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ROME – The Vatican said it had indicted Cardinal Giovanni Becciu and nine others in connection with a costly investment in London real estate, the source of one of the biggest scandals of the Pope Francis’ reign.
Cardinal Becciu, who was the second most senior official in the Vatican State Secretariat at the time of the acquisition of the property, was charged with embezzlement, abuse of office and underbelly. His trial will be the first against a cleric of his rank in the Vatican City Criminal Court.
Pope Francis ordered an investigation in 2019 after the Vatican Bank suspected an application from the State Secretariat for a € 150 million loan to refinance the cost of a building in upscale Chelsea, London.
Through a series of complex transactions, the Secretariat had paid the equivalent of more than $ 400 million by 2018 for the property, which had been sold for half that amount six years earlier, the Vatican prosecutor told a London court last year. The Vatican has called for the extradition of a middleman, Gianluigi Torzi, charged with extortion, embezzlement, fraud and money laundering.
In September last year, Cardinal Becciu renounced his office in the Vatican and the rights of a cardinal, but not his title, at the request of Pope Francis. The Vatican did not give a reason for the move at the time.
