Italian Smuggling Investigation Leads To Daphne Caruana Galizia Murder Suspects’ Marsa Hideout
Police footage of the arrest of the three men suspected of murdering Daphne Caruana Galizia
The Italian financial police have pinpointed an old Marsa wharf notoriously used as the hideout of the three men charged with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia as a link in a smuggling chain across the Mediterranean.
Col. Giuseppe Campobasso, who heads the Guardia di Finanza’s anti-drug enforcement unit in Palermo, told La Repubblica that Malta “has become a crossroad of illegal trafficking”.
As part of the Daphne Project, Italian journalists from the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI) combed through classified documents and Italian police intelligence into several major smuggling busts in the past decade that were run by Maltese citizens, transacted just off Malta’s shores, or supported by Maltese shipyards that service vessels used in international maritime crime.
The information showed that Italian police have pinpointed a Marsa wharf in the Grand Harbour, called Il-Moll tal-Pont, as “a thread through the tapestry” of illegal trafficking across the Mediterranean, from Morroco to Cyprus. This wharf also includes an old potato shed, which is where police arrested three men – George and Alfred Degiorgio and Vince Muscat – last December in connection with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
While police have a trove of digital information linking the three men to the murder, investigations into who could have masterminded the journalist’s killing remain ongoing.
The Marsa wharf is located right by the Grand Harbour
The potato shed and the surrounding area is renowned as a criminals’ den, as described in detail by people who work in the area following the arrest of the three murder suspects.
“There are two warehouses back there used by drug dealers,” a worker told MaltaToday last year. “Every Saturday we see luxury cars – BMWs, Mercedes and Corvettes – driving in towards the warehouses.”
The Guardia di Finanza investigations found that the M/Y Quest had docked here for overhauling works last year, a few weeks before it was impounded by the Italian police off the Tunisian coast with 10 tonnes of hashish on board.
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