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3 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Apart from numerous me- dia appearances, Chris Fearne on the other hand reportedly commissioned front cover ap- pearances on the Sunday Circle Magazine distributed with The Sunday Times of Malta, First which is distributed with The Independent and The Malta Business Review. The maga- zines carried a lifestyle interview which also included Fearne pos- ing with all his family next to his swimming pool. A source within the Labour Party told MaltaToday that only this week, Muscat made it clear during a meeting of the executive that he was not going anywhere, anytime soon. "Joseph [Muscat] told members of the execu- tive they still had a lot to do to- gether, making it clear that he was not going anywhere yet… it was a clear message to those vy- ing to take his place," the source said. Talking in the Labour na- tional executive this week, Muscat made specific reference to a speculative article that ap- peared in The Times about an unsourced survey on the popu- larity of the contenders, saying he had "no intention of leaving now or after the budget." His declaration was met with a rousing applause – yet of all the contenders, only Chris Fearne was present for the meeting. Over the past few weeks, spec- ulation has been rife within the PL that the Prime Minister may use the Budget as a platform to announce his departure. The Budget is scheduled for 14 October. Muscat has said before that he will not be con- testing another general election but has refrained from talking about an exit timeline, even with peo- ple close to him. But sources said the Prime Minister has moved to quash those rumours. "Joseph Muscat does not want to distract atten- tion from the Budget because of an impending leadership race and the incessant campaign- ing by three of his ministers has created some friction among delegates that has not been seen for a long while in the PL." It is an open secret that Fearne, Borg and Mizzi will be vying for the party leadership when Mus- cat steps down. The three ministers have been using their ministerial plat- forms to reach out to party del- egates and members. Other contenders include La- bour MEP Miriam Dalli and MP Robert Abela, who have kept a low profile. But party sources also talk of a dark horse candi- date that may simply appear at the eleventh hour. The next Labour leader will be chosen by the party's members; however, it will be the more re- stricted group of delegates, who will first whittle down the crop to two contenders. ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt KURT SANSONE ONLY four cases from the 146 referred to the police by the anti-money laundering agency were prosecuted in five years, an international assessment shows. Police prosecutions amount- ed to less than 3% of all suspi- cious cases flagged by the Fi- nancial Intelligence Analysis Unit between 2014 and 2018. The figures come from the technical assessment carried out by Moneyval, a monitoring body of the Council of Europe, which was published last week. The report said Malta should step up its efforts to investigate and prosecute money launder- ing as well as to strengthen its supervisory system. The FIAU on Friday said that by March this year it had im- plemented 90% of Moneyval's recommendations to strength- en its supervisory mechanisms. FIAU director Kenneth Far- rugia said the agency had al- ready been working on an action plan agreed with the European Commission and the European Banking Authority last year. Moneyval noted that the po- lice also prosecuted another 17 cases of money laundering without having been notified by the FIAU. However, the majority of these money laundering cases were initiated by the police in the course of investigations on other offences, such as fraud, drug or theft cases. Moneyval said that the over- all number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions for money laundering was low when compared to the number of potential offences. "Even if only the cases in- vestigated by special branches and the FIAU reports were to be considered, an average of around five money launder- ing prosecutions per year does cast doubt on Malta's ability and capacity to pursue money laundering offences," Money- val added. It also painted a dismal pic- ture of police investigations, which seemed to have focussed on domestic crimes and of- fenders, where the proceeds are located in Malta. "Investigations appear to be limited to front persons and do not go beyond or through com- plex corporate structures. No investigations have been initi- ated prior to 2018 against legal persons," the report noted. Industry sources have told MaltaToday that any improve- ments on the regulatory and supervisory front being under- taken by the FIAU and the Mal- ta Financial Services Authority may be useless unless the po- lice get their act together. The FIAU and the MFSA have responded to the shortcomings by increasing resources and the quality of their inspections but eventually, any money laun- dering suspicion they may flag will have to be investigated and prosecuted by the police. "It does not appear that the police have the human re- sources and the capability to investigate complex money laundering cases, and unless this is rectified they will remain a bottleneck in Malta's efforts to combat financial crime," the sources said. The government has an- nounced that it will set up an agency to investigate and pros- ecute financial crimes but so far there has been little infor- mation on how this will work. It remains unclear whether this will be an independent agency with full investigative and prosecutorial powers, or a beefed-up branch of the police force. The Moneyval report says that the police informed its as- sessment team that a reform process was envisaged by mid- 2020. According to the report, this reform would convert the cur- rent Economic Crimes and anti-money laundering squad into a new financial crimes in- vestigation department with 100 staff members. Again, it is unclear how this reform ties in with the govern- ment's plans announced last July by Finance Minister Ed- ward Scicluna. But industry sources were quick to point out that while the FIAU and the MFSA were quick to react to the Moneyval findings, there was no word from the police. Malta faces police bottleneck in fight against money laundering Muscat quells succession fever Contenders: top ministers Ian Borg, Konrad Mizzi, MEP Miriam Dalli, and deputy prime minister Chris Fearne