Malta: First case of money laundering in the Criminal Court

In the first case of money laundering to be heard in the Criminal Court, yesterday morning a woman who was due to stand trial on charges of involvement in the laundering of about Lm71,000, admitted the charges brought against her.

However, according to presiding judge Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono, the relatively new legislation on money laundering was rather ambiguous and it was very difficult for the court to apply the law, particularly since this is the first such case to be heard in the Criminal Court.

The law states that anyone found guilty of this crime could be jailed for up to 14 years, or fined a maximum of Lm1 million.

Maria Abela, 35, from Gzira, pleaded guilty to her involvement in the crime between January 2002 and 2004.

She is also charged with the falsification of documents and transactions for the purposes of money laundering.

According to the bill of indictment, the accused received an amount of money through Bank of Valletta in May 2004. This money was transferred into an account in the accused’s name, on behalf of Alasram Holdings Limited (by means of which Ms Abela was involved in the import and export of merchandise).

The police had also found that fraudulent transactions through the named bank account, as well as others, dated back to at least January 2002.

Police investigations showed that Ms Abela, together with a number of foreigners, was involved in illegal money transactions, carried out by means of falsified documents, to the detriment of a number of Swiss companies, including, but not only, Jeric Holding, Holmus Mohsen Esadeh, Frank Marchan and Lecshof Finance.

Ms Abela was allegedly paid 10 per cent of the total amount of money that was transferred into her account, but her lawyer argued that she had had to use this money to pay expenses incurred by the foreigners, since they had said they were going to open a company in Malta.

While the prosecution argued that the reputation of the country’s financial institutions had to be protected, defence lawyer Martin Fenech insisted that the punishment should be commensurate with the amount of money involved, “which was not such a huge amount”.

Other cases of money laundering involved millions of liri and, in any case, Ms Abela was not the main player in this crime, said Dr Fenech.

The case was deferred for judgement until tomorrow.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono is presiding over the case. Assistant Attorney General Anthony Barbara is prosecuting and legal aid Martin Fenech is appearing for the accused.

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=48605