Following the short video I made about Robert and Lydia Abela’s property purchases in Xewkija, I will be summarising the case in point form. The fact that I could make a short video of just five minutes to explain this case just shows how straightforward the case is. There is no room for misinterpretation, and in fact, Robert Abela himself confirmed the method of payment and the bank account used for the purchases.
Let’s go point by point to have the complete story behind the case.
How did Robert Abela accumulate his wealth?ย
Robert Abela accumulated his wealth via two methods. Robert Abela inherited a consultancy contract with the Planning Authority from his father’s legal firm, “Abela Advocates”. Robert Abela milked these contracts and obtained even higher payments than his father, with much of this work actually, being non-existent, similar to Rosianne Cutajar’s ITS contract. Originally, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had given this contract to George Abela to placate him, and Robert made sure to squeeze it as much as possible. He went on to obtain other fraudulent and very costly public contracts and even managed to obtain the free use of public property.
The other major source of revenue for Robert Abela was his legal practice with his private clients, but this revenue was not necessarily legitimate and strictly for legal services. Robert Abela offered his services as a money launderer to several noteworthy drug dealers, but most notably, to Christian Borg. Christian Borg used to hand over large sums of capital to Robert Abela to legitamise it, and some of which this capital ended up in Lydia Abela’s bank account. For several years, Robert Abela washed undeclared income, much of it coming from drug proceeds, into Lydia Abela’s Bank of Valletta account. Robert and Lydia Abela made various investments and large purchases with this bank account over the years.
Christian Borg was still washing and making use of his illicit capital lately, but his new money-laundering handler is Robert Abela’s brother-in-law, Albert Zerafa.
Robert Abela kept breaking the law by recycling his illicit proceeds even as Prime Minister
While serving as Prime Minister, Robert Abela is wasting no time to keep building his wealth and now, even his new businesses. Robert Abela is developing a guesthouse in Xewkija whose property was purchased via Lydia Abela’s BOV account with past illicit proceeds. Robert Abela has an extravagant lifestyle, so any risk manager working at the bank would have reasonably and surely filed a Suspicious Transaction Report to the FIAU over Robert Abela’s hidden and undeclared wealth. Bank of Valletta has never alerted the FIAU over Robert and Lydia Abela’s suspicious transactions.
As Prime Minister, Robert Abela earns โฌ65,000 per year. The history of the balance of his own personal Bank of Valletta account is as follows (his balances can be obtained from his public declaration of assets):
2020 – โฌ331,000
2021 – โฌ376,000
2022 – โฌ356,402
2023 – โฌ388,567
The Xewkija guesthouse has three distinct properties purchased accordingly:
2010 Xewkija Purchase: โฌ268,000
2022 Xewkija Purchase: โฌ180,000
2023 Xewkija Purchase: โฌ135,000
As we can clearly see, Robert Abela did not make use of his personal funds to purchase the properties in Xewkija, but instead made use of Lydia Abela’s bank account (the one with illicit proceeds).
Lydia Abela earned some income as a government consultant but never to the tune and extent of her husband, and her financial capability of purchasing two properties totaling more than โฌ350,000 in just around 12 months, is suspicious at best. However, we know that Lydia Abela didn’t purchase the Xewkija properties with her own capital because we also know the history of her bank account and its financial activity corresponds with that of Robert Abela and not hers.
Robert Abela can not deny this story, so instead he is resorting to attacks and Saddam-like-infantile-behaviour
Since Robert Abela can not deny this story, he will be resorting to attacks, censorship, and infantile-Saddam-like behaviour. The Labour government is also and currently, proposing a law that would restrict the power of the authorities to seize assets of suspected money launderers.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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