Sloan Avenue Scandal: Timeline of Highly Confusing Events
2. Mincione keeps losing money. Therefore, Becciu hires the financier Gianluigi Torzi to get rid of him and to buy the whole property, including a £125 million mortgage.
3. 2018: Torzi transfers the property, however: (1) he pays Mincione too much (€40 million), and (2) he transfers the property to his own company Gutt Sa. Then, he asks the Vatican to put him in charge of the property’s management, because, so far, he had worked for free. The Vatican refuses.
4. Instead, the Vatican makes plans to replace Torzi with Enrico Crasso, another financer. Torzi feels used by the Vatican.
5. Thus, Torzi resorts to “blackmail." He uses his control over Gutt Sa – of which the Vatican is “unaware” - to eliminate the Vatican representative Fabrizio Tirabassi from the board.
6. Cornered, Tirabassi and Monsignor Mauro Carlino, Becciu’s former secretary, propose €9 million to Torzi – allegedly “without any authorisation” – to get the property back. At the end, the Vatican pays €15 million.
7. Now Tirabassi and Carlino are incriminated. However, this seems to be a pawn sacrifice to protect those really responsible (Peña Parra, Becciu, Parolin, Francis). Carlino told investigators that he acted according to instructions from above (Peña Parra). Becciu also blamed his successor Peña (Repubblica,it, June 7).
Source: AdnKronos.com (June 7)
Picture: © Mazur, CC BY-NC-SA, #newsIalcscrlie
