Malta Former top police officer to be charged with corruption
Corruption charges are being drawn up against the former head of the police’s anti-money laundering unit.
The police had reached out to the attorney general’s office
on how best to proceed after closing off an investigation into former
superintendent Ray Aquilina, sources told Times of Malta. It is understood that the police
investigation was run by a team set up to probe leaks from the Daphne Caruana
Galizia murder case.
That investigation, sources said, has concluded that
Aquilina should face a raft of criminal charges, from tax evasion to
corruption, over his relationship with alleged Caruana Galizia murder
conspirator Yorgen Fenech.
Aquilina was arrested in April after police received the
conclusions of a magisterial inquiry into leaks from the murder case.
Questions sent to Aquilina early last week remain
unanswered.
Last month, Times of Malta reported that police were probing
a plan for a suspicious property deal involving the former police
superintendent and Fenech.
Officers from the police’s anti-money laundering unit,
formerly Aquilina’s own office, believe that a Birżebbuġa apartment worth in
excess of €180,000 was set to be sold to Aquilina’s parents for around a third
of its market value by Fenech in 2018.
The plan being investigated by police was for the property
to change hands for some €60,000.
Sources said the apartment was then to be donated to
Aquilina by his parents in what police suspect may be a case of bribery and
money laundering.
The apartment was originally owned by property magnate Joe
Portelli who was taken in for police questioning over the matter. Times of
Malta understands Portelli is no longer a person of interest to the case. The
developer has never responded to questions sent.
In spring of 2018, when the property plan was hatched, an
FIAU report had named Fenech as the owner of offshore company 17 Black and was
sent to the police’s anti-money laundering unit.
In December 2018, the police unit, headed by Aquilina at the
time, sent a request for information to Dubai as part of the investigation into
the FIAU report.
That request, however, was never taken seriously by the Dubai
authorities as it contained incorrect information.
Last month, Times of Malta also reported that the police had
secured phone intercepts and surveillance footage that back up investigators’
theory that Aquilina was supplying parties to the Caruana Galizia murder with
sensitive insider information.
Sources said that in 2019, Aquilina had visited the offices
of Fenech at Portomaso, although this was not logged in visitor entries taken
at the front desk. At the time of the visit, Aquilina was responsible for the
unit that gathered sensitive information on players believed to be involved in
money laundering.
Aquilina had also been spotted walking into the Qormi office
of Johann Cremona a number of times during police surveillance operations in
the summer of 2019. Cremona is a business associate of Fenech and is believed
to have acted as an interlocutor between the alleged murder conspirator,
self-confessed middleman Melvin Theuma, and former OPM chief of staff Keith
Schembri.
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