Angelo Becciu Source: AFP
ROMA.- In a new twist in the intrigues that make half the world tremble Oltretevere -on the other side of the Tiber, a way of calling the Vatican-, was arrested today Cecilia Marogna, a 39-year-old woman who came out of anonymity last week by breaking her shady ties to the Italian cardinalAngelo Becciu, defenestrated by the Pope on September 24 for his role in a corruption and embezzlement scandal that shakes the Holy See.
As reported by the newspaper Il Messaggero and other Italian press agencies shortly before 9:00 p.m. (local time) Marogna, who is originally from the island of Sardinia, like Becciu, was arrested in Milan by the Italian financial police for an arrest warrant of Interpol. Marogna, renamed by the Italian media “the cardinal’s lady”, is accused of “embezzlement by distraction of property” and will be extradited by Italy to the Vatican. There, from a failed and millionaire real estate investment in London made with funds reserved from the Secretary of State in 2014, when Becciu, 72, was a substitute for the Secretary of State, number 3 of the Holy See, the magistracy he investigates other “non sancta” operations at the command of Francisco, who wants to get to the bottom of the matter, whoever falls.
Among them, as revealed by the Italian press, money orders, for a total of 500,000 euros, that the Secretary of State did to a mysterious company that Marogna claimed to have in Slovenia, which was supposedly engaged in humanitarian missions.
That money, as revealed last week by an investigation by the television program Le Iene – a sort of fall who falls – instead of being spent on secret humanitarian missions in Africa and Asia that would have had the objective of freeing religious kidnapped there, would have Served for purchases of luxury accessories for Mrs. Marogna: handbags, shoes, jewelry, brand and designer armchairs.
Also renamed “the Mata Hari” of the cardinal, Marogna claims to be an expert in international relations and have optimal contacts with characters from the Italian services.
In interviews last week, she denied having made shopping for herself with the money from the Vatican, but claimed to have used the money that the Secretary of State sent her for diplomatic trips, to pay for information sources and for humanitarian foundations. “What is said about me is all false. Me, the cardinal’s lover? Absurd. I am a political analyst and intelligence expert, I work honestly, I live in rent and I support my daughter, “he told Corriere della Sera.
The woman said that she met Becciu in 2015 after writing him an email requesting an audience to raise security problems at the nunciatures and other Vatican missions. A meeting in which, obviously, he convinced the cardinal.
The television program “Le Iene”, which aired last Thursday, revealed that shortly after the explosive dismissal of Becciu, an envelope with various documents related to the ambiguous relationship between the cardinal and Marogna reached its editorial staff, from anonymous hands. Among the documents, the program showed the various turns that the Secretary of State made to his supposed company for humanitarian missions with an address in Lubjana, Slovenia.
The journalist from “Le Iene” traveled to that place, an office building where he interviewed several people who said they had never seen the woman, where there was no office of the company in question, but only a mailbox, shared with other companies. The program even showed the Slovenian bank branch that received the money transfers from the Vatican, as well as the invoices for the purchases of purses, accessories and even luxury brand armchairs made by the lady.
He also showed a letter of introduction, prepared on the letterhead of the Holy See, dated November 17, 2017 in which Becciu declares that he knows the lady and that he has the utmost confidence in her. An epistle that served Marogna as “let pass“in various fields.
Becciu, who was forced by the Pope to resign his position as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and his rights related to the cardinal – although he maintains the title -, through his lawyer last week denied everything in a statement, but in a very strange way: “The contacts with Cecilia Marogna only have to do with institutional issues.” Institutional issues that led, days later, to the arrest of the cardinal’s “lady”.
