When Roman Catholics toss money into the collection plate, few probably expect their charitable giving to underwrite an Elton John biopic, help build a North Carolina highway, pad the pockets of the cardinal’s relatives — or wind up linked to a shell company used by a financial adviser to purchase high-end South Florida properties.
An embezzlement scandal is playing out now in a Vatican City courtroom with crimes alleged to have occurred in London and Sardinia. And at least one of the intriguing figures has a Miami connection.
Italian banker Enrico Crasso, while working with the Vatican on its investments, quietly bought and sold at least two pricey Miami-area condos by using a Florida-registered company that pointed to anonymous offshore shell companies.
The transactions might have remained in obscurity, just two more sales of South Florida properties, which are frequently bought and sold by foreign nationals who depend on local lawyers to cloak the transactions in anonymity.
But this Florida company, HP Finance, has an interesting distinction. It is cited by name in a recent 488-page indictment by prosecutors in Vatican City that accuses the Italian banker of aggravated fraud. Crasso, in turn, is tied to disgraced Cardinal Angelo Becciu, ousted by Pope Francis in 2020 for allegedly misspending money raised from the faithful for charitable purposes.
Records for both Crasso and HP Finance are found in a massive leak of 11.9 million secret offshore documents known as the Pandora Papers. The leak involves 2.9 terabytes of information from 14 global offshore service providers.
Collectively the documents give a glimpse behind the curtain obscuring the true owners of secretive offshore shell companies used to buy Miami-area real estate. The world of offshore shells is a realm where the powerful, the corrupt, the criminal or the just plain rich can disguise ownership of expensive real estate in places like South Florida and London.
Like the now-famous Panama Papers leak in 2016, the Pandora Papers show that Miami remains a hot market for investors seeking to fly under the radar using offshore shell companies. A companion industry has blossomed as high-priced lawyers, tax advisers and specialist Realtors cater to the uber rich.
Crasso’s records were among 132,751 documents that reference Miami in the leak, made public on Sunday when more than 150 collaborating media partners across the globe, including the Miami Herald, began publishing under the umbrella of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The Pandora Papers are full of secrets about Miami real estate, whether they involve Julio Iglesias and his massive portfolio of South Florida properties bought with shell companies or members of the Mexican political elite.
But few connections are as intriguing as the Vatican trial involving Crasso and his interlocutor, the most senior church leader to be tried in modern history. Becciu is charged with five counts of embezzlement, among other charges, in relation to the same Vatican case as Crasso.
The trial of Crasso, who now lives in Switzerland, began on Oct. 5 and a bombshell immediately threw it into disarray. The main prosecutor offered to withdraw all materials gathered in his investigation and essentially start anew after revelations that key material was withheld from the defense.
A judge adjourned the case until Wednesday to consider the offer.
In a lengthy interview, Crasso said he has invested the Vatican’s finances since 1993 without problem.
Investments approved by Cardinal Becciu, he said, are what left him under indictment in Vatican City and part of the ongoing prosecution of the cardinal over a deal involving a Harrods warehouse slated for conversion to apartments in London’s tony Chelsea district.
Pope Francis ousted Becciu in 2020 as part of a crackdown on irregular Vatican finances, some of which came from donations to Peter’s Pence, a church system in place since 1860 where the faithful can contribute directly to the Holy See. Becciu allegedly funneled contracts to family in Sardinia and made loans to relatives, charges he denies.
What’s Miami got to do with this?
The London property at the center of Becciu’s prosecution was purchased in part by a fund run by Crasso. Ostensibly, such investments would leverage the donated money, making even more money to fund charitable efforts.
Prosecutors allege Becciu and his associates spent lavishly on themselves with hotels, Prada goods and on vanity projects, such as investing in “Rocketman,” the hit movie about the life of Elton John. As for the London real estate investment, it lost $415 million, they said.
While Crasso was not directly involved in that allegation, a Vatican indictment on July 3 named him as one of 10 people involved in an alleged conspiracy. Two of Crasso’s companies — Miami-based HP Finance, used to buy the condo, and Sogenel Capital Holdings — are among four companies named in the indictment.
Sogenel was described by prosecutors as a holding company for the Centurion Global Fund, one of the vehicles Crasso used for investing Vatican money.
Vatican prosecutors allege Crasso led the cardinal and others to believe that a seven million euros ($8.1 million today) investment in bonds was to help build an unspecified North Carolina highway.
“I have no idea where they found that document. It’s crazy,” Crasso said in a 90-minute interview from the Swiss city of Lugano, adding he’s never been to North Carolina and that the amount would be too little to build a highway regardless.
The Vatican, said prosecutors, was unaware the bonds were issued by HP Finance and that in reality the goal was to take stakes in three Italian companies, including an Angolan airline called Ewo Airways, a textiles company and a pesticide manufacturer.
Adding to the mystery, prosecutors said that Crasso told them the money never went into those companies but rather to HP Finance’s Miami bank account at Swiss bank UBS and the funds were later returned to the Vatican.
In the Pandora Papers, Crasso created shell companies in the British Virgin Islands, at least one intended to purchase his Miami real estate — Dexie Miami Ltd. The other two companies are Dexiafin Structure RE Corp. and Dexiafin Group Ltd. Crasso denies Vatican money paid for the condos.
Through the Miami office of the law firm Fowler White Burnett, Crasso in 2017 provided offshore service provider Trident Trust with a copy of his Italian passport and described himself as a business owner and real estate investor. He did not mention his client, the Vatican, in the documents.
Some 74,245 Trident Trust documents found in the Pandora Papers reference Miami in some way.
Dexie Miami was used in the purchase in 2007 of a luxury condo at the Grovenor in Coconut Grove for $2.2 million, just after the snazzy building opened. Florida property records show Crasso sold the condo in August 2018 for $2.7 million to another Florida shell called Quantico Dominis LLC.
Property records show that Quantico belonged to a Honduran aluminum magnate, Miguel Angel Larach, who a year later saw much of his empire seized by creditors. Larach, through a family member, said he did not know Crasso personally.
HP Finance was used to buy Crasso’s next condo, at the exclusive Porto Vita in Aventura. Crasso said he used it for a week at a time, several times a year, coming to Miami to golf and relax. He sold the property last March, “with a broken heart,” because the coronavirus hampered international travel and he said he needed money to pay lawyers in Europe.
A Miami Herald reporter tried to visit the Porto Vita towers in late August but was not allowed through the gates. The Herald attempted to reach the new residents of the 20th floor unit from the guard station, but they refused to take the call.
The Vatican indictment also mentions Dexiafin Structure RE Corp., found in the Pandora Papers, and another company that was not, Dexiafin Municipal Agency. The indictment alleges Crasso kept accounts in Miami and Connecticut with Swiss bank UBS.
Crasso said Dexiafin Structure was used for the bonds he offered investors, which became the focus of the Vatican probe. And the one not in the Pandora Papers, Dexiafin Municipal Agency, was also tied to the bonds, he said, which the Vatican and other investors purchased.
Crasso insisted the Florida properties were his and were not purchased with Vatican funds or for the benefit of anyone in the church hierarchy. The Grovenor condo was bought with proceeds from the sale of a property in Switzerland belonging to his wife, he said.
“I’m going to tell you everything because I have a clear conscience,” Crasso said, repeating the pledge throughout the interview and denying repeatedly that Vatican money was used to buy Miami condos.
The 73-year-old banker said he had handled Vatican investments since 1993 and never had an issue until Cardinal Becciu asked him in 2012 to look into investing in Angolan oil projects, something that was both unusual and far out of his area of knowledge.
Crasso insisted HP Finance was established to issue bonds, which he did publicly. Information on them was available to investors via Bloomberg and other sources of investor information, Crasso added.
Dexiafin Structures bonds were bought by the Vatican and other investors but, said Crasso, the church liquidated its position a couple of years later because Pope Francis sought to build a university in Jordan.
Prosecutors allege the bonds were sold at a loss. Crasso insisted the Vatican earned interest and was paid a 2% interest rate on the balance that was returned.
“They didn’t lose any money. Nothing,” he insisted, adding later that “fraud happens when you lose money, but not when you make money.”
Crasso said he feels betrayed by those he helped for decades.
“I gave 26 years of my professional life to these people,” he said bitterly of his treatment by the Vatican, suggesting the verdict is already decided. “The pope lays down the law and everyone follows.”
Another intriguing name in the documents is Princess Camilla Crociani de Bourbon des Deux Siciles — yes, that is her actual moniker. Her husband Prince Carlo’s family ruled Sicily and Naples in southern Italy before unification in 1861.
Crociani, 50, lives in Monaco and owned Fisher Island properties that were tied up in a decadelong battle with sister Christiana over the family trust and inheritance. She has also been locked in litigation with French bank BNP Paribas over similar issues of inheritance.
Matriarch Edoarda Vessel Crociani inherited her husband’s fortune and added to it with her show business career, which included a part in Federico Fellini’s Academy Award winning film “8½” under her stage name Edy Vessel. She created a Bahamian trust in the late 1980s for eventual transfer of assets to her then-teenage daughters, Christiana and Camilla.
Christiana became estranged from her family and in 2010 Edoarda transferred an estimated $132 million worth of investments and artworks out of the trust to her own account. Included in that transfer, and found in Florida corporate records from 2011, were expensive Fisher Island condos.
BNP Paribas and Christiana accuse Camilla in court documents of lying when she says she doesn’t know the whereabouts of her 81-year-old mother’s fortune. Camilla was ruled in contempt of court earlier this year by a judge in the tax haven of Jersey, a British dependency, and hit with a $2 million fine for not disclosing the whereabouts of her mother’s fortune. She is appealing the ruling.
The Pandora Papers show Camilla Crociani owned two condos in Fisher Island that were held through a shell company with Trident Trust called Crica Investment Ltd. Crica is part of the bitter ongoing litigation.
In the Pandora Papers, Crica originally listed Christiana as a director, as did the Florida companies 7744 Fisher Drive LLC and 19251 Fisher Drive LLC.
Florida corporate records show that in 2011 Christiana was removed and Paul Foortse, a Dutch lawyer, was added as a director. Similar changes were made in the documents for the offshore Crica.
Camilla Crociani’s former London attorney, Olaf Blakeley, and her current lawyer, Hiren Mistry, both declined comment on the Miami properties. But Florida property records show one Oceanside of Fisher Island condo was bought by the Crocianis in 2008, and sold in 2018 to a Florida company called Ulfberht Inc., owned by a Swedish businessman named Niklas Verfeld.
The second Crociani property in the same building and tied to Crica Investments was purchased in 2004 and deed records show the title changed hands for $7 million in 2015 from 7744 Fisher Drive LLC to 7744 Fisher LCC, owned by a shell company in Panama.
Florida corporate documents show the latter company belonged to Robert Bourne, a wealthy British developer, who like Camilla lives in Monaco. The property sold anew in 2020 for $7.2 million.
While the sand and sun attracts foreign buyers from across the globe to South Florida, few could have imagined purchasing a unit in a beachfront condo that would collapse.
Just hours after the deadly June 24 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo in Miami’s Surfside community, a small group of journalists working on the Pandora Papers knew it was possible that relatives of Paraguay’s first lady, Silvana López Moreira, had perished in the tragedy.
López and the tower had been on their radar well before the deadly events because her name and associated shell companies appeared in the files and had already been discovered by collaborating reporters.
The first lady’s family had an offshore shell company in the British Virgin Islands with Trident Trust, an offshore service provider. The company was called Unityfam Holdings Group Ltd.
A similar sounding Florida company called Unityfam 1001 Corp appears in Florida property records as the owner of unit 1010, in the doomed Champlain Towers building. The unit was purchased less than a year earlier in September 2020, after Mario Abdo Benetiz became president of Paraguay.
Another Florida company called True Honor Holdings LLC is found in property records as owner of unit 701, purchased in June 2002, well before his presidency.
Yet another Pandora document describes the main Unityfam Holdings company as a vehicle through which a trust will protect assets for heirs, something that sadly will be put to use after the collapse killed Lopez’s sister, Sophia López Moreira, and the sister’s husband, Luis Pettengill.
The bodies of the couple’s three children, ages nine, six and three, were eventually recovered from the rubble, as was their Paraguayan nanny, Leidy Vanessa Luna Villalba.
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Paolo Biondani and Leo Sisti from L’Espresso, Vittorio Malagutti, a special correspondent to L’Espresso, contributed from Italy. ICIJ investigative reporter Scilla Alecci contributed from Washington and Herald researcher Monika Leal contributed from Miami.
Kevin G. Hall began the Pandora Papers project as an investigative reporter for the Miami Herald and continued the work as North America editor for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
The Pandora Papers is a global collaboration between The Miami Herald and the nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. If you like journalism like this, please make a donation to ICIJ to support it.
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