Corruption scandal: Labour Party’s former treasurer and Gaddafi accountant Joe Sammut to be charged today

Joe Sammut, an accountant based in Mosta who has set up more than 800 fraudulent companies over the last few months, which have allowed Libyan men to move to Malta on a business visa with their families, is to be arraigned in the Court of Justice today.

The shareholders’ capital for all the companies examined by the press (and probably the police) is listed as stock which ranges from the absurd and immediately perishable, like chocolates and orange juice, to hand-basins and television sets, proof of existence of which is only in the form of questionable invoices raised in Libya.

The Malta Independent reports that sources have told the newspaper about a broad network of Maltese fixers – customs agents, civil servants, Malta Financial Services Authority insiders and Bank of Valletta employees – who have helped Sammut fast-track his clients, with the fraudulent process, in which shell companies are incorporated for the sole purpose of obtaining a residence visa, taking just a few days.

Sammut served as the Malta Labour Party’s treasurer for some years, in which capacity he formed close links to Libya’s despotic Gaddafi family – who were closely associated with the Malta Labour Party in and out of government at the time.

He went on to become personal accountant to several members of that family, most notably the despicable Mutassim Gaddafi, who held accounts containing €60 million at the Bank of Valletta, which are currently subject to legal wrangling between the Libyan government and Mutassim’s heirs.

Sammut had famously boasted that Snoop Dogg had named him “Smokin’ Joe” after he booked him and paid his bills and fees in connection with a party which Mutassim Gaddafi threw at Porto Cervo in Sardinia.

You can read more about that in a post I wrote some four and a half years ago – link below.