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It has been reported that the Vatican’s Prefecture of the Economy, led by Cardinal George Pell, first detected irregularities related to the investment.
Pell and Becciu had long clashed over the Australian’s efforts to bring greater transparency and accountability to the Vatican’s balance sheets.
Mincione was found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering and given the same sentence as Becciu.
The court said Becciu had been irresponsible and “highly speculative” to invest more than $200 million with Mincione’s fund between 2013 and 2014, noting this was about a third of the holdings of the Secretariat of State at the time.
In 2018, with Becciu in another Vatican job, the Secretariat of State felt it was being deceived by Mincione and turned to another financier, Gianluigi Torzi, for help in squeezing Mincione out and buying the rest of the building.
Torzi also fleeced the Vatican, according to prosecutors. He was found guilty of fraud and extortion and sentenced to six years.
The Vatican sold the building last year, taking an estimated loss of about €140 million ($230 million).
Becciu, who was fired by Pope Francis from his next job in 2020 for alleged nepotism, but remains a cardinal, was also found guilty of embezzlement for funnelling money and contracts to companies or charities controlled by his brothers on their native island of Sardinia.
Another accusation involved his hiring of Cecilia Marogna, a self-styled security analyst, also from Sardinia, as part of a secret project to help win freedom for a nun who had been kidnapped in Mali.
Marogna, 46, received €575,000 from the Secretariat of State in 2018-2019. The money was sent to a company she had set up in Slovenia and she received some in cash, prosecutors told the court.
Italian police said Marogna had spent much of the money on luxury clothing and health spas. Both she and Becciu were found guilty of aggravated fraud related to the transfer of money and Marogna was ordered to return the money to the Vatican.
Enrico Crasso, a banker who managed funds for the Secretariat of State, was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to seven years. Fabrizio Tirabassi, who worked in the Secretariat, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years.
The court ordered Becciu, Mincione, Tirabassi and Crasso to repay a total of more than €100 million to the Vatican.
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Nicola Squillace, a lawyer who worked with both Crasso and Tirabassi, was given a suspended sentence of a year and 10 months.
Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer and former president of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Unit, and its director, Italian Tommaso Di Ruzza, were convicted of administrative omission and ordered to pay small fines.
Reuters
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