A Nigerian man who sang for a Vatican choir has admitted that he had been arranging gay liaisons for an Italian government official serving as papal usher, when his activities were discovered by wiretaps by Italian authorities.

It seems that the Italian authorities probably weren’t even expecting to stumble into something this big: the wiretaps were set up as part of an investigation of how public works contracts were being awarded.

However, the phone conversations between Angelo Balducci, a Vatican gentleman and overseer for the Italian government’s construction contracts, and 39-year-old Nigerian choir singer Thomas Chinedu Ehiem were almost unmistakable. The recordings have been collated between April 14, 2008 and January 20, 2010.

Ehiem shares that he indeed arranges for gay consorts for Balducci, with Balducci paying him ’50 to 100 euros, but not more than 1500 a year’. Ehiem also went into some details, saying that Balducci preferred men who were over 40 years of age, and that sometimes Balducci would ask for two meetings a day, according to a report by CNN.

Balducci was one of three government officials who were jailed on charges related to corruption, with authorities believing that they received favors, money and sex so that they would award contracts to businessmen. Balducci also served as a Vatican gentleman, also known as a ‘gentleman of his holiness’, with the main responsibility of welcoming visiting heads of state to the Vatican and escorting them to see the Pope.

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