Labour MP Joe Sammut at Black Gold Saloon with Marco Gaffarena in the early hours of this morning

A source who was at the Black Gold Saloon on the Strand in Gzira last night informs me that Labour MP Joe Sammut and corrupt fixer Marco Gaffarena walked in together at 12.15am. He thinks they were previously at Medasia (next door) together but cannot be certain.

What he knows for sure – because he was there to see it – is that the Labour MP and Gaffarena walked in to the saloon together just after midnight and had drinks there.

Marco Gaffarena and Joe Sammut (not the former Labour Party treasurer currently under investigation for fraud in setting up companies for Libyans) incorporated a company together in September two years ago – International Tobacco (Malta) Ltd – together with the London-based Michael Calleja through his International Tobacco plc.

A UK-based director search on Calleja, who is in his 70s, shows that he has a history of incorporating or buying shell companies and shutting them down after just a couple of years. His son Sergio Calleja, who is around 50, has a similar history.

The registered office of International Tobacco plc and other companies linked to Michael Calleja is a ‘brass-plate’ operation in a flat on Tooley Street, the road which connects London Bridge to St Saviour’s Dock.

International Tobacco (Malta) Ltd was, in fact, already in dissolution in 2014, a year after incorporation, and remains in dissolution today as these screen-shots of the company’s details, take this morning from the Malta Financial Services Authority portal, show.

Joe Sammut is the Labour Party’s representative on the post-2013 Malta Environment and Planning Authority Board which gave the green light to his family’s illegally-built petrol station.

Corrupt fixer Marco Gaffarena

Labour MP Joe Sammut, who set up a company with Marco Gaffarena and London-based operator Michael Calleja