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Probe Into Satabank And Oil-Smuggling Linked To Arrests Of Former Footballers And High-Profile Lawyer

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A crucial probe into the now-defunct Satabank is linked to the arrests of ten individuals, including former footballers and a high-profile lawyer, in connection with an anti-smuggling operation.

Suspected oil smugglers Darren Debono and Jeffrey Chetcuti have so far been charged with money laundering and smuggling offences. Around ten others were arrested, including criminal lawyer Arthur Azzopardi.

Well-informed sources have told Lovin Malta that the investigation involves major findings in a FIAU report on Satabank.

After the bank effectively shut its doors in 2018, the report flagged “highly suspicious” payments and financial movements between suspected organised crime groups, including alleged fuel smugglers.

A probe identified a series of payments amounting to €1.9 million between suspected oil smuggler Gordon Debono, a close associate of Darren Debono (unrelated), to criminal lawyer Arthur Azzopardi. When the details of the probe were revealed in 2019, Azzopardi insisted that the funds were transferred on behalf of his client and that police had not questioned him.

That all changed on Saturday. In a late-night operation, Darren Debono and Chetcuti were placed under arrest. The operation was kept under wraps given the significant figures involved.

Debono and Chetcuti were charged on Monday – while several others were arrested that day. This includes Azzopardi, accountant Chris Baldacchino, and other as-yet-unnamed individuals.

Azzopardi is one of the most popular lawyers in the country. Beyond the links to this case, Azzopardi has also been outed as a former freemason and has close ties to the Daphne Caruana Galizia investigation.

Azzopardi was the lawyer of Vince Muscat, one of the three men charged with assassinating journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Azzopardi was only Muscat’s lawyer for around three months, taking on his client in July 2019 and dumping him around 28th October 2019, just as police were gearing up for the arrests of Melvin Theuma and Yorgen Fenech.

A plea bargaining document for Muscat, led by Azzopardi, somehow ended up in the possession of Theuma, sources have told Lovin Malta.

Darren Debono and Gordon Debono have previously been accused of being part of a fuel smuggling operation in the Mediterranean and have fallen under strong US sanctions. They were once arrested in 2017 in Italy after Libyan fuel smuggler Fahmi Slim Bin Khalifa was apprehended.

Last year, Gordon Debono was able to pass through €1.5 million to his accounts from a Dubai-based company owned by his wife, Yvette, through a court order.

Earlier this year, Darren Debono and Gordon Debono were featured in a criminal complaint against Swiss trader Kolmar Group AG, a company which allegedly used Malta to store fuel smuggled from war-torn Libya.

Alleged fuel smuggling and the criminal organisations linked to it have been reported in the past. Disgraced former Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri even told the press that it was linked to the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

That is yet to be proven, with Yorgen Fenech currently facing charges. However, on 16th October 2017, the day Caruana Galizia died, a lawyer named Graziella Attard was subject to an arson attack allegedly linked to fuel smuggling.

In November 2017, Attard filed a case in which she is contesting an agreement hammered out between various individuals for a €2 million settlement with an Italian fuel company, which included Darren Debono.

Police were later investigating whether the attack was linked to the agreement. However, it seems the issue stopped there.

Kolmar Group AG, which heads Satabank, has denied all allegations. You can read the full right of reply over here.

What do you think of the case? Comment below

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Julian is the former editor of Lovin Malta and has a particular interest in politics, the environment, social issues, and human interest stories.

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