Vatican officials arrest London property broker for extortion and money laundering
The Holy See press office announced Friday that Italian
businessman Gianluigi Torzi has been arrested after he was interrogated as part
of a Vatican financial investigation.
Torzi played a crucial role in the controversial purchase of
a London property development by the Secretariat of State.
“Today the Office of the Promoter of Justice of the Vatican
Court, at the end of the interrogation of Mr. Gianluigi Torzi, who was assisted
by his trusted lawyers, issued an arrest warrant against him,” a June 5
statement from the Holy See said.
The warrant was signed by the Promoter of Justice, Prof.
Gian Piero Milano, the statement said, and “was issued in relation to the
well-known events connected with the sale of the London property on Sloane
Avenue, which involved a network of companies in which some officials of the
Secretariat of State were present.”
Torzi is being charged by Vatican prosecutors with several
counts of “extortion, embezzlement, aggravated fraud and money laundering,” the
Holy See said, noting that the crimes Vatican Law provides for sentences of up
to twelve years imprisonment for such crimes.
He is detained in special premises at the Gendarmerie Corps
Barracks.
CNA has previously reported that Torzi acted as a
commission-earning middleman for the Secretariat of State as it finalized its
purchase of the London property, on which it spent approximately $300 million.
The building at 60 Sloane Avenue was bought by the
secretariat in stages between 2014-2018 from Italian businessman Raffaele
Mincione, who at the time was managing hundreds of millions of euros of
secretariat funds.
When it sold to the secretariat 30,000 of 31,000 shares in
the project, Minicone’s holding company retained the 1,000 voting shares needed
to control the holding company which owned the building. Mincione eventually
offered to part with those, at greatly inflated prices and Torzi acted to
broker the sale.
Torzi reportedly earned 10 million euros for his role in the
final stage of the deal.
In May, CNA reported that Fabrizio Tirabassi, a lay
secretariat official who oversaw investments, was appointed a director of a
company owned by Torzi while the businessman was finalizing the Vatican’s
purchase of the London property.
According to corporate filings, in November 2018 Tirabassi,
who was responsible for managing financial investments for the secretariat, was
appointed a director of Gutt SA, a company owned by Torzi and registered in
Luxembourg.
Filings for Gutt SA with the Luxembourg Registre de Commerce
et des Sociétés show that Tirabassi was appointed a director on 23 November,
2018 and removed by a filing sent on December 27. At the time of his
appointment as director, Tirabassis’s business address was listed as the
Secretariat of State in Vatican City.
In May, CNA asked Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin
if he was aware of the appointment, and whether he considered it appropriate
for an official at the secretariat to accept such a position. CNA also asked if
officials at the secretariat are generally permitted to accept such positions.
Cardinal Parolin told CNA at the time, saying that it would
not be appropriate for him to respond, “especially taking into account the
ongoing legal proceedings.”
Tirabassi is one of five Vatican employees suspended in
October, 2019, following a raid conducted by Vatican gendarmes, who seized
computers and documents related to financial dealings at the department.
Tirabassi has not since returned to work, and it is unclear
whether he remains employed. An April 30 announcement from the Holy See press
office confirmed that “individual measures” had been taken against some
employees in relation to the ongoing investigations, but did not specify what
that might mean.
Last month, CNA reported that tens of millions of euros have
been frozen in Swiss banks as part of the investigation into the London
property investment. At the end of April, Swiss authorities also forwarded
documents to Vatican prosecutors as part of the investigation into investments
made by the Secretariat of State.
Torzi and his family were reportedly granted a private
audience with Pope Francis in the Domus Santa Marta the day after Christmas,
Dec. 26, 2018, as the London property deal was being finalized.
CNA has made numerous requests to the Vatican press office
in recent months to clarify why Torzi was afforded this honor, and who arranged
the audience; those requests have not been answered.
Torzi also has connections to the British-Italian architect,
Luciano Capaldo, who is the sole director of London 60 SA Ltd., a U.K.
registered holding company owned by the Secretariat of State, which controls
the property at 60 Sloane Avenue in London.
Capaldo has previously served as a director of several
companies at which Torzi has also served as a director, or in which Torzi and
his companies have had financial interest: Sunset Credit Yield Ltd., Virtualbricks
Ltd., Odikon Services Plc. At least one of these, Odikon Services, has been the
subject of a lawsuit for fraud in the U.K., and suspended by the UK’s Financial
Conduct Authority.
At a November press conference, Pope Francis was asked about
the London investment. While confirming that he had personally authorized the
October raids, he emphasized that proof of corrupt or illegal activity was “not
yet clear,” before concluding that “it passed what passed: a scandal,”
“They have done things that do not seem clean,” the pope
said.
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