Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1350550
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 MARCH 2021 NEWS POST OF LAWYER WITH THE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL The Office of the Attorney General Agency is inviting applications for Lawyer to carry out prosecution and related duties. The selected candidates will be employed on a full-time indefinite term basis, subject to a probation period, and will be required to work for a minimum of forty hours per week. Applicants must be in possession of a warrant to practice the profession of Advocate and, must also have at least one year of experience in the practice of the profession covered by a warrant. Letters of application, including a detailed CV, should be addressed to: The Administration Jobplus Vacancy Nos 367210, Permit Nos. 89/2021 Office of the Attorney General, No. 53, Admiralty House, South Street, Valletta VLT 1101 or emailed to ag@attorneygeneral.mt and should be submitted by not later than Friday 26th March 2021 at 13:00 hrs. POSTIJIET TA' AVUKAT FL-UFFIĊĊJU TAL-AVUKAT ĠENERALI MATTHEW VELLA A Maltese company connected to the Santapaola-Ercolano ma- fia clan in Catania, Sicily, was alleged to have facilitated the evasion of some €30 million in taxation by Italian finance po- lice. The investigation by the Ital- ian anti-mafia police in Catania and its organised crime unit Scico – dubbed Operation 'Doppio Gioco' – resulted in the seizure of over €80 million in assets from an online sports betting operation with branch- es in Malta, Germany, Poland and various Italian cities. "The criminal consortia cre- ated in the first place a website, Raisebet24, unauthorised in It- aly, with ownership by a Mal- tese company, concealing the links with both Italy and orga- nied crime," Italian finance po- lice (Guardia di Finanza) said in a statement. "Through its criminal asso- ciates, it organised the illegal collection of bets through a network of data centres – only a minimal part of the bets were placed online; the majority were actually cash bets. A total of €32 million in bets were then charged to the Maltese compa- ny, allowing massive tax eva- sion in Italy." The GdF said the Maltese companies laundered over €62 million through acquisition of land, buildings, companies in Apulia and Emilia Romangna, and Germany. Among the 360 suspects list- ed in the 'Doppio Gioco' dos- sier, is that of Gino Pennetti, a Sliema resident who runs the Malta companies Bertha Hold- ings, Green Charlie Ltd, World Services, and Omega Solutions Holdings. Pennetti ran a mul- titude of gaming websites, and collected cash smuggled from Sicily by car from mafia asso- ciates such as Ignazio Russo. A list of all Russo's travels to Malta from 2014 was provid- ed to Italian police by Virty Ferries, the ferry company. The cash is believed to have been paid into various oth- er Maltese companies, to the benefit of one Carmelo Rosa- rio Raspante, identified as the leader of the conspiracy. The mafia associates who travelled to Malta had been wire-tapped and tracked assid- uously by Italian investigators, as they drove around Sliema, St Julian's and Valletta. In the small-talk recorded between the cash couriers, recorded in November 2016, one Mal- ta-based associate passes a comment about stricter gam- ing company rules. "We've reached the peak now here... It's no longer the Malta we once knew," says one woman identified as Ilda, a resident of Malta, to Russo. "They say the prime minister here will be- come President of the Europe- an Community next year... we should see what happens, since it could attract more compa- nies over here." Of the 23 persons charged with mafia association and oth- er crimes, 12 were already un- der preventive arrest and two were under house arrest, in- vestigated on abusive gambling and betting, tax evasion, and money laundering. Previous links between the Santapaola-Ercolano clan with Malta have already appeared in connection with the Italian arrests of Maltese nationals Darren Debono and Gordon Debono implicated in a €30 million oil smuggling ring. Their Italian associate, Nicola Orazio Romeo – whose lawyer previously wrote to MaltaTo- day insisting his client is not a mafia associate – was described as a Santapaolo-Ercolano asso- ciate by the Italian investigators in Operation Dirty Oil. More specifically, it was the Cata- nese police investigators who declared, in their prosecutors' report, that Romeo's actions were carried out "to further the business interests of the Santa- paola-Ercolano family". The same report details a tele- phonic interception in which the smuggling ring's Italian as- sociates also speak of Romeo's connections to the Sicilian un- derworld. "Nicola is part of the real underworld, the one no- body touches," accused Massi- mo Porta tells a colleague. "He's always being tapped when he is in Sicily." Another investigation, Oper- ation Gaming Offline, which also includes Romeo in its list of accused, dealt with a con- spiracy on money laundering that used Malta as one of the bases for a gaming company, again on behalf of Santapao- la-Ercolano family. Italian mafia bust reveals Santapaola gaming links to Malta Santapaola- Ercolano clan has had longtime links to Maltese remote gaming companies Cash bets collected in Italy were smuggled in cars that made regular trips to Malta on the Pozzola ferry; the money would then be used to make online bets, with the proceeds being laundered through property acquisitions in other countries