Vangelisti was involved in the Vatican's purchase of the Sloane Avenue property in London, together with the director of Valeur capital, Alessando Noceti, who worked previously for Suisse Credit in London.
Becciu denied that he knew either Vangelisti or Noceti. "I don't know who they are," he said. "I have never met them."
The cardinal said that he and Pope Francis did not discuss the London property during their roughly 20-minute meeting Thursday. He also denied that any money from Peter's Pence was used to purchase the property at 60 Sloane Avenue.
The cardinal described the meeting with the pope and his subsequent resignation as "surreal," because "yesterday, until 6:02 p.m., I felt I was a friend of the pope, a faithful agent of the pope ... and then there, speaking, he tells me that he no longer trusts me."
"That he no longer trusts me because he had seen reports from the [Vatican] magistrates that I had embezzled," he said.
After the cardinal resigned as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, a position he had been in since September 2018, the pope asked him to also resign the "privileges" of cardinals, Becciu noted.
The embezzlement reports, Becciu said, claimed that when he was sostituto he had misappropriated 100,000 euros to give to a cooperative owned by his brother, and which was part of the charity of his former diocese.
Becciu said he tried to explain the action to Pope Francis, saying that it was true he had gifted 100,000 euros, but it was sent to the Ozieri diocesan Caritas from Vatican funds intended for "various" charitable works, and thus was legitimate.
He said the accusation that the money had gone instead to his brother's cooperative connected to Caritas "seemed strange" to him, and that when he called his brother and the bishop to ask about the money, they confirmed to him that it was in the Caritas accounts, yet untouched.
Asked if he thought that matter constituted a conflict of interest, since his brother works for the diocesan Caritas, the cardinal said, "a conflict of interest? I don't know if it really was a conflict of interest. I wanted to help the diocese, not my brother, the diocese."
A press release from the Bishop of Ozieri and president of the diocesan Caritas, Corrado Melis, Sept. 24 said the diocese "has never been the beneficiary" of undue or illegitimate favors.
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Becciu is also reported to have used his connections to help two other brothers, from the time when he was apostolic nuncio in Cuba and Angola.
He quibbled with details of the L'Espresso report, which said that his brother's carpentry company was given ecclesiastical projects in the two countries. According to Becciu, in Angola his brother only helped to repair "two doors" at the nunciature, and in Cuba, his brother did the renovations at the nunciature because "it was difficult to find" materials in Cuba, so they imported them from Italy.
To his third brother, who owns a food and beverage distributor, called Angel's, Becciu said "he never gave money, not mine nor that of the institution" of the Church.
He also indicated proof should be given or he "will sue for defamation."
Becciu's family released their own statement Sept. 25, calling the reports "unfounded and maliciously false…" as well as "slanderous, offensive and disparaging."
They said Francesco Becciu had carried out "some carpentry work on behalf of ecclesial entities" but they are "not attributable to Cardinal Becciu."