Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1192401
5 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 DECEMBER 2019 NEWS MASSIMO COSTA YORGEN Fenech, the man accused of masterminding Daphne Caruana Galizia's as- sassination, stands charged in a Sicilian court of having profited from illegal betting. A charge sheet seen by this newspaper, issued by the Catania district prosecutor's office, accused Fenech of two crimes relating to wins on bets on football matches, while having known what the outcome of the matches would be. In the first case, Fenech and three other men – Giovanni Luca Impellizzeri, Fabrizio Crimi and Antonio Ricci – stand charged of having in May 2014 collectively bet €6,000 on football games in- volving Catania vs Atlanta, Parma vs Livorno, Napoli vs Hellas Verona and Udinese vs Sampdoria, and having subse- quently won €26,580. The bets were wagered when Fenech and the three other accused knew what the out- comes of the fixed matches would be. The accusation is not that Fenech fixed the matches himself, but that he knew the outcome, wagered money on it, and consequently made an unjust profit. The second case is simi- lar, involving Fenech, Im- pellizzeri and Crimi and the betting of €6,000 and subse- quent winning of €26,580 on matches involving Avellino vs Reggina, Crotone vs Trapani and Brescia vs Juve, also in May 2014. Fenech's name appears within the context of a wider case concerning match fixing and betting illegalities and in- volving 11 other parties. In May 2019, Ricci, a com- pany secretary to the Malta company Harvey Gaming, who had been arrested in late April through a European ar- rest warrant issued by a court in Calabria, was extradited on suspicion of laundering 'Ndrangheta mafia funds. In a decision by Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech, who conducted an exhaus- tive examination of the re- quirements and procedures required in extradition cases, Ricci was extradited to Italy where he faced a maximum of seven years in prison for participation in a criminal organisation. Lawyers Ar- thur Azzopardi and Stephen Tonna Lowell were defence counsel. But in October, one of Ric- ci's associated companies, OIA Services, said that an Italian review tribunal had dropped allegations of mafia association against him. Both the court of review and the Court of Cassation said there was not enough proof of the ties between criminal organi- sations and Malta-based gam- ing company, OIA Services, which operates under an Ital- ian licence. The allegations against OIA Services, holder of the brands 'Betaland' and 'Enjoybet', re- fer to tax-related matters over a supposed permanent estab- lishment in Italy and illegal gaming offer. The company was placed under investiga- tion in November 2018 and its websites placed offline in accordance with orders from the Prosecutor's Office of Reggio Calabria. However, af- ter three weeks, the Maltese enterprise was allowed to re- start both its digital and retail betting network by the same prosecutor's office. Last month, La Sicilia re- ported on Fenech's connec- tion to the case after he was arrested in Malta. Italian prosecutors had not been able to track him down at the time he was charged with the illegal betting crimes, but he was now in the custody of Maltese police on suspicion of involvement in Caruana Galizia's murder. Fenech was the CEO of the Tumas Group, one of Mal- ta's biggest business empires which operates a gaming divi- sion through its ownership of the Oracle Casino, the Porto- maso Casino, an online plat- form, PortomasoLive.com, and a number of BestPlay outlets. He resigned all his director- ships in his family's compa- nies shortly before his arrest. Fenech has since been charged in court with having masterminded the murder. He has alleged that the Prime Minister's former chief-of- staff, Keith Schembri, whom he enjoyed a fraternal rela- tionship with, had kept him continuously informed on the progress of the murder inves- tigations, leaking key infor- mation to him. mcosta@mediatoday.com.mt Illegal betting charges against Fenech "On completion of my Masters in Surgery - I have submitted the thesis titled 'The Role of Serotonin 2C Receptors in Comor- bid Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Absence Epilepsy'. "Through this research on rats we explored the effects of a lorcaserin, a drug that has already been approved by the FDA as a treatment for obesity. We sought to establish the psychiatric effects of this medication on depression and anxiety in these rat models that were genetically modified to experience absence seizures. After injection of lorcaserin, the rats underwent a se- ries of behavioral tests. It was established that the medication showed depressogenic and anxiety inducing features in these genetically modified rats, whilst also inducing depression and anxiety in a strain of non-epileptic control rats. "I would like to thank the ENDEAVOUR Scholarship Scheme Program for providing me with financial support. This schol- arship was part financed by the European Union – European Social Fund (ESF) under Operational Program II – Cohesion Policy 2014 – 2020, 'investing in human capital to create more opportunities and promote the wellbeing of society'." Dr Chris Cremona Suspected mastermind in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder was alleged by a Catania court in 2014 with profiting from illegal bets Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech