‘Afraid for his son’
Times of Malta reports in a good front page story on the subject, that sources say Ryan Schembri fled Malta because loan sharks were threatening to harm his nine-year-old son.
I have no doubt they were doing this, but I really don’t think it’s the reason he fled – though it most certainly will be the main reason the boy’s mother agreed to go along with this.
If Ryan Schembri were really concerned about the boy and about how loan sharks would use him as leverage or actually harm him, he would not have plastered the child’s face next to his own, head to head, on his Facebook profile.
More to the point, he would not have left it there, still on public view, while supposedly fearing for his son and even after they absconded.
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The Police should offer a handsome reward for information about his whereabouts.
The police will never do such a thing, not under Labour, anyway.
I am under the impression that this person is somehow ‘protected’ by the PL or by some of its cronies. Maybe some of that bundle of millions ended up in the PL’s coffers.
Who knows.
Spot on ..as always!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/mobile/view/20141010/world/palin-daughter-in-party-brawl.539188
Sarah Palin’s daughter is involved in a brawl and we get to hear about it here, across a whole ocean and a continent.
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, former MP and current Chairman of the Malta Institute of Science and Technology, also gets involved in a brawl, but we’re expected to turn a blind eye.
Hunting him? Then I hope they catch him. These Maltese “businessmen” have been getting away with it for too long.
Dan il-gvern huwa sejf ghal “business.”
How is it possible that those nearest to him or his fellow investors did not question the origin of the fortune that enabled him to afford such a luxurious life style ,whilst still being of relatively young age? Did the tax man raise eyebrows as to how his life style was financed and how his businesses were conducted?
Daphne I agree with you 99% of the time, but the facts are not yet out there on this. Let me be the devil’s advocate as I know a few things about financial crimes; he may have actually had a legitimate business but was coerced into laundering money for the mob. Or coerced into bringing in illegal substances with his normal valid imports. Gangs use legitimate businessmen to hide their legitimate business. I’m not saying that this is the case here. But it does happen. As for the Facebook profile it can be a simple proud father who left it there by mistake, and he hardly uses Facebook.
[Daphne – 1. I knew more than a few things about financial crimes. 2. Most criminals also have a legitimate business, either to launder money, or to use as a front, or because that is how they started out before discovering they could also do crime. 3. ‘The mob’ cannot coerce a legitimate businessman who is on the straight and narrow into laundering money, importing drugs or smuggling diesel; for coercion to be possible, he would have to be involved in criminal activity of some sort already; 4. Facebook is full of proud fathers, but you won’t find many who use their young son’s photograph as a Timeline picture, let alone when they are involved in criminal activity and their son is an obvious target; 5. his most recent comments on Facebook are just before he packed up and left and concurrent with when he was under threat, and after he had already vanished for a few weeks but returned, saying that he had been in trouble.]
Daphne is right on this one too, I’m afraid. A legit businessman does not simply fall into the mob’s hands.
The only motivation for this would be super profits, which would imply that legitimacy flies out of the window at the word ‘go’. Thus not a legitimate businessman to be seen here.
Secondly, a father, a conscientious father, a father who truly loves his children because he has worried about them at different stages of their development and about their future (even in very normal circumstances), does not let such things happen by mistake. (I’m referring to the Facebook profile photo here.)
Yes, one may say that ignorance or naivity may play a part in certain cases of Facebook or social media interaction.
But to defraud so many people, most of whom are career business people and shrewd to say the least, to the tune of the millions mentioned here, the person in question is surely not ignorant or naive, but criminal actually.
I hope you understand now.
Why is it that children always end up paying for the sins of their criminal fathers?
I know a really nice, honest, hardworking young man who was devastated when the father that he idolized ended up convicted and jailed for fraud, which nobody in the family had known about.
I am not sorry for the criminals. Let them get what they richly deserve, and their partners too, who more often then not are quite happy to look the other way when the illicit money rolls in. But I am sorry for the children, old or young, who are usually blameless.
Dickens, your analysis is spot on.
It seems that this man was prima facie conducting unauthorised financial activity – I understand that a person has to be licensed by the MFSA to be able to take money from people and invest it on their behalf – something which this man was not authorised to do in terms of law.
This leads to a second question – why would a person invest money with someone who is not authorised to do so in terms of a licence and is not even regulated?
Finally The Times need to make a distinction between MFSA and the registry of companies – the latter is housed in the same premises but they are nonetheless independent – (one is a regulator and regulates licensed entities, the other is a registry). Every company is obliged to file its audited accounts with the registry and not with MFSA.
[Daphne – You do not need a licence or MFSA scrutiny to seek out and obtain investment in your own business. If you need a certain amount of money to develop your business and can’t get it from the banks, you are perfectly and legally entitled to seek it elsewhere. Then the terms of agreement are up to you and your investor. His crime is not in obtaining money from third parties, but in obtaining it under false pretences and breaching the conditions of the agreement.]