The Opposition should renew its demands for information on those who bought Maltese citizenship

How many Maltese passports were sold to non-EU citizens linked to Colombian drug cartels and the ‘Ndrangheta under this man’s watch?

In the light of the current news from Costa Rica, in which a Venezuelan who acquired Maltese citizenship has been detained by the police there on suspicion of entrapment of a Colombian who was then ambushed and killed by a hit-man, the Opposition should renew its demands for information on those who have bought Maltese passports under the new law.

The unscrupulous and sordid Manuel Mallia, who is heavily involved with the underworld and with cocaine-traffickers – ostensibly as their legal counsel except that he comes across as being a little too cosy – was the Minister for Citizenship (and the Police) until last December.

In the year that he was responsible for the sale of citizenship – between the law coming into force and his removal from the cabinet – any number of criminals connected to his client network could have bought Maltese passports without our knowledge.

It is a small consolation that Italian members of the ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate, which controls most of Europe’s cocaine trade and much of the world’s, couldn’t have bought Maltese passports under his watch or at any other time because the law excludes those who are already citizens of another EU member state.

But given the recent and ever-growing revelations of how tightly woven the ‘Ndrangheta is in Malta, using our country, with its laws full of loopholes and its weak and corrupt police system, as its laundry for filthy money, we have to ask how many passports were sold under cocaine-trafficker-defence-counsel Manuel Mallia’s watch to non-EU citizens linked to the ‘Ndrangheta and the Colombian drug cartels. We have to ask how many are still being sold to them today, though of course the risks were considerably greater under Mallia given his network and associates.