A French-Italian
wheeler-dealer who was arrested in a 30-million-euro fraud case
on Tuesday accused a fellow suspect who is a Catholic prelate of
masterminding the scam.
Monsignor Patrizio Benvenuti, 64, was nabbed as he was
leaving for the Canaries on February 10 while his close
collaborator Christian Ventisette, 54, was arrested on an
international warrant in Madrid on February 24.
The pair allegedly defrauded some 300 unsuspecting
humanitarian donors - most of them elderly people living abroad
- out of a combined total of 30 million euros.
The victims transferred money to Benvenuti's Kepha
Foundation, but instead of going to the non-profit's stated
humanitarian aims, the funds were allegedly laundered via a
complex mechanism involving individuals and foreign and Italian
companies.
Prosecutors say the prelate and the businessman "organized
and promoted a racketeering organization operating domestically
and abroad aimed at committing various and repeated crimes of
fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion, involving individuals
and companies located in Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg,
Switzerland, and the United States".
The bust was sparked by a nun who used to work with
Benvenuti, who turned to police when she discovered her name had
been linked to financial operations involving hundreds of
thousands of euros, which she knew nothing about.
In the course of the operation, police also seized an
eight-million-euro Renaissance villa belonging to the Kepha
Foundation that Benvenuti used as his private residence, an
850,000-euro archeological site in Sicily belonging to
Ventisette, and other real estate and land worth 670,000 euros.
Benvenuti has served at various levels of the Holy See
ecclesiastic tribunal in the Vatican, and was a military
chaplain at a Navy academy in the small town of Chiavari in
Genoa province.
On Tuesday, Ventisette told a preliminary hearings judge
that Benvenuti masterminded the scam, while the monsignor has
said the wheeler-dealer "swindled and betrayed" him.
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