PURE INSANITY: U.S. NOMINATES HEAD OF FINANCIAL REGULATORY AGENCY IN MALTA FOR ANTI-CORRUPTION AWARD

In a stunning development that has puzzled compliance officers everywhere, the Embassy of the United States in the Republic of Malta has nominated Director Kenneth Farrugia, who heads the country's Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) for the State Department's International Anticorruption Champions Award. Whilst this is technically only a nomination, it speaks volumes about the total lack of awareness of  reality on there part of the American Charge D'affaires, who made the announcement.

I cannot think of a worse choice; Farrugia, who was hand-picked by the disgraced former Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, in 2017, has done absolutely nothing to rein in the rampant money laundering and terrorist financing that plagues the island nation, which may be one of the European Union's smallest Members, but where financial crime can be openly committed with impunity.

If this is some type of public relations stunt, to endear the embassy to the Labour Party, we do not understand what the US State Department believes it will gain as the result. It's bad enough that the US has ignored the Maltese financial crime and corruption which touches on the American financial structure,  and has never indicated Muscat and his merry men, but to attempt to give one of the guilty parties an award is clearly insane. No wonder the Labour Party considers the American law enforcement community  a toothless tiger.