There was no tenant. There was no rent. There were just two Maltese brothers and prostitutes working out of London flats – and a Maltese lawyer who opened an offshore account to launder the brothers’ money

Published: August 29, 2017 at 4:35pm

Adrian Delia’s team has been spreading misinformation behind the scenes, leading to decent and honest people believing that Dr Delia’s client was the owner of the building who rented it out to somebody who rented it out to somebody else who might have used it for prostitution without Adrian Delia’s client’s knowledge.

Many people would probably rather believe that they don’t live among bad and crooked people and that somebody who looks decent because he has cultivated that image and is married to somebody from a decent family is probably also decent himself.

It is also frightening to most people to think that it is possible for a bent lawyer, who has never been involved in any kind of politics let alone in the Nationalist Party itself, to reach the stage where he might lead that party and the Opposition. They would prefer to shelter their minds from this appalling reality, and so they cast about for excuses and reasons not to ‘believe’ what is staring them in the face.

I think I should spell out clearly the bald facts of the matter, and leave it to others to work out how it is possible for me to know all this and to state it with certainty. I will not, however, confirm or deny anything in that regard because I have given my sources my word that I will protect their privacy.

The Soho prostitution racket was run by two brothers, Eucharist and Emanuel Bajada. Eucharist, who is 11 years older than Emanuel, bought the London property portfolio, which included more than the Soho flats we are talking about here, from an associate of their older brother, Frank Bajada, who operated with Bernie Silver, who headed Soho’s Jewish crime syndicate, several members of which were actually Maltese Roman Catholics. Frank Bajada has since died.

So Eucharist bought the flats in Soho, Shepherd Market and Stanhope Row. Then he faced a claim from Emanuel Bartolo, known as Leli l-Landlord, this time of the Maltese crime syndicate, who had a vested interest in the flats in Shepherd Market and Stanhope Row. Eucharist bought out Leli l-Landlord.

Now Eucharist needed somebody to run the flats and do the repairs and maintenance work as required. In those situations, you have to get somebody close to you, who you can trust – which is exactly how whole families of Maltese brothers, sons, nephews and cousins ended up following each other to Soho. Eucharist got his younger brother Emanuel to maintain the flats and collect the so-called daily rent (takings from prostitutes) on his behalf.

The daily ‘rent’ was taken from the prostitutes by the so-called maids, what in the past were called madams – the women in charge of the prostitutes working out of the flats, who took a cut. Every fourth Friday of the month, Emanuel Bajada would collect the cash and deposit it in a series of smaller sums, through different bank branches, directly into Adrian Delia’s offshore bank account in Jersey. At times, Emanuel Bajada’s wife would collect the takings herself from the ‘maids’ on his behalf. This is borne out by documents published today by Malta Today.

Sometimes, Eucharist would require some of the cash to be taken directly to his home on Star Street, London. Sometimes, bags of the cash would be carried to Malta packed in suitcases on scheduled flights and sources who were involved in the racket say that they were delivered to the custody of Eucharist’s son, Eucharist Junior, also known as Kris, who is himself a lawyer. Kris Bajada denies any such involvement.

There was NO tenant in the properties at that time, let alone a tenant of a tenant. There were only ever, back then, two brothers called Eucharist and Emanuel Bajada, and – between the incorporation of offshore companies in the Marshall Islands, the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands – penniless fronts who were in debt and desperate and fundamentally crooked, like Mark Barbara, were used to temporarily hold the title of one or more of the flats.

At some point, Eucharist sold off the flats in Shepherd Market and Stanhope Row as going concerns and used the money to buy a listed Georgian house at No. 78, Dean Street, Soho, which is now used for legit holidaymakers.

In sum: brother Eucharist owned the flats, brother Emanuel collected the takings and paid them into Adrian Delia’s bank account in Jersey. Adrian Delia had opened his offshore account in Jersey for that express purpose, which is why he disingenuously calls it a ‘client account’.

He did not open it as a client account, but as a personal account in his own name through which his client and his client’s brother could launder their money. Even if, as he claims, he did not know the money came from prostitution but thought it came from rent, it would still constitute the crime of money-laundering. This is the essential point that has been explained to the point of exhaustion in the cases featuring Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, Brian Tonna, Adrian Hillman and their associates.

Adrian Delia was supposed to pay that money on to bank accounts linked to offshore companies – no doubt after taking a sizeable cut because nobody breaks the law for free, let alone a lawyer, even if they call it “providing a service to a client” – from which brothers Eucharist and Emanuel would then each take their share.

After some four years, when that money – around £1 million paid in to Mr Delia’s Jersey account at £20,000 a month – failed to reach the offshore companies for whatever reason, Eucharist Bajada blamed his brother Emanuel, and Emanuel Bajada blamed Adrian Delia.

The two brothers had a massive falling-out and have not spoken to each other since. Emanuel Bajada instructed solicitors in London to go after Mr Delia to seek the whereabouts of the money he had paid into Mr Delia’s Jersey bank account. That’s the faxed letter I published: solicitor’s letter to Adrian Delia.

Then he instructed lawyers in Malta to follow up, bringing the fight dangerously close to home for Adrian Delia. See the letter below, which I am publishing for the first time.

Shortly after he began pursuing Adrian Delia with lawyers in Malta, seeking the whereabouts of his money, Emanuel Bajada found himself under investigation by the Malta police for running brothels in two guest-houses in Sliema and St Julian’s. A year later, he was formally charged with one of his sons for white-slavery crimes.

There were separate but related charges for laundering money (the proceeds of the brothels). Emanuel was convicted on both, but his son left the island. Chris Cardona, now the cabinet minister who employs Mark Barbara as an official chauffeur, was Emanuel Bajada’s defence counsel.

Facing serious criminal charges, with his all his assets in Malta frozen by court order as soon as he was arraigned in 2005, and under scrutiny by the financial authorities here, Emanuel Bajada could not continue to pursue Adrian Delia and his brother Eucharist Bajada for his share of the money that was paid into Mr Delia’s Jersey bank account. And so he never got it. To this day, he does not know who did.

If Adrian Delia wishes to see the original document, a stamped copy of which is uploaded here, it’s in his office, as it was delivered and received there.