European Commission investigation into Dalli activities includes business links in Africa, Asia and the Middle East
However did I miss this story at the time? A Reuters exclusive, published in October 2013, which quotes the European Union’s anti-fraud office as saying that the investigation into John Dalli’s “overseas activities” is much wider than his secret trips to the Bahamas.
And there we were, thinking that they’re only investigating his Bahamas jaunts and the reason for them, when all along they’ve been investigating his business activities Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The report says:
Dalli’s overseas activities, including business links or undeclared visits to countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, are new strands in a case that has already looked into the propriety of his dealings with tobacco company Swedish Match and whether a number of trips he made to the Bahamas broke European Commission rules.
“We are looking into whether such international activities were compatible with his obligations as a commissioner at the time,” Giovanni Kessler, the head of the European Union’s anti-fraud office, known by its French acronym OLAF, told Reuters.
While Kessler declined to specify the new elements in the case, people who met Dalli in the Bahamas and other business and investment sources said activities in Thailand, Dubai and a handful of African countries were under scrutiny.
Dalli, 65, told Reuters he had no knowledge of the expanded OLAF investigation and declined to comment further.
(…)
OLAF reopened the investigation into Dalli last month after it emerged he had made at least two and possibly four undeclared trips to the Bahamas in the months before his resignation.
In an interview with Reuters in July, Dalli said the trips were to discuss a humanitarian project in Africa, potentially in Ghana and Ethiopia, expected to be worth “hundreds of millions” of dollars, for which he was providing free advice.