2023-11-29 18:24:00
The prelate, who is accountable before the criminal court of Brussels, however, largely places the responsibility on an accomplice, Christian Ventisette, whom he accuses of being the mastermind of this gigantic fraud.
Also prosecuted in court, the latter chose to pursue the empty chair policy. He was neither present nor represented by a lawyer Wednesday.
Returns of 8%
The objective of the company Kepha Invest, created in 2007, was at first glance extremely attractive. It offered a five-year investment in the form of bonds, with returns ranging from 6% to 8% per year. The icing on the cake was that part of the profits were to be re-injected into the charitable works of Kepha Onlus, an Italian foundation.
Chaplain to the Italian Navy General Staff, Don Patrizio Benvenuti had access to the Vatican. He was thus able to dazzle some of the investors he took to Rome. He showed them the Vatican gardens as well as circles of officers of the Italian army. To always impress, the ecclesiastic and Christian Ventisette placed people with titles of nobility in the structures of society.
The cheated investors “were extremely religious people who sometimes devoted their entire lives to the Christian faith, who had blind trust in the clergy.
”Mr. Benvenuti made it clear that he was a person of trust between Kepha Invest and the Vatican,” noted attorney general Alain Collin before the criminal court. Kepha Invest also distributed sumptuous booklets praising charitable works, suggesting that the investments were guaranteed.
A Ponzi scam
Some 250 people fell for it. Sometimes it was small savers who entrusted him with their life savings. The cheated investors “were extremely religious people who sometimes devoted their entire lives to the Christian faith and had blind trust in the clergy,” noted Mr. Collin.
But there was nothing behind these investments. “It was all nonsense,” summed up the representative of the public prosecutor’s office in a graphic manner, concluding that it was a Ponzi scheme type scam.
During his interrogation, the clergyman suggested that they wanted to make him a suit that was too big for him. He said he had been manipulated by Christian Ventisette in whom he had “absolute trust”. “He had people skills, knowledge. He brought donations to the Foundation. He was very generous,” says the prelate who thus tries to limit his role.
This did not convince the Advocate General who slightly revised downwards his requisitions due to the reasonable time within which each must be judged and which, in this case, was “slightly exceeded”: two years once morest Christian Ventisette , the “big absentee” and 15 months suspended sentence once morest Don Patrizio Benvenuti.
The essential, in his eyes, is however elsewhere: he requested the confiscation of 19.182 million euros, which correspond to the amounts collected from investors which were used for expenses not productive of interest or financial returns, i.e. 64 % investments. This is an amount “and it is essential” to be allocated to the civil parties.
The civil parties and the defense will plead Thursday and Friday.
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