Vatican: businessman arrested for financial scandal

Text by: Éric Senanque

The Vatican continues its efforts in terms of financial transparency. Small state justice has arrested an Italian businessman suspected of extortion. It would have allowed the Vatican to buy a luxury building in London under particularly opaque conditions.

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From our Vatican correspondent,

Gianluigi Torzi has been sleeping since Friday June 5 in a cell of the Vatican gendarmerie. This London-based financier is one of the key figures in a vast real estate scam in which the Vatican seems to have become trapped.

► Read: Financial transparency strengthens at the Vatican

The case dates back to 2014, when the secretary of state recovered the management of a luxury building in London with an estimated value of 200 million euros. A property acquired thanks to a rather opaque Luxembourg investment fund. The Vatican entrusts the management to Gianluigi Torzi. The latter, in connection with Vatican officials also targeted by an investigation, allegedly extorted 15 million euros from the small state.

He faces up to 12 years in prison

Scandal in the scandal, the Vatican investigators have also discovered that in the management of the London building, millions of euros have been drawn from the “  denarius of St. Peter  ” which is usually used to finance the charities of pope around the world.

Torzi's lawyers said their client "  never intended to act against the interests of the Holy See  ". Accused of extortion, embezzlement, aggravated fraud and money laundering, Gianluigi Torzi risks, according to the Vatican justice, up to 12 years in prison.

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