Unbelievably, John Dalli told the press yesterday that the ‘Bahamas project’ is not worth $100 million, but “billions”

Published: July 7, 2013 at 11:27am
Eloise Marie Corbin, the international fraudster known to John Dalli as Mary Swan, with whom he has discussed African projects "worth billions".

Eloise Marie Corbin, the international fraudster known to John Dalli as Mary Swan, with whom he has discussed African projects “worth billions”.

The Malta Independent on Sunday reports:

While he did not disclose the documents shown to Dr Muscat, the former EU commissioner did reveal some more details about the philanthropic project.

He said that, this project was still being drawn up, and that information about it was very sensitive. But he insisted that the financing involved was far north of the $100 million mentioned by the IHT: the initiatives that have been prioritised would require billions of dollars.

The general idea, Mr Dalli revealed, was to set up sustainable economic projects in various sectors – he mentioned farming, mining, oil and energy as examples – in various African countries, which would create jobs and foster economic growth in the local community. The profits from these economic projects, he added, would be used to support other initiatives in education and health.

The prioritised projects alone, he said, would create 28,000 direct jobs and 115,000 indirect jobs, assist 13 million poor people and feed and educate seven million children. He said that at this stage, the countries of operation envisaged are Ethiopia, Nigeria and Ghana – the Niger Delta, an oil-rich region of southern Nigeria, was also included in the list of countries.

Of course, this was BEFORE this website revealed yesterday evening that the woman with whom he is discussing this multi-billion-dollar project is an international fraudster, con artist and scammer called Eloise Marie Corbin, a US citizen who is unable to use her American passport and so moves about using a series of fake passports and aliases, including Emma Corbin, Nina Petros, Myrna Klein and even the identity of a Filippina woman.

She entered Malta by private jet after being bailed from a Bangkok jail where she had been held for trying to enter Thailand using a false The Philippines passport. She operates in Malta under the name Mary Swan, aka Lady Bird or LB, which is how the Dallis know her.

If John Dalli hasn’t been conned himself along with his younger and hence possibly much more gullible daughters, then what we are looking at here is a major money-laundering operation, and no bones about it.

If he has been conned, there are two possible scenarios:

1. he has been tricked into believing that this woman has access to huge sums of money when she does not;

2. she does have huge sums of money which she has tricked out of others, and he has been conned into believing that they are genuinely earmarked for charitable operations.

Let us be charitable ourselves and consider that it must have been either 1. or 2. because somebody as innocent and naive as John Dalli, former Minister of Finance, long-time accountant and EU Commissioner, would never have for one moment considered that what he is looking at there is a money-laundering operation.

Perhaps he thought that Mary Swan really is who she says she is, even though this website had relatively little trouble first instinctively understanding that she is your archetypal ‘Christian’ fraudster and then discovering that she is in fact a wanted person using several aliases and fake passports.

Does Malta understand the full magnitude of this horrendous story? An EU Commissioner, in dealings with a internationally blacklisted fraudster who moves about using private jets, aliases and false passports.




15 Comments Comment

  1. Ta' sapienza says:

    Losing one’s businesses in Libya , being conned by a fraudster, losing a lucrative ship agency due to sanctions. Sounds expensive . Will €60 million cover it? Maybe Silvio can help…

  2. Alan says:

    Dalli and his daughters gullible and conned ?

    Yes, to the same degree that the sea is pink with yellow spots.

  3. where are we? says:

    What is the Police Commissioner doing regarding this woman? Does he need permission from Manuel Mallia?

    • La Redoute says:

      He needs permission from Joseph Muscat, who appointed him and Dalli.

    • Michael A. says:

      No, from Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, or from John Dalli, by the looks of it, as the latter is now speaking for the former in regard to this whole affair.

  4. Jozef says:

    You nailed it, does Malta indeed understand the magnitude of this story?

    Let’s put it this way, does the PN intend to remain passive and let the rot take over?

    Time to clear the air Simon, Labour’s mutated into an amorphous venial growth, the PN’s the only thing left.

    It is that simple really.

  5. rjc says:

    And what if Dalli had been given a ‘waiver’ by Joseph Muscat back in July 2012?

    Wouldn’t everything be above board?

  6. nathan says:

    Dalli probably believes that if he increases the amount it will be more credible, but it is exactly the opposite.

    And if you add to the equation Evangelical Christian groups based in America and “humanitarian” projects, it all sounds more like a scam.

    I wonder how much money the Bill Gates Foundation moves as a comparison, because talking about “billions of dollars” sounds extremely naive to say the least.

    And I still do not understand why the police are not at the door of that lady’s apartment asking for proper documentation. Nor do I understand why no newspaper even mentions these developments.

    Something very strange is going on.

    The US Embassy must be interested.

  7. ciccio says:

    “Does Malta understand the full magnitude of this horrendous story? An EU Commissioner, in dealings with a internationally blacklisted fraudster who moves about using private jets, aliases and false passports.”

    No, Malta does not understand this. By that I mean 36,000 voters “who cannot be wrong” and another 130,000 with them. The other 130,000 probably do understand.

    But the rest of the world understands this. And that’s billions of persons.

  8. Montalbano says:

    U nghid jien, ghaliex dan l-investiment ta’ biljuni ma gabux lejn pajjizu u jhalli ftit gid hawn?

  9. Artemis says:

    A Freudian slip? He’s made loads of those over the years. Actually, I typed “Fraudian” at first. Maybe I was right the first time.

  10. MM says:

    I am still waiting for a statement from Simon Busuttil on behalf of the Nationalist Party, failing which one can only assume that they condone Dalli’s actions … or are simply unable to condemn them for whatever reason.

  11. P Shaw says:

    One should explore the link, if any, between the two biggest sovereign oil funds in Africa – (i) the Libyan Investment Authority, previously managed by Seif Ghaddafi and which assets are still being untangled due to the previous secrecy, disappearance of funds and lack of transparency, and (ii) the Nigerian sovereign oil fund which is totally opaque and labelled by the international institutions as one of the most corrupt and opaque sovereign wealth funds, where the beneficiaries are definitely not the population of Nigeria (still poor despite being one of the biggest oil producers in Africa). The Nigerian sovereign oil fund represents anything that should not be done in managing national natural resources.

    Moreover, one also needs to explore whether there is any involvement in the upcomin Trans-Saharan pipeline from Nigeria to North Africa.

    One also needs to note that whenever fraudsters / mercenaries in the past want to grab natural resources in Africa (for example the oil grab in Libya post Ghaddafi) they always disguise themselves under some sort of humanitarian assistance, which seems to be easily done in Africa.

  12. Meritocracy Rules says:

    Just one question – Where is the FIAU in all this?

    There possibly is a massive money-laundering operation happening under its nose making a mockery of all the guidelines that it issues and the reports that it imposes.

    Time to forget about the bureaucracy and actually get proactive and investigate as the damage that all this is causing to Malta’s reputation is severe.

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