ROME
Religion News Service
Rosie Scammell | February 25, 2016
ROME (RNS) Police in Spain have arrested a fugitive businessman accused of swindling pensioners from the U.S. and elsewhere out of millions of euros with the backing of a Catholic priest who worked at the Vatican before retiring to the Canary Islands.
Christian Ventisette was stopped at Madrid airport after an international arrest warrant was issued for the French-Italian businessman, Italy’s financial police said Wednesday (Feb. 24).
Ventisette is accused of scamming more than 250 investors out of around 30 million euros ($33 million) in an international operation involving an Argentine priest.
The retired cleric, the Rev. Patrizio Benvenuti, was put under house arrest in Italy earlier this month. He previously worked at a Vatican tribunal and currently has residency in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the west coast of Africa.
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