MALTA VOWS TO FIGHT EU OVER ITS DODGY CBI PROGRAMME; IT WILL LOSE

                             Malta, the Upside Down Country  by COSIMO
 

 

Robert Abela, the current Prime Minister of the Republic of Malta, has asserted that his country will contest the order of the European Union to dismantle its dangerous IIM (Citizenship by Investment) passport programme, even if the fight ends up at the European Court of Justice. This is not only a major mistake, but it will open the door to an investigation of the corrupt manner in which an international CBI consultancy secured an election victory for Abela's Labour Party, and may even result in criminal charges being filed against individuals close to him, who are already targets of money laundering and corruption investigations at home and abroad.

The large number of unsuitable applicants who hold Maltese CBI passports, which include white-collar criminals, EU citizens, citizens of states listed as terrorist supporters and sanctions evaders, all add up to a probable successful outcome against Malta in the courts. PM Abela could bring down not only his government, but cause his party to disintegrate as a result of such litigation. Malta has to start cleaning up its rampant corruption, and breaking up its CBI madness is a good way to start. The country is upside down right now for a number of major reasons; its time for it to right itself, or bear the consequences of perpetuating its insanity.

This delusional nonsense, "Malta aims to be the best in the world, " by Abela this week, is disconnected from reality. Please start the cleanup with the CBI programme.

 

OFFICERS IN ARMED FORCES OF MALTA COMPENSATED FOR CORRUPTION IN PROMOTIONS

 If you saw our recent article about the accelerated promotion of the present commander of the Armed Forces of Malta, you may be interested to know that some of the officers illegally passed over have been financially compensated for their lost salaries, after having formally filed for damages. The information was made public in Malta's major media, but the backstory remained off limits, and was only reported here on this blog.

In truth and fact, the two AFM officers who received unwarranted fast-track promotions, to the top two command positions, have both been, or presently are, romantically involved with Michelle Muscat, the estranged wife of Malta's disgraced former Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat. That is how things work in Malta.

MALTA IS SELLING CBI PASSPORTS TO CITIZENS OF EU MEMBER COUNTRIES

 

 If you were looking for another reason for the European Union to compel the Republic of Malta to shut down its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme, known locally as IIM, here's one: CBI passports are being sold to individuals where are citizens and residents of other EU Member countries. This is an illegal act, and it apparently is a widespread occurrence in Malta. No wonder criminals flock there, for they receive a travel document that allows them to masquerade as someone else, even in their own home country.

I am familiar with a specific case, involving a major white-collar criminal, who is using his Malta CBI passport (under an alias, of course) to defraud his many victims. I will, for the moment, withhold the individual's name, for her/she will most likely be arrested soon, and I do not with to give that individual advance warning that law enforcement is closing in. Once the person is in custody, however, I shall share all the details.

 If this isn't, in and of itself, sufficient reason to cancel Malta's CBI passport programme, then there aren't any. Any CBI passports issued to an EU citizen cannot have any legitimate application. They are only for criminal use. We hope and trust that the European Commission action against Malta, to terminate the programme, with prejudice, is successful.

READ THE CRIMINAL COMPLAINT FILED IN ANTIGUA ON BEHALF OF MEHUL CHOKSI

 

 Here is the Police Report and Criminal Complaint, if you are interested in his "official" position, though many in Antigua claim that he was involved in illegally leaving the country when his exit turned into a kidnap plot.

PROGRESS REPORT ON BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP REGISTERS ACROSS THE EU

 

APPROVING A CBI PASSPORT APPLICATION WITHOUT CONDUCTING A FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE CHECK CONSTITUTES COMPLIANCE MALPRACTICE

 

We have  recently learned that over one-half of the approved applications for a Citizenship by Investment (CBI) passport in Cyprus were illegal and improper. Specifically, they were conducted "in a Due Diligence Vacuum," and with insufficient background checks. Given that many white-collar criminals use bogus identification to make applications under aliases, the use of a facial recognition platform, paired with an adequate image database has become mandatory for compliance officers conducting due diligence for CBI programmes. It has become a requirement for Banking Best Practises, the industry norm, which CBI units must adhere to.

In plain English, so there is no question about it, the failure of a compliance officer, to check an applicant for a CBI passport, using an effective facial recognition platform, constitutes malpractice. There is no substitute, to put it bluntly. Using commercial-off-the-shelf databases of high-risk individuals is not longer an acceptable technique. Compliance officers stick in the past, who still use the old check-the-box name search method, are just fooling themselves and their clients.

One final note; the use of facial recognition software MUST include access to an adequate image database, through which the software searches for your target. Do not use any programme that simply access Google Images, or the Internet, as that is clearly a waste of time. A good image database, which has been collected by the facial recognition platform developers, or which they have access to,  contains passport and visa images, official and unofficial database images, and other non-public resources. Do not accept anything less.

Unfortunately, most CBI programmes deliberately omit the use of facial recognition, as a component of their due diligence  investigation, for they do not want to know the hard truth; they only want to collect the high fees. No wonder we keep reading about white-collar criminals arrested with CBI passports. Until these countries bulletproof their due diligence with facial recognition, they will fail every time.

PRO-LABOUR MEDIA PUBLISHES DECEPTIVE ELECTION POLL WITH BOGUS DATA TO MISLEAD VOTERS

 

A survey of voters preferences, published in Malta Today, falsely indicated that the ruling Labour Party was preferred by twenty per cent (20%) more voters than the Nationalist Party. In truth and in fact, the gap is no more than 10-12% in favour of Labour. The poll sought to deceive voters regarding the gains made by the Nationalist Party in recent weeks, and should be considered to be unreliable and a fraud upon the public. Malta Today  tries to appear balanced, but most of its content favours Labour ; the founder/owner is PL.

The individual responsible for the accuracy of the poll, Vincent Marmara, is a known Labour insider, and a close friend of both disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat, and PM Robert Abela; both appear on his Facebook page. He can hardly qualify as a neutral statistician. We call this how to lie with statistics.

 

                                                     Vincent Marmara
 

The bogus statistics are being published, say long-time observers of the political scene, to discourage (disenfranchise) "floating voters" uncommitted Maltese who it is believed would decide not to vote if the gap between the parties was inflated.  

Given the chaos and infighting at Castille, no wonder the Labour Party has stooped to dirty tricks. Many Cabinet officers and Labour Party leaders are refusing to go there, and are sending messengers to attend to their business, accusing the PM of bullying them when they appear in person. 

While Abela does favour Minister of Finance Clyde Caruana, his former chief of staff, and a known "Yes-Man,"  he has been accused of committing verbal abuse upon Minister of Transport Ian Borg,  Minister Silvio Schembri and MP Rosianne Cutajar. Abela has also bullied Joseph Muscat, according to eyewitnesses, who claim that he has been unreasonable of late.

We think we know why. Abela reportedly wants an election in March 2022, but his advisors want one in October 2021. He wants to win by a bigger margin in March, but COVID cases might worsen, and Malta is already in a recession, hence his unhappiness.

WILL A COOPERATING YORGEN FENECH BRING DOWN MALTA'S HOUSE OF CARDS , FROM ABELA TO ZAMMIT-LEWIS ?

 

 

 If you were closely following the Fenech/Daphne proceedings, you know that the compilation of evidence against the lead investigator has been postponed until November. While this was most likely done to give the Labour Party sufficient time to conduct, and win, national elections, the lawyers over at PL must not be paying attention to what is going on behind the scenes, for there are unconfirmed reports that Yorgen Fenech, probably the most reviled man in Malta, is negotiating with someone, somewhere, to cooperate in a pending criminal investigation.

We do not mean working with Maltese authorities, but a foreign agency or entity. Let's be honest here, for YF most likely knows enough about corruption amongst members of the Maltese cabinet to implicate just about all of them. Of all the possible cooperators, he literally knows were all the bodies are buried, and who in government violated the UK Bribery Act and the American Foreign Corrupt Praticses Act.  He is that tuned in to Maltese crime, especially bribes & kickbacks.

Whether we see Mr. Fenech, through his artful defence team,  accomplish this legal miracle, we cannot say, but considering that YF is definitely in mortal danger of an "accident" or "suicide" in a Maltese prison, we are certain that his attorneys are mindful of the threat to his safety. If I was YF, I would certainly want to be spending my incarceration in a UK or US facility, and at the end allowed to evade Maltese justice by being released abroad, under a new identity, never to see Malta again.

Who has visited YF lately, and met with him in the presence of his attorneys ? Is there a visitors log, or has it been conveniently misplaced or deleted ?

 

 

MALTA IGNORES THE FIRST WHISTLEBLOWER AT ITS OWN PERIL

 

 Unless you are one of Malta's Luddites, you zealously devour all the investigative articles appearing in The Shift News. This week, in a story exposing the country's abject neglect of its legal responsibilities to the EU on whistleblower legislation, this paragraph appeared:

"The Government also denied whistleblower status to Maria Efimova, who revealed information on Pilatus Bank and Egrant company. She fled from Malta, due to fears for her safety, but was arrested in Greece after Malta requested her extradition.  Eventually, the Greek courts refused the extradition order."

Malta's government continues to ignore the inevitable, probably because it will signal the abrupt end of the reign of the Labour Party, fatally infected with the corruption virus. They ignore Maria at their own peril.

We understand that one of Joseph Muscat's recurring nightmares goes like this: notwithstanding PM Robert Abela's refusal to grant Maria whistleblower status, and the immunity from prosecution that goes along with it, she finds a way to protect herself from legal jeopardy, and the Questioned Documents Examiner Report, confirming the  authenticity of signatures on corporate documents showing his wife, Michelle Muscat, as the beneficial owner of Egrant, is published. Everywhere he goes in Malta, copies of the report are posted on buildings, trees, and even placed upon the windshields of every car in Malta. he cannot escape the truth.

JM wakes up in a cold sweat, and reaches for a bottle of strong drink to clam his frazzled nerves. THAT'S how much of an existential threat that report is.When it sees the light of day, his criminal empire will implode in a flash of sound and light. Pray that this day comes, sooner rather than later.

FUGITIVE INDIAN FRAUDSTER'S DOMINICA NIGHTMARE CONTINUES

 

The Indian national, Mehul Choksi, whose attempts to slip away from Antigua, and escape justice in the United Arab Emirates, not only backfired, but resulted in his being kidnapped and beaten, and dumped into the hands of a very unfriendly government in Dominica, who has now charged him with a serious crime. He is now at the mercy of a local legal system known to be corrupt, greedy lawyers on both sides, seeking to profit from his situation.

The local courts have set his cases as follows:

(1) The next hearing on his attorneys' Habeas Corpus petition, which challenges Domincia's legal right to hold him, will be on July 2. This case is before the East Caribbean High Court. If granted, he could be immediately released.

(2) The Illegal Entry case will next be heard on June 14, by the Magistrate. Maximum sentence if convicted reported to be five (5) years.

Rumours are flying around both Antigua and Dominica. Choksi was going to hide out in Cuba; Choksi was entrapped in a "honey pot" scheme by a local female operative. Choksi cannot be convicted of Illegal Entry because he had no Intent to commit the crime which he has been charged with, as he arrived in Dominica involuntarily; he will be convicted because he was in the process of  illegally fleeing Antigua when he was kidnapped.

 The rumours go on and on.

While some legal observers believe that Dominica wants Choksi deported as soon as possible, others fear that his cases will fester in the country's dysfunctional court system for a very long time, citing the fact that it took the United States more than a decade to extradite Antigua's former government regulator Leroy King from that country. Dominica's courts, which are known to favor the whims of its senior leaders over the Rule of Law,  could see that Choksi is caught in its legal web for years.

 

 

MALTA, COCAINE TRAFFICKING AND THE TURKISH CONNECTION

 

If you read this blog regularly, you know:

(1) Law enforcement at MIA in Malta is constantly finding  undeclared currency of bulk cash smugglers atttempting to board airliners bound for Istanbul; and

(2) Maltese customs officials are reporting regular seizures of cocaine coming into Malta. With the exception of the Labour Party social headquarters,  and some of Malta's lawyers, we are not aware of any substantial local users. It is therefore a transit point.

Most observers are not inclined to connect the two, but in recent months, the evidence has confirmed that Turkey has become a major receiving destination for cocaine being smuggled in from South America; a monstrous 2010 seizure in Colombia, of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of coke ( 4.9 tons), whose destination was Turkey, proves that point.

Now, given that cocaine is not being consumed in quantity in Turkey, traffickers are obviously using it as a transit point into the lucrative European Union market. Inasmuch as Turkey is outside the Schengen Zone, Malta has become the logical choice to enter Western Europe. Coke arriving in Malta is NOT coming from Colombia, Venezuela or Peru, but from Turkey.

Whose is involved ? Five maritime companies, all incorporated  in Malta, trace back to the son of the leader of Turkey, according to publicly-available information . How does the money flow through Malta ? We cannot conclusively point to a specific local financial institution, but we do know how it worked in the recent past. The country's favourite Iranian-owned and operated money laundering engine, Pilatus Bank, had a substantial number of Turkish accounts, most of which were not connected to legitimate local business operations.

Who was responsible for those accounts ? Most Maltese are unaware that there was a Turkish banker in residence at Pilatus Bank, and he had what law enforcement calls "Special Skills." In other words, he or she is qualified to employ specific talents needed to achieve criminal goals. This individual, immediately prior to being posted to Pilatus, completed a programme on maritime trade and transport. This is a niche topic, needed by any finance officer engaged with maritime clients. he also claims, on his resume', that he was with Pilatus until 2020; of course, Pilatus lost its licence a number of years before then. So what's with the claim he was still working for the bank in that time frame ?

We must assume that the present government  in Malta is somehow sharing in at least a potion of the illicit profits, in exchange for allowing it trouble-free transit, but the rest is flowing north, most likely through the ferries, into Sicily and Naples, and on into the EU. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the other Members of the European Union are so upset with Malta of late. Whether they do anything about it we cannot say, but we will be watching.

 

 

READ THE COMPLETE TEXT OF THE LETTER TO THE EU JUSTICE MINISTER ABOUT MALTA'S UTTER FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE RULE OF LAW

 

Here is the complete text of the letter recently sent to the European Union Commissioner for Justice, Reynders, by counsel for two of the accused killers of Daphne Caruana Galizia, pointing that that Malta flouts the Rule of Law. While we certainly have nothing but disgust for his clients, the lawyer makes a point; Malta ignores the Rule of law at its peril.

You will definitely want to read the killers' proffer about specific incriminating information they can testify to, against CHRIS CARDONA and CARMELO ABELA.

 This letter should be required reading for every attorney in Malta. It should be front and center on every media outlet.

You will have to Zoom in on the small text to read it, but I assure you it will be worth the trouble.

 

 

    Credit: Times of Malta

WHAT ARE THE TERMS OF THE SECRET AGREEMENT BETWEEN MALTA AND RUSSIA ?

 

While there have been a number of press reports on the recent meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Russia and the Republic of Malta, the specific terms of their agreement, which was reportedly negotiated in a secure setting, remain totally unknown. Given Malta's geopolitical location, and Russia's expansionist history in the Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, and increasing threats to the Baltic and Eastern European countries, it is important to consider precisely what issues may have been the subject of a classified understanding. Russia may be seeking to create a sphere of influence in the Central Mediterranean, by pairing Libya with Malta, and making both client states.

We do know that Malta will release the Russian-printed Dinars to the government led by General Haftar. It remains a mystery why Malta, at this late date, will release the currency shipment, when it was initially confiscated on the strength of EU and UN sanctions.

Obviously, there is some sort of secret deal that involves Libya. What, we ask, has Russia promised to the corrupt Maltese politicians, as Malta has historically supported the opposing Government of National Accord; they are Haftar's enemies and opponents. What is Malta getting out of this ?

A number of possibilities come to mind:

(1) Will Russia allow Malta to steal more of Libya's vulnerable oil supply, and transship it abroad via Hurd's Bank ?

(2) Will Russia assist Malta in expanding its transshipment of mercenaries and weapons to Haftar ?

(3) Are the Labour Party officials targeted for money laundering offences by foreign governments asking for a safe jurisdiction, where they are free from any extradition laws ?

(4) Are the Russians receiving the right to anchor or bunker their warships in Maltese harbours ?

(5) Will Russian influence now increase inside Malta ?

What form  any push back from the European Union, the UK or the US, to counter Russian influence, will take, is not known, but it should be anticipated.  

 

 

 

 

 

WITH COVID NOW IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR. KENNETH RIJOCK IS AGAIN AVAILABLE FOR LECTURES AND TRAINING

 

Effective June 15. 2021, yours truly is now again accepting invitations to lecture to financial institutions and law enforcement agencies. For further information on specific lecture and training topics, please contact me at:   miamicompliance@gmail.com

DOMINICA CHARGES MEHUL CHOKSI WITH A TECHNICAL OFFENCE TO PREVENT HIS DEPORTATION TO INDIA

 

It was bound to happen. once a judge in Dominica had the case of high-profile Indian fraudster Mehul Choksi before him, the government charged him with Making Illegal Entry into Dominica. Considering that Choksi was kidnapped in Antigua, and brought to Dominica against his will; the necessary element of intent is missing. There is no factual basis for the charge; it was obviously brought to detain Choksi, while a team of expensive Antigua, Dominica and UK attorneys will collect lucrative fees from a known fraudster. In this case, 

He was brought to court today by the police, in a wheelchair; the extent of his injuries, reportedly sustained by his captors, are not known, though photographs show bruised face and arms. The Habeas Corpus proceeding brought by Choksi's counsel are scheduled to be heard tomorrow, June 3, though the belated criminal charge may result in a judicial decision to deny it, due to a pending criminal case.