Australian police get information on alleged Vatican funds transfer amid Pell case

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Motherwit

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Australia’s financial crimes watchdog said it had handed information to police about the alleged transfer of Vatican funds to Australia amid the prosecution of former Vatican treasurer George Pell for child sex abuse.

Italian media recently reported that Pell’s nemesis, Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, sent 700,000 euros (£638,806) to Australia to help Pell’s “enemies” while Pell was facing sexual assault charges. Becciu’s lawyer has denied the reports.

The head of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the agency had probed the allegations and given information to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and state police.

“I can confirm AUSTRAC has looked into the matter and we’ve provided information to the AFP and to Victoria Police,” AUSTRAC Chief Executive Nicole Rose told a Senate Estimates committee hearing on Tuesday, when asked whether it had investigated the alleged Vatican funds transfer.

The AFP and Victoria Police had no immediate comment on Wednesday.


Wondering if the information will exonerate Becciu or accuse him?
 
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A rather puzzling aspect of the investigation of this case so far, is why the Vatican has arranged the arrest of a female member of the laity, who was taken into custody on 13 October 2020, but I have not yet seen any reports of Cardinal Becciu being held despite it being almost a month since he was fired, although of course I may have missed them.
Anyway CNA has a report out confirming your link and mentioning a possible motive for Cardinal Pell`s arrest. This is also linked below.

www.catholicnewsagency.com

Alleged Vatican money transfers during Pell trial referred to police by Australian intelligence agency

The Australian financial intelligence agency has handed information to federal police concerning allegations that international money transfers, amounting to hundreds of thousands of euros in Vatican funds, were sent to Australia during the trial of Cardinal George Pell.
www.catholicnewsagency.com www.catholicnewsagency.com

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...ould-distract-from-major-police-scandal-55972
 
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I believe that the media is the only medium that can foil any attempts to cover up foul play in this case. All people want is truth and accountability. Godwilling it will come.
 
Sounds circular.
  1. Will not investigate until something concrete turns up.
  2. How do you find something concrete?
  3. You Investigate!
Are they just merely relying on something to drop in their laps?
 
Interpol is involved. That is how the lady in the Slovenia business was caught and now kept in Milan.
That it doesn’t come out in the news all over doesn’t mean they re not moving.
As there is the apartment in London issue, there was this situation with the Italian businessman, and the IDI purchase.
This article also points to the results of investigation . There may be more…
A lot of suffering…
 
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If Victoria police don’t have clean hands in the matter, they aren’t likely to want to pursue it. Reported today there are 4 Australian agencies investigating. The international financial transfer watchdog Austrac, the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.

From the Weekend Australian.

There are now firmer grounds for an investigation into the mysterious transfers of more than $2m from the Vatican to Melbourne and allegations of attempts to adversely affect the trial of Cardinal George Pell for child sexual abuse. Federal and state authorities are now under more pressure to resolve the twin issues of the transfer of murky millions and allegations raised during Vatican investigations that Pell’s prosecution was perverted.

Three weeks ago, Australia was suddenly pulled into investigations concerning international fraud involving Vatican funds when Italian newspapers reported that Vatican investigators had been told $1.1m had been secretly sent to Australia to adversely affect Pell’s trial.

On Monday night these allegations spectacularly took solid shape when NSW Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells was told in the Senate that there were transfers, that they were being checked and that there were grounds for further investigations.

There is still no official link being made between the transfers and the Pell trial, but what was a fluid conspiracy theory suddenly has more weight.

No fewer than four investigating agencies — the international financial transfer watchdog Austrac, the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission — are now involved in examining the money transfers to Australia.

Meanwhile, Vatican investigators in Rome are looking at an international scandal involving millions of dollars in improper payments, opaque transfers, lavish spending and fraudulent activity surrounding a $363m property investment in London.
 
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RidgeSprinter said:
Sounds circular.
  1. Will not investigate until something concrete turns up.
  2. How do you find something concrete?
  3. You Investigate!
Are they just merely relying on something to drop in their laps?
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Police need solid hard evidence if they are going to investigate. That needs to be handed to them by those making the claim. So far, none has.
I cannot just phone them up and say investigate my neighbour with nothing solid to go on. There would also need to be direct hard evidence, ie drug dealer caught with drugs, not just 'this person is a drug dealer.

It also seems there is no basis to it given the bodies that have already looked into it.
In today’s brave new world of internet, that paper trial would be an easy find.
Motherwit said:
If Victoria police don’t have clean hands in the matter, they aren’t likely to want to pursue it
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There is no accusation anywhere that Victoria Police were involved. If there was, the corrupt police would be investigated. The original claim was the alleged victim’s family was handed cash in return for false testimony. That would be an easy prove and open up legal proceedings.

Money transfer has to have some sort of paper trail, and it would. If there is corruption, it would be looked at. That sum of money does not just disappear.

If there was anything to this here a case is won and lost on hard evidence and the way it is gathered.
Motherwit said:
Meanwhile, Vatican investigators in Rome are looking at an international scandal involving millions of dollars in improper payments, opaque transfers, lavish spending and fraudulent activity surrounding a $363m property investment in London.
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London issues have nothing to do with this.

I would not put too much faith in your news report given Victoria Police are not investigating and not involved.
Motherwit said:
No fewer than four investigating agencies — the international financial transfer watchdog Austrac, the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission — are now involved in examining the money transfers to Australia.
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umamibella said:
London issues have nothing to do with this.
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Why not, Umamibella?
Why do you see this event of the purchase as unrelated if you don’t mind my asking?
I was the one who brought it to the table.
 
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graciew said:
Why not, Umamibella?
Why do you see this event of the purchase as unrelated if you don’t mind my asking?
I was the one who brought it to the table.
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The claim in the media was that
Cardinal Giovanni Becciu, a rival of Pell, was suspected of paying an Australian witness in the child sexual abuse case.

The parents of the boy (victim) who later died have denied any such payment/s. The boy who is still alive and was the living witness has also denied any payments.

The stories and details of these alleged allegations of sexual child abuse have remained unchanged since long before the alleged corruption and bribery payments.
They have been redacted from various documents and websites. The living witness first went to police in 2015. This was well before any friction in the Vatican.
These alleged bribes are from 2017/18.

There have been issues with Vatican finances, sure, and the clean up of its treasury is subject to quite a bit of powerplay between vested interests including Southern Italian connections

I am sure more will come to light besides the arrest of that Italian women for , amongst other things, buying handbags with Vatican money. It will be subject to all manner of rumours and sensationalism in the media , much like the current sensationalism with ‘what the Pope said’ regarding that new movie.

Both witnesses in the Pell trial, and their families are transparent in their dealings and support of survivors of historic child sex abuse.

(Just trying to get the right link in for the Pope appointed finance investigator of the Southern Italian connection )
 
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umamibella said:
The living witness first went to police in 2015. This was well before any friction in the Vatican.
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The timeline was that Cardinal Pell was appointed to clean up Vatican finances at the end of February 2014. He set about his examination and then in June 2015 witness “J” was found. In 2016 Pell ordered an independent auditor to go over the books. Just as they began the audit Becciu cancelled it and sent a letter to every department advising them he had cancelled it.

The friction in the Vatican was literally happening in the months before the witness appeared.
 
Thank you, umamibella.
I wasn’t personally referring to a bribe to witnesses
Just to unjustified $ movements from Vatican to Melbourne which you say haven’t happened or there isn’t evidence .
Thanks, you are there in Australia
 
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In 2013 there was a complicated series of events and financial transactions surrounding the purchase of the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), an Italian hospital that collapsed that year under 800 million euros in debt for theft(robo) and fraud.
 
graciew said:
In 2013 there was a complicated series of events and financial transactions surrounding the purchase of the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), an Italian hospital that collapsed that year under 800 million euros in debt for theft(robo) and fraud.
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I suspect what we come to know will be mindblowing in its magnitude. I should have qualified my statement that concerning what happened to Cdl Pell and that specific friction was all happening around the same time.
 
The charges against Pell were so ridiculous that they can only have been brought for political or financial motives.
 
Motherwit said:
The timeline was that Cardinal Pell was appointed to clean up Vatican finances at the end of February 2014. He set about his examination and then in June 2015 witness “J” was found. In 2016 Pell ordered an independent auditor to go over the books. Just as they began the audit Becciu cancelled it and sent a letter to every department advising them he had cancelled it.

The friction in the Vatican was literally happening in the months before the witness appeared.
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The Vatican timeline has nought to do with the witness first going to police, and as I said , their story was pretty well known before that, along with a lot of other stories on this topic, Historic Sexual Abuse. There is a lot of conversation on alleged allegations redacted now, but still available if you know where to look and familiar to most who followed all this in Victoria. The Royal Commission began in 2013 with private hearings after it was announced back in 2012. Its first public hearings was a little while later.
This has been a very public and current affair here in Victoria for almost a decade.
Witness J was not ‘found’ . Best to not place too much credit in news reports and maybe listen to these people themselves and what they have to say.
In 2014 , after 15 years of drug addiction that began at the age of 13, one of the choir boys died of a heroin overdose . This prompted his friend, after his funeral, to speak up and go to the police.
Maximian said:
The charges against Pell were so ridiculous that they can only have been brought for political or financial motives.
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We must remember Cardinal Pell was not found innocent. He was not released from jail for that reason.
Cardinal Pell was released because
The High Court found that the unanimous jury that convicted him in 2018 “ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted,” and it ordered that verdicts of acquittal be entered
 
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graciew said:
Just to unjustified $ movements from Vatican to Melbourne which you say haven’t happened or there isn’t evidence .
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No evidence sufficient for Victoria Police to get involved, has been found regarding what is alleged to have occurred. It is a pretty simple thing to trace, given the internet today.
Conspiracy theories abound. I live here in Victoria, it is not even a big news item here.
We havent been able to attend Mass here for a long time. Our Archbishop has teemed up with the pubs here to all petition the government to open back up again for Mass and for certain pub functions. It is nice to start seeing everyone work together on something after such a destructive past decade here in Victoria.
 
Maximian said:
That is the only definition the law has of innocent
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Please dont take it out of context and apply the law of another country to Australian law.
Motherwit said:
The timeline was that Cardinal Pell was appointed to clean up Vatican finances at the end of February 2014.
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The clean up started way before 2014. It began during the Papacy of Benedict and the formation of the Financial Information Authority in 2010. A new law was created then regarding it, the FIA. The person I am discussing who the Pope appointed to look at the Southern Italian connections was appointed in 2019. The friction in the Vatican between the Pope and Becciu had not really started back in 2014 when Pope Francis was early into his Papacy. That came later and the brother of Becciu is implicated in embezzling or aiding the embezzling of a substantial amount of Vatican funds through Caritas.
 
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