Scandal In The Vatican 2 «Recent»

Enter Cardinal Angelo Becciu. A Sardinian with sharp eyes and sharper elbows, Becciu had risen through the diplomatic corps. By 2011, he was the Sostituto (Substitute) for General Affairs—effectively the Vatican’s chief of staff and the third-most powerful man in the Catholic Church. He controlled the purse strings. And according to Italian prosecutors, he controlled something else: a network of friends, favors, and off-book accounts that would soon unravel the Holy See. The centerpiece of Scandal in The Vatican 2 is a former Harrod’s warehouse in London’s fashionable Chelsea district. At 60 Sloane Avenue, the building was a luxury apartment block—stylish, expensive, and utterly irrelevant to the Church’s mission. Yet between 2014 and 2018, the Vatican Secretariat of State poured nearly €350 million into a complex web of funds, derivatives, and shell companies to acquire it.

The deal was structured through a Luxembourg-based fund called Athena Capital, which then partnered with a speculator named Raffaele Mincione. Mincione was no ordinary fund manager; he had close ties to the Vatican’s financial gatekeepers. The Secretariat invested €200 million in Mincione’s fund, which then used the money to buy the London property. Later, to exit the deal, the Vatican turned to another shadowy financier: Gianluigi Torzi. Torzi—a man with a previous fraud conviction—inserted a “poison pill” clause into the contract, giving him control over the building even after the Vatican paid €150 million more to buy him out. Scandal in The Vatican 2

In December 2023, the verdicts arrived. Cardinal Becciu was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to five and a half years in prison. Mincione and Torzi received lighter sentences. The court ordered the confiscation of over €166 million in assets. Enter Cardinal Angelo Becciu