Robert and Adrian Agius, better known as Tal-Maksar, are assisting police with investigations into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the murder of Carmel Chircop.

The Agius brothers and Jamie Vella were arrested in connection to both murders soon after Vince Muscat pleaded guilty for his role in the Caruana Galizia assassination. 

Muscat has also been granted a presidential pardon in exchange for information on the Chircop murder. During his address yesterday, Prime Minister Robert Abela suggested that Muscat was the shooter and had been paid to do it. 

Robert and Adrian Agius were arrested during an operation in Baħrija, whilst Vella was arrested in Swieqi.

Police have confirmed that two of three suspects are assisting the police in connection with both homicides. They did not name the suspects. However, Lovin Malta is informed that it is the Agius brothers.

A collaborative report from The Times of Malta and Malta Today previously revealed that the Agius’ criminal web extends to a series of violent murders between gang members opening up a vacuum for the Agius brothers to become the major players in the smuggling world with ties to Italian, Libyan, Romanian and Albanian organised crime groups.

There are also questions as to whether the men were involved in the spate of car bombings that occurred in the lead-up to the assassination.

Court sittings have revealed that Caruana Galizia murder main suspect Yorgen Fenech once told middleman Melvin Theuma to send a “message to Maksar because that’s where the bomb was made”. Reports also claim that they even offered hush money to one of the men who carried out the murder.

There had been 19 car bombs between 2010 and 2017. With practically all of the victims linked to the criminal underworld, they were often forgotten by the Maltese public while authorities found many dead ends.

Caruana Galizia had written about Adrian Agius in the past, given that he was the business partner of Ryan Schembri – the former owner of More Supermarkets who fled Malta with his family in 2014 to escape loan sharks to whom he had owed millions of euro.

Ryan Schembri is the cousin of Keith Schembri, the chief of staff of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat with his own links to the murder.

Chircop, who was murdered on 8th October 2015, was one of the investors in More Supermarkets. He had loaned a company that involved both Schembri and Adrian Agius €750,000. The issue was eventually settled out of court after Chircop was murdered.

She also linked him to the disappearance of Terrence Gialance, who vanished off the face of the earth in 2012 after telling his family he was going fishing. Gialanze, who at 23 years old owned a pricey BMW SUV, a Bentley and a yacht, used to rent a large villa close to Caruana Galizia’s residence in Bidnija.

Agius then sent a cryptic message to Caruana Galizia to deny that he had fled the island.

“The Phoenix for your information I did not escape, I am on a business trip and I will be back. I now you don t have balls but if you find them some were in your wife’s pocket lets meet up and we sort things out. You are just a low life afraid to show your face to hide under stupid name phoenix,” he said.

Robert Agius has also been in the news before after a court ruled that his rights had been breached because a case against him for alleged involvement in a heroin-trafficking conspiracy had taken too long to conclude.

Agius was charged in 2012 but the case ground to a halt when a witness who had told police of his drug dealing involvement refused to testify while criminal action in her regard was still pending. Eventually, a court declared that the prosecution had not sufficiently proved the accused’s intention to sell or traffic drugs.

What do you think of the latest development? Comment below