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Vatican investigators focus on longtime investment manager

An Italian newsweekly said Friday that it has obtained a document in which Vatican investigators focus on a longtime investment manager for the Holy See as a central figure in the ongoing financial scandal. The investment manager has said there is nothing unusual about his work at the Vatican. In… Read More

Malta: Accountants to fuel smuggling ring fined €59,000 by FIAU

An accountancy firm that provided corporate services to one of the companies implicating in the Operation Dirty Oil fuel smuggling ring, has been fined €58,900 by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU). The clients included ADJ Trading, a company implicated in the €30 million Libyan fuel smuggling ring, that was controlled by… Read More

EU takes legal action against ‘golden passport’ schemes in Cyprus, Malta

The European Union’s executive said on Tuesday it was launching legal action against Cyprus and Malta over their investor citizenship programmes, also known as “golden passport” schemes. The schemes allow wealthy foreigners to buy citizenship in exchange for an investment of around 1 million euros in Malta and 2 million… Read More

20th October 2020

The AML System: A Failure of Statecraft?

Consider the current state of anti-money laundering efforts across the globe. Around 2% of global GDP is laundered annually, amounting to between $800B – $2T. Banks spend around $8B annually fighting it but affect only 0.1% of criminal finance. What we know then is that the ROI of the… Read More

19th October 2020

Largest Scottish fraud case linked to regime of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi

A money-laundering operation that allegedly funnelled tens of millions of pounds through Scotland from Libya is believed to be the largest fraud investigation in Scottish history. The findings of a six-year inquiry by Police Scotland are being considered by prosecutors. Government officials in the north African country claimed that a… Read More

12th October 2020

Malta: Opposition urges introduction of unexplained wealth orders

Opposition MP Claudio Grech has urged the government to introduce unexplained wealth orders to give the authorities more powers to seize assets potentially financed by criminal activities. While offering its support to the proceeds-of-crime bill being discussed in parliament, Grech told Times of Malta that the bill missed a… Read More

9th October 2020

Malta: Five remittance agents investigated for money laundering

Five cases of suspected money laundering using remittance agents were referred to the police for investigation by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit over the past four years. An FIAU analysis released recently shows that between January 2017 and May 2020, remittance agents submitted 98 suspicious transaction reports. Just over a… Read More

9th October 2020

Maltese golden passport scheme loses 73 agents since 2013

Malta’s Individual Investor Programme has lost some 73 of its agents out of a list of 200 firms and approved agents selling citizenship to the ultra-rich. Of those 73, only four practitioners have had their license outright suspended by the IIP agency: these include two licences held by the legal… Read More

6th October 2020

France asked to open investigation into four banks, Electrogas loan

France’s national financial prosecutor’s office has been asked to open an investigation into whether four French-based banks and an investment fund were complicit with Electrogas in laundering the proceeds of corruption. Sherpa, a French association that fights financial crimes, teamed up with the Daphne Caruana Galizia foundation to file the… Read More

2nd October 2020

Malta: Failure to secure corruption convictions flagged in EU rule of law report

The European Commission has expressed concern about Malta’s failure to secure convictions in high-level corruption cases and flagged “deep corruption patterns” within the country as worthy of note. In a rule of law report, the Commission noted that the worrying patterns had led to “strong public demand” for rule of… Read More

24th September 2020

FinCEN Files: Dubious oil deals with Syria turn fatal

In the Kerch Strait off the Crimean coast, a dangerous undertaking cost 20 people their lives. On January 21, 2019, crews on two tankers were transferring liquified petroleum gas (LPG) from one ship to another at sea. Something went wrong and there was a terrible explosion. Both ships quickly… Read More

23rd September 2020

With money laundering red flags going up, football clubs may have to step up

Football clubs will have to step up internal controls amid growing attention to criminal activity in sports by anti-money laundering agencies. The Malta Football Association is working on a framework to introduce more accountability and corporate oversight in top-tier clubs, a source close to the governing football body told MaltaToday. Read More

23rd September 2020

Malta police arrest former PM’s chief of staff in money laundering probe

Malta police arrested Keith Schembri, who was the chief of staff of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, early on Tuesday as part of an investigation into money laundering of funds derived from kickbacks on sales of Maltese passports. Schembri was arrested just after midnight, hours after a court issued an… Read More

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