Last week, Yorgen Fenech asked the court to reduce the extent of the freezing orders over his assets with his lawyer, Charles Mercieca citing the newly government-implemented anti-money laundering reforms. Some of Yorgen Fenech’s assets have been seized by freezing orders by the state, but his biggest freezing orders emanate from a civil case against him instituted by the family members of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Even though Yorgen Fenech has various freezing orders on his assets, he is still able to tap money and resources to buy out people, so clearly, the current freezing orders against him aren’t achieving their intended result. The situation is now even getting worse.
The newly implemented government law puts the onus of the case against money launderers on the police and the prosecutor, and they are obliged to present proof of their suspect’s money laundering practices. The new law makes it even more difficult to prosecute money launderers as it obliges the prosecution and the police to list the exact amount of money that has been laundered and the freezing orders have to be restricted only to that particular amount. This is a nightmare for the prosecution, it is not how money-laundering laws are enabled in the developed world, and gives a lot of advantages to sophisticated financial criminals. Judge Edwina Grima has also blasted the law and she is right to do so.
Yorgen Fenech has an ongoing money laundering case in court where there is written evidence in the form of messages exchanges with his uncle where they explicitly discuss their own “money laundering” with his uncle, Ray Fenech asking Yorgen Fenech “how much did we launder?” According to the new law, Ray Fenech’s admission would have to be backed by evidence indicating the exact amounts of money laundered produced by the prosecutors and the police.
Labour’s reforms on the authorities’ ability to seize assets were never about protecting the small businessman – it was intended to make it easier for organised criminals to get away with it and we are seeing its results in real-time. Eventually, this law will have to be changed when its devastating impacts on criminal impunity will be exacerbated.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply