Angelo Gafa was in London for the ICE iGaming Summit but some journalists may prefer to verify this given that Gafa, doesn’t respond to my questions, of course, for a myriad of reasons. Joseph Muscat also seems to have traveled for his conference.
As a Police Commissioner, he doesn’t have to travel unless it is to coordinate anti-criminal or anti-terrorist activity with his equivalents in other states. Anything that he attends for abroad which isn’t intended for police operations, is nothing more than just a holiday for him. In addition, considering the crisis of the rule of law and ongoing criminal activity back home it’s blatantly reckless and irresponsible of him to travel to a conference, but this we know already.
Traveling to a conference while your young police recruits are humiliating themselves checking the work permits of known gangsters, would be typical behavior of a corrupt and criminal Police Commissioner: I don’t expect more or less of him. He’s very much in character. And Gafa is very much different from his previous superior and Police Commissioner, John Rizzo. He’s different in the sense that, unlike John Rizzo, Angelo Gafa is clueless, complacent, and totally resigned when it comes to fighting hardened and organised criminal groups.
I am getting older, apparently, so I have in my history what they call “a back in my day”, and back in my day, when John Rizzo wanted to fight organised crime, he used to do it aggressively, ruthlessly, efficiently, and successfully. So, I remember the day when the government had a no-tolerance policy for drug trafficking and drugs and Police Commissioner John Rizzo waged a successful war on drugs which depleted the black market from most of its sources and caused such a serious shortage of drugs, that drug rehabilitation professionals begged the police to allow a minimum importation of heroin because addicts were injecting far more dangerous alternatives – this actually happened in a concerted effort by drug-rehabilitation-professionals and it’s not literary hyperbole. For 15 months until the Libyan civil broke out, Malta’s drug market had been depleted, organised criminals were defeated into submission and the very large majority of drug dealers were either in prison or awaiting trial. John Rizzo didn’t flinch, and although his measures were excessive with drug users, they serve as a memory of what the police can and should do if it wants to fight organised crime.
Unlike Angelo Gafa, who wades through his job just like a corrupt civil servant, John Rizzo was overzealous with his work – he loved his job and he breathed and slept war against criminals. The harder you were, the more he hated you. The tougher you were, the more aggressive he was with you. And he would become your worst nightmare if you tried to challenge his authority. John Rizzo was a cop in the very true sense of the word and his victories against crime make Angelo Gafa look even more corrupt. His victory on drugs was undoubtedly one of his most memorable – for a long time we used to be stunned by the fact that no one could find any drugs for sale unless they were overpriced products from very old stock – sounds ridiculous but this is true and this is a testament to his efficiency and ruthlessness. Here is how John Rizzo used to fight organised criminals and these were not the methods used against ordinary drug users, but the methods he used to fight dangerous people (many of them today are in prison or dead):
Your phones are tapped. Most of your conversations and text messages would be read and listened to.
You are followed by plainclothes police. If you discover your monitors, you will get bullied by them.
You are arrested on every single possible offense, including spurious ones. If you challenge the police’s authority, you’d most probably get beaten up at the chip. You don’t litigate against the state because you are an organised criminal and instead vow revenge, so they beat you even more until you begin to squeal in fear.
If arrested, you would be forced to sleep at the chip, and spend another day there until you are exhausted and finally interrogated. If they don’t like what you say, they put you in the cell again until your 48 hours expire.
Once you are under arrest, the police will get involved in your personal and criminal relationships until everyone breaks and you start talking (or they start talking about you). The police become part of your family life and you’d feel their presence too overwhelming to get rid of. You’d be trapped.
Your commercial establishments would be raided at least once a week. Even if there is no criminal activity ongoing.
You would be stopped and searched at random many times and on a regular basis.
Your assets investigated, and seized, and you’d have very little chance of getting them back.
Constant roadblocks are also strategically placed so you get searched again. Even if they know you have nothing on you, you’d be forced to get stripped-searched and everything.
You are under constant surveillance and this becomes part of your normal life.
Ultimately, if Rizzo knew you were violent and dangerous, he would become a danger to you and you would literally fear him.
Now, think for a second. Do the images below strike fear in the minds of organised criminals in our country who can engage in politics with impunity, take over nightclub areas, and beat people with impunity in the streets?
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