report on Thursday from the Tatarstan Investigative Committee, which revealed that it had opened a criminal case against two employees of the Metro for abuse of official powers. They are suspected of unauthorized installation of cryptocurrency mining equipment at a power substation, consuming electricity worth 352,000 rubles ($4,700).

They have both admitted to the crime, it was reported.

Cryptocurrency mining uses electricity and high-powered computers to solve computational math problems. The solutions are so complex that they are impossible to be solved by hand and would even be difficult for regular computers to successfully complete.

Once a problem is solved, the computer owner is rewarded with a cryptocurrency coin, such as bitcoin. The two Kazan Metro employees were found to be stealing electricity for their high-powered devices, and they, therefore, could have potentially made a lot of money.

While bitcoin is not legal tender in Russia, a bill signed by President Vladimir Putin last summer allowed for cryptocurrency assets to be counted on a par with physical assets, enabling Russian citizens to legally own virtual money from the start of 2021. Before then, currencies such as bitcoin were in a legal ‘grey zone,’ having been neither legalized nor prohibited.

$21,000 per bed: State hospital workers arrested in Peru

for charging desperate Covid patients to access ICU

22 Jul, 2021 10:55

© REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda

Nine people have been arrested in Lima for having allegedly illegally profited from patients suffering from the deadly coronavirus. The state hospital workers are suspected of selling access to intensive care unit (ICU) beds.

Arrests have been made following a raid on Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen public hospital, in the Peruvian capital, on Wednesday, local police said. According to a prosecutor, administrators of the hospital that provides free care are among the alleged criminal network that illegally charged their seriously ill patients, local media reports.

There are 80 beds in the hospital’s ICU, and many patients have had to be added to the unit’s long waiting list due to a lack of capacity. However, in a suspected scam scheme, the family of people severely ill with Covid have allegedly been asked to pay as much as 82,000 soles (around $20,800) to gain access to an ICU bed. A patient’s relative tipped off the police after making the payment to skip the line for a family member in need of urgent care. The patient, who had been the 20th on the waiting list, had not been transferred to the ICU even after his relative paid the money, and subsequently died.

Speaking to the press following the arrests, Peruvian Health Minister Oscar Ugarte called the case “totally reprehensible” and said no one would get away with it.

The Latin American nation has registered the world’s highest fatality rate among Covid-19 patients per capita. More than 195,000 people have died, and more than two million Covid cases have been recorded among the nation’s 32.5 million-strong population. During pandemic peaks, when there has been a shortage of beds in state-run hospitals, many have paid large sums to access Covid treatment at private clinics.

While the virus has been raging worldwide, various corruption scandals have emerged. A similar scam involving hospital beds was recently uncovered in India. An official in Bengaluru claimed beds had been allocated to Covid patients in exchange for bribes, after an “artificial shortage” had been created, local media reported in May. According to the official, hospital care had been provided to asymptomatic patients, while those who were severely ill and needed urgent treatment had been denied it. Those asking for payment had since been arrested, he claimed. Meanwhile in Uganda, a different Covid-related scam has been uncovered, with hundreds having been injected with “more water than anything else,” instead of real vaccines.

Tunisian president accused of launching 'coup' after sacking PM,

freezing parliament

Kais Saied's moves come as Tunisia grapples with an economic, COVID-19 crisis

Thomson Reuters · 

Posted: Jul 25, 2021 4:52 PM ET

Tunisian President Kais Saied is seen on TV announcing the dissolution of parliament and Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi's dismissal on Sunday. (Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images)

Tunisia's president dismissed the government and froze parliament on Sunday in a dramatic escalation of a political crisis. Huge crowds filled the capital in his support, but his opponents labelled the moves a coup.

President Kais Saied said he would assume executive authority with the assistance of a new prime minister, in the biggest challenge yet to a 2014 democratic constitution that split powers between president, prime minister and parliament.

Crowds of people quickly flooded the capital's streets, cheering and honking car horns in scenes that recalled the 2011 revolution that brought democracy and triggered the Arab Spring protests that convulsed the Middle East.

However, the extent of support for Saied's moves against a fragile government and divided parliament was not clear and he warned against any violent response.

"I warn any who think of resorting to weapons... and whoever shoots a bullet, the armed forces will respond with bullets," he said in a statement carried on television.

People celebrate in Tunis following Saied's announcement on Sunday. (Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images)

Years of paralysis, corruption, declining state services and growing unemployment had already soured many Tunisians on their political system before the global pandemic hammered the economy last year and COVID-19 infection rates shot up this summer.

Protests, called by social media activists but not backed by any of the big political parties, took place on Sunday with much of the anger focused on the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, the biggest in parliament.

'A new page in history is turning': Polls suggest political outsider Kais Saied winner in Tunisia election

"We have been relieved of them," said Lamia Meftahi, a woman celebrating in central Tunis, speaking of the parliament and government.

"This is the happiest moment since the revolution," she added.

Ennahda, banned before the revolution, has been the most consistently successful party since 2011 and a member of successive coalition governments.

Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, head of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, speaks to supporters during a rally in opposition to Saied in Tunis on Feb. 27. (Zoubeir Souissi/Reuters)

Its leader Rached Ghannouchi, who is also parliament speaker, immediately labelled Saied's decision "a coup against the revolution and constitution" in a phone call to Reuters.

"We consider the institutions still standing, and the supporters of the Ennahda and the Tunisian people will defend the revolution," he added, raising the prospect of confrontations between supporters of Ennahda and Saied.

Disputes over constitution, economic reforms

Saied said in his statement that his actions were in line with Article 80 of the constitution, and also cited the article to suspend the immunity of members of parliament.

"Many people were deceived by hypocrisy, treachery and robbery of the rights of the people," he said.

The president and the parliament were both elected in separate popular votes in 2019, while Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi took office last summer, replacing another short-lived government.

Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi is seen in Tunis in September 2020. (Riadh Dridi/The Associated Press)

Saied, an independent without a party behind him, swore to overhaul a complex political system plagued by corruption. Meanwhile, the parliamentary election delivered a fragmented chamber in which no party held more than a quarter of seats.

Disputes over Tunisia's constitution were intended to be settled by a constitutional court. However, seven years after the constitution was approved, the court has yet to be installed after disputes over the appointment of judges.

The president has been enmeshed in political disputes with Mechichi for over a year, as the country grapples with an economic crisis, a looming fiscal crunch and a flailing response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Violent demonstrations broke out on Sunday in several Tunisian cities as protesters expressed anger at the deterioration of the North African country's health, economic and social situation. (Zoubeir Souissi/Reuters)

Under the constitution, the president has direct responsibility only for foreign affairs and the military, but after a government debacle with walk-in vaccination centres last week, he told the army to take charge of the pandemic response.

Tunisia's soaring infection and death rates have added to public anger at the government as the country's political parties bickered.

Meanwhile, Mechichi was attempting to negotiate a new loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that was seen as crucial to averting a looming fiscal crisis as Tunisia struggles to finance its budget deficit and coming debt repayments.

Disputes over the economic reforms seen as needed to secure the loan, but which could hurt ordinary Tunisians by ending subsidies or cutting public sector jobs, had already brought the government close to collapse.

Senior cardinal of Roman Catholic Church and former close ally

of Pope Francis goes on trial in $412mn fraud case

27 Jul, 2021 12:40

FILE PHOTO. Vatican. © AFP / Andreas SOLARO; (inset) Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu.

© AFP / ANDREAS SOLARO

The trial of 73-year-old former Cardinal Angelo Becciu over allegations he fraudulently spent $412 million of church money began in a special Vatican courtroom on Tuesday, months after he was removed from his post by Pope Francis.

The court case marks the culmination of a two-year investigation that discovered the cardinal had been involved in spending €350 million ($412 million) to purchase a property on Sloane Avenue in the posh London neighborhood of Chelsea that went awry.

Prior to his dismissal in September, Becciu was in charge of donations at the Vatican office that handles Church funds. He had been a close ally of Pope Francis and is the most senior Vatican official to stand trial for financial misconduct. The crimes he is accused of include funneling donations to businesses run by his brothers on the Italian island of Sardinia. Becciu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Alongside the cardinal, nine other defendants, who all deny wrongdoing, are on trial for extortion, embezzlement, money laundering and abuse of office. The case is being heard in a special courtroom set up in the Vatican Museums that has the space required to conduct the trial in a Covid-safe setting.

Two hearings will be held this week before the trial is expected to be adjourned until October. The case is set to last for several months before a judgment will be rendered. It comes after Pope Francis announced in April that he will allow lay judges to oversee cases involving cardinals and bishops, rather than it being handled by cardinals, as had been tradition. 

“I think this trial marks a turning point that can bring about greater credibility of the Holy See in financial areas,” Father Juan Antonio Guerrero, the Vatican’s newly appointed finance chief said. He pledged to make the Church’s financial matters more transparent.

If you are shocked by this revelation, you need to read David Yallop's In God's Name.

Ex-Vatican Official: Francis Ignored McCarrick Abuse Allegations, Calls for Resignation

By Daniel Uria

(UPI) -- A former Vatican official said Sunday that Pope Francis was aware of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick' sexual abuses as early as 2013.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador to the United States under Pope Benedict XVI, released a letter, published in Italian by The National Catholic Register and in English by LifeSiteNews, stating Francis ignored McCarrick's record of sexual abuse and failed to punish him.

In the letter, Viganò also called on Francis to resign for the good of the church.

"In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick's abuses and resign along with all of them," Viganò wrote.

McCarrick, 88, resigned last month after he was barred from publicly practicing ministry amid allegations he abused a teenage altar boy in the early 1970s while he served as a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, which an Archdiocesan Review Board later determined were "credible and substantiated."

Viganò wrote that two other church officials had reports in 2000 and 2006 respectively detailing McCarrick's sexual abuse including that he "shared his bed with seminarians" whom he would invite five at a time to his beach house on the weekends. Viganò added he recommended McCarrick be disciplined in 2006, but was ignored.

He said Benedict eventually "imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis" in 2009 or 2010, expelling him from the seminary where he lived, and forbidding him from participating in public Masses, meetings and other religious activities.

Viganò went on to describe a meeting with Francis in 2013 in which the Pope asked "What is Cardinal McCarrick like?" Viganò said he told the Pope of McCarrick record of sexual abuse "with complete frankness," but Francis "did not make the slightest comment" about the allegations, "as if he had already known the matter for some time."

The release of Viganò's letter came as Francis celebrated a Mass at Dublin's Phoenix Park at the end of his two-day trip to Ireland.

At the Mass on Sunday, Francis asked for forgiveness for abuses of power and sexual abuse in Ireland by church leaders.

"In a special way we apologize for all the abuses committed by institutions run by male and female religious and other members of the church. And we ask for forgiveness for the crimes so many minors were subjected to," he said.

He added that "some members of the hierarchy didn't own up to these painful situations and kept silence."

Francis also sought forgiveness for the church's history of separating unmarried mothers from their children and called for them to reunite.

"For all those times when it was said to many single mothers who tried to look for their children who had been estranged from them, or to the children who were looking for their mothers, that it was a mortal sin," he said. ""This is not a mortal sin. It is the Fourth Commandment! We ask for forgiveness."

Earlier Sunday the pope prayed at a shrine in the village of Knock where he prayed the Virgin Mary to heal those who were abused within the church.

For all the good that does! The Bible tells us to pray to God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son. Nowhere in the Bible does it suggest we pray to Mary. Mary was blessed above all women for bearing God's Son, but Jesus Himself never venerated Mary, nor did any of the disciples. Why Catholics have decided she is virtual Deity is just one of the ways the Catholic church is severely off-track, the consequences of which seem to always fall upon children.

"None of us can fail to be moved by the stories of young people who suffered abuse, were robbed of their innocence, who were taken from their mothers, and left scarred by painful memories," he said. "This open wound challenges us to be firm and decisive in the pursuit of truth and justice. I beg the Lord's forgiveness for these sins and for the scandal and betrayal felt by so many others in God's family."

Muslims Want ‘Islamic Conquest of Europe,’ Austrian Cardinal Says

© Heinz-Peter Bader / Reuters

Many Muslims would be glad to see Europe conquered by Islam, an Austrian cardinal and leading future candidate for the papacy said. He also warned that the Christian heritage of Europe risked disappearing, with the statements raising much controversy online.

“Will there now be a third Islamic attempt to conquer Europe? Many Muslims think that and want that, and they say ‘Europe is at the end,’” Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said, as cited by the Archdiocese of Vienna.

He was speaking during the church festival “Holy Name of Mary.” The holiday commemorated the victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

He asked God to have mercy on Europe as people of Europe “are in danger of forfeiting our Christian heritage.”

“And now we wonder what Europe will look like... [Europe’s Christian heritage] is already being felt as missing [by many people]. Not only economically... but above all human and religious matters.”

“What will become of Europe?” the cardinal asked.

People on social media seem to be agreeing with Schönborn’s statement.

“[We should] live , [according to]the Catholic faith, [it is] exactly what Europe needs,” @trillarion user wrote.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn

“No churches, but mosques... Islam [brings] nothing good of humanity, but oppression,” one Facebook user wrote.

However, there were those who believe that the cardinal’s statement would fuel tensions between Christians and Muslims even more.

“The difference between the vast number of peaceful Muslims and radical Islamists is not yet clear. Our right-wing populists are happy about this sermon. Sad,” one more user wrote.

Some angry readers asked the cardinal to clarify the notion “Islamic conquest” of Europe. In his Facebook post, Schönborn explained that his sermon was not calling to defend Europeans against the refugees.

“The chance of a Christian revival of Europe is with us, he said, urging to reflect on the Christ’s word and spread it to “everyone, even strangers.”

In May, the Austrian federal chamber passed a law allowing the government to declare a state of emergency lasting up to six months, and extendable for another three, if the number of refugees applying for asylum in Austria exceeds the cap of 37,500 for the year. By the end of July, Austria had already received a total of 24,260 applications, an average of 3,000 per month. Chancellor Christian Kern said in August that the government would review the pros and cons of declaring a state of emergency in September based on the outcome of negotiations with neighboring countries on readmission agreements.

Around 90,000 asylum seekers arrived in Austria in 2015, overwhelming the country’s population of eight million people and leading to a surge in popularity for the right-wing, anti-immigrant party, FPÖ, whose candidate, Norbert Hofer, is currently leading in the polls in a presidential election re-run to be held on October 2.

Europe has been on high alert since 2015, when it was hit by a series of Islamic State-linked terrorist attacks. The attacks took place in France and Germany.

In September this year, a report emerged that over 11,000 asylum seekers were listed as crime suspects in Austria. The report came after four teenage refugees from Afghanistan, aged 15 to 16, and a 22-year-old man were detained over accusations that they had sexually harassed at least three women in the northern Austrian city of Wels during a wine festival. Following the assault, Mayor Andreas Rabl demanded a “zero tolerance” response to such crimes.