NEW LEADER IN ITALY SEEKING TO HIT MALTESE MONEY LAUNDERERS HARD

If you read the recently released report from Italy on crime, you probably noted that references to Malta appeared throughout, as the jurisdiction of choice for Italian Mafia, other organized crime groups, fraudsters and other of the usual suspects engaged in criminal activities in Italy. Given the ease with which Italian criminal entities can operate in Malta, with or without the assistance of their Maltese cousins in crime, the local Mafia chapter, the fact that the report repeatedly referred to Malta as the venue du jour, meaning for the facilitation of money laundering, should be duly noted.

A reliable source in Italy has advised that the newly-elected right wing leader has indicated to the country's law enforcement agencies that Mafia financial crime is out of control, and must be suppressed, by any means possible. This means that Malta should expect to see some of its active money launderers, as well as those individuals in the financial services and corporation formation industries who are facilitating the clean of Italian criminal proceeds charged in Rome. This will seriously affect their ability to travel throughout the Members of the European Union, and will most likely result in arrests, like that which happened to Iosif Galea. Malta's corrupt government will surely protect their own laundrymen, and decline to arrest them on Italian warrants, but should they travel to Sicily, or elsewhere in the EU, there will be consequences.