Don’t expect the police to do anything
Ryan Schembri: absconded from Malta after running up tens of millions in debts through a morass of shady and suspect deals and businesses used to launder money. He ran into trouble with the police in Croatia earlier this year in a money-laundering investigation.
Keith Schembri, the prime minister’s chief of staff, whose small off-set press near the harbour became, in a few short years, a multi-million-euro operation which physically built the Progress Press/Allied Newspapers building on the Mriehel Bypass, supplied the printing machinery, still supplies the paper, and operates in food distribution, restaurants, and extensively in Libya.
The Minister for the Police and the Secret Service, who has an extensive network in the criminal world (I do not suggest that he is part of it) through his long years as defence counsel to some of Malta’s worst cocaine traffickers, murderers, thieves, pimps and scoundrels.
We’re all missing the obvious, aren’t we? Or giving the benefit of the doubt to people to whom none should be given.
If certain individuals in this government were prepared to go to the extreme extent of removing the Police Commissioner so as to protect John Dalli from investigation, interrogation and arraignment in the criminal court, then why do we imagine they will fight shy of abusive interference to halt police investigations into the activities of anybody else?
Look at that business with the Taghna Lkoll favourite who is said to have assaulted four police officers, for instance, and against whom charges were dropped by their superiors, prompting Manuel the Police Minister to order an inquiry in reaction to pressure from the newspapers. Now he is refusing to publish the findings of that inquiry.
Are the police likely to take the initiative in launching a thorough investigation into the criminal dealings of a member of the family of the prime minister’s ‘power behind the throne’ chief of staff, who is himself somebody who turned a simple off-set press in the Three Cities area, by the time he was in his early 30s, into a multi-pronged operation with an annual turnover of many millions, also operating in the fields of food importation, restaurants, and inscrutably, in Libya.
That village offset press within just a few years had become something so big that it actually builtthe large new Progress Press/Allied Newspapers building on the Mriehel Bypass, and not just supplied the printing machinery and paper as most people think (even if they know what the prime minister’s chief of staff does for a living in the first place).
Of course, that was a straightforward business deal, but that’s hardly the point, is it.
The police, with all the recent pomp about the recruitment of village bobbies, are not going to take the initiative. Not one of them is going to stick his head above the parapet on this one and end up like John Rizzo. And the Secret Service is itself policed and supervised by Manuel Mallia, who has an extensive network of criminal (ex) clients and knows many of these shady people in ways that are not exactly compatible with his role in the cabinet, let alone with a role as Police Minister.
When the prime minister’s chief of staff finally spoke to the press as the scandal surrounding his cousin Ryan swirled about Malta, he said only that he does not have any connection with him nor has he ever had. But it was not only reassurance that he is not in business with his cousin – though they are in similar lines of business – that the press sought there.
It was also reassurance that, in the light of how the government got rid of the Police Commissioner to protect John Dalli, there would be no attempt by the prime minister’s chief of staff to protect his cousin from investigation into criminal activity.
The prime minister’s chief of staff should also have said, in his brief statement, that his cousin should expect no quarter from him (even if he has to leave out the bit where he says that he can’t vouchsafe for anybody else in the government).
Yesterday, Malta Today ran a front page story containing the following:
A senior police source yesterday told Malta Today that Schembri, of Mellieha, had no prior criminal convictions and that no Interpol alert had been issued after the man was reported to have left the island on the night between 20 and 21 September.
But it transpires that no reports were filed with the police over the debts owed by Schembri. “No police report gets lodged over illicit loans, that’s for sure. But then even if Schembri defaulted on his legitimate business debts and bank loans, that’s not even a police matter. If anything, it would be his hypothecated assets that would suffer,” the police source told Malta Today.
This is so wrong that I don’t know where to begin. The money Ryan Schembri owes to other people, the banks and businesses is hardly the issue here. Everybody seems to be focussing on his debts because that’s how the story broke originally.
But the real story, and the police are only pretending not to know this because they are worried about touching it, lies in the reason why those debts were run up in the first place. That is where the police come in, but they’re not going to.
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I’ve just joined the PN policy forum on ‘justice and home affairs’. Gosh, it’s so exciting.
This obsession with lumping the PN into all gripes against the government is getting tedious. Yes, they were not and are not the acme of perfection (that’s putting it mildly) but they’re not in government.
Correct… But hopefully sooner rather than later they will be and the will clean this (backstage) mess up for good.
True, they’re not in government…but the country needs a credible opposition, badly.
I’m just testing the market before I launch my own party. So far, the response shows I won’t get more than a handful of votes.
Why not throw your weight into the PN instead of against it?
Because they won’t have me.
If so, you joined in the nick of time!
Are you ABC?
I guess so haha.
[Daphne – I can confirm that he isn’t. I can’t imagine why you thought he might be, given that their communication styles are completely different. Also, Andrew Borg Cardona invariably uses his own name.]
Why are you being NEGATIVE?
Sarcasm is never a solution, HP!
Besides, who invited you to join the ‘PN policy forum on ‘justice and home affairs’?
Malta has lived an economical lie for decades – no government can claim a success story as it’s only the underworld that is the mainspring of the economy (for a while this was coupled with post EU accession funds).
Where on earth are fiscal controllers, tax department and police? As usual, the obvious stares at them in the face and they don’t lift a finger. How on earth can an owner of a business be able to buy a villa and a luxury car after a year or so?
How can an owner of a small business (e.g. a little shop) employ, say, 3 of his children?
Remember Evarist Bartolo’s expression of glum glee as he promised us more on Tonio’s clock?
I believe that arlogg tal-lira was homemade with a battery-operated mechanism.
Facilitation, is also involvement.
By the same token ALL the land deals currently going through the Prime Minister’s Office should be considered as circumspect.
I am convinced that Ryan Schembri also gave money to the Labour Party’s election campaign led by his cousin Keith Schembri.
Tghid?
Was he in those fourth floor meetings as well?
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-10-12/local-news/PM-says-cancer-factory-will-be-gone-soon-and-BWSC-plant-will-be-fired-by-gas-Marsa-to-close-soon-6736123543
He said that the government discovered that no permits were ever issued regarding the interconnecting cable linking our country to Italy.
“We are trying to get the relevant permits in hand so that the interconnector project can go through as planned,” he said.
“Sicily hardly has enough electricity to provide itself let alone provide another country with electricity.”
On Armier’s boat houses, he said that “by giving the boathouse owners an electricity metre does in no way mean that their position is being regularized either”.
“The choice the electorate did one and the half years ago was between positivity and negativity, the movement which is in government is more positive but the party the electorate refused to elect is turning out to be more negative than ever,” he highlighted.
Zzzzz. Boring.
Drug wars
Who is the Shadow Minister for the police?
Jason Azzopardi
Makes me think back to Inspector Gafa’s transfer.
He would have been thorough, even though the file would have had to land on his desk first.
As you report, investigations abroad seem to have started before they did in Malta.
This puts a whole new perspective on matters.
It would seem impossible that the Malta Police knew nothing about the issue. This would only have doubled the watch on any Maltese activity by foreign entities, if they saw that despite information into Malta, no action was taken by local forces and local commercial watchdogs.
This seems to me to be the tip with a whole lot more spill-over effects already in place and being countered by overseas control units.
Could the NP inform itself as to what the position on this front is please?
MFSA and Credit Rating agencies for companies would have to be involved.
Since no company is created without a company-in-formation slip, the banks’ involvement is built-in.
The mob have taken over.
[Daphne – That’s exactly it. All that fuss they made about two Mafia bosses found hiding out in Malta, wanted in Sicily for crime-gang-related murders, and then we ourselves have spates of those murders and contract killings and we pretend not to have worked out what’s happening.]
One of them was having the time of his life, fine dining and casinos.
Bet he liked his steak raw.
Now where is that microphone underneath the Tax Department’s chief and the relevant minister’s when you need it?
Closer, getting closer, perspective starts to change.
U le, Mallia looks nothing like a big blue marble.
An excellent start to the week. How many layers make a Tagħna Lkoll Club sandwich?
And what does Kurt do then miskin?
As Ms Galizia is rightly saying, this story is not about the issue of fraudulent bankruptcy and the financial turmoil that Schembri and his creditors are in.
The real issue here is the analysis of a network of people from different backgrounds and their roles in undertaking these underground activities.
I wonder if business and politics and maybe media are interlinked here to gain more financial power and protect the interests of a particular gang.
Also I wonder if the stories of Tyson butcher, of Ronald Galea who was shot outside his meat factory in Hal Far, and of Ryan Schembri are interlinked due to the fact that they have meat – or should that be ‘meat’ – in common.
It never paid government to have police analysts. They just might catch the big ones out. Two commissioners out in less than 2 years, and now we have an Agent Kummissarju who has taken the Police to his SMU heyday starting with the reinforcement of baton carry and use, the beret (cocky style and attitude), next ……
Manuel Mallia is in an awkward position.
Let us suppose that one of those interrogated for alleged criminal activity is in the habit of answering in the ‘tu quoque’ manner (like somebody we know). His answer would be: Ghax ma tarax minn fejn gibt dawk il-hames mitt elf inti l-ewwel.
Not really. He can charge them all with crimes whilst in power. Then he can defend them against those same charges when he’s in Opposition.
Ija mela. Dak ukoll kellu jirrezenja habba c citadinanza u zmien obligatorju li cittadin gdid irid jghix fMalta? Hozza flilma
DISSETT – 6 ta’ Marzu 2014 :
Reno Bugeja :”Ghadek konvint li l-progett tal-power station tal-gass f’Delimara se jsir fit-time frames li stabbilixxa l-Gvern qabel l-elezzjoni?”
Joseph Muscat: “Iva, konvintissmu”
Reno Bugeja: “U jekk ma jsirx hekk ghadek marbut li tirrizenja?”
Joseph Muscat : “Iva, jien inzomm il-kelma tieghi”
Bullshit…
What is a xibka ta’ hazen?
This is what the switchers got.
Heqq, l’aqwa il-bidla.
A filthy corrupt to the core island. Was Dr M.Mallia investigated by the tax man, money laundering (by his police) about that half a million in cash which he had at home?
Baxxter, could we have an episode about how that investigation went?
How do we know he absconded? He could have been murdered or kidnapped for all we know.
Even for this reason the police should investigate.
An offset press becoming a multi-million pound operation in a few short years? Alla jbierek.
Enemalta seem to be doing something
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141014/local/unpaid-enemalta-bills-lead-to-temporary-closure-of-more-supermarket.539710
By any chance is More supermarkets one of the beneficiaries of the electricity theft amnesty ?