Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1525500
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 AUGUST 2024 NEWS Identitàgate: Stolen identities, Former MP Jason Azzopardi has lifted the lid on a corruption racket at Identità, the State agency responsible for identity management and residency permits. From stolen identities to strangers 'living' in someone else's home, this is what we know so far. Kurt Sansone reports. A letter from a mobile phone company requesting payment for outstanding bills has your home address on it but is addressed to someone you never heard of. Presumably, the person with an Indian-sounding name, lived in your home but nobody else but you and your immediate family have ever lived there. And the property was never rented out. The individual to whom the let- ter is addressed must have sup- plied wrong information to the mobile phone company, using a forged identity card that had your address on it. Or worse, the person may have a perfectly legit- imate identity card issued on the basis of fraudulent information, which included 'your' address as his home. This case is not a hypotheti- cal one. Indeed, it was Nation- alist MP Albert Buttigieg, who on Facebook published several similar letters he had received at home. And he is not the only one. However, while those who re- ceived similar letters over the past years would have simply brushed the incident off as some form of genuine mistake, not the same can be said today. Alarm bells started being raised after former MP Jason Azzo- pardi started posting on social media about a "massive scandal" at Identità, a government agen- cy, involving what he claims are "18,000 false ID cards" issued to non-EU nationals. Bribery and false documents Azzopardi has claimed in a court filing requesting a magis- terial inquiry that car dealer Ber- nard Attard, currently undergo- ing several criminal proceedings for fraud and money laundering unrelated to this scandal, had requested bribes running into thousands of euros from non-EU nationals to supply them with valid identity cards. Azzopardi alleged that the man used the services of a woman, who worked at the Brexit desk at Identità, named in the sworn application as Marija Spiteri. The woman allegedly used to input the details of the foreign nation- als into the Identità system and allow them into the office from a side door after hours to have their photo taken. False documents were used to substantiate the residency appli- cations, which resulted in the is- suance of valid ID cards to these foreign nationals. The ID cards were issued expeditiously. Attard and Spiteri are subject to freezing orders imposed by the courts in December 2021 and September 2022 respective- ly. The criminal cases against the pair that led to the issuance of the freezing orders are unrelated to the ID card scandal. Spiteri was listed as 'unemployed' by that time. The freezing order for Attard, aged 32 from Żebbuġ, pertains to a case instituted by the police against him December 2021. At- tard was charged with misappro- priating €1.6 million, fraud and money laundering. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and the case against him is ongoing. Inspector Anthony Scerri had testified that the police had re- ceived two criminal complaints and a report from a notary, who reported that his stamp and sig- nature were used on documents without his knowledge or con- sent. The latter case had origi- nally been flagged by the Notarial Council in 2020 after it warned notaries to beware of false docu- ments linked to the sale of apart- ments in St Julian's. The other two victims report- ed losing €600,000 and €8,000 respectively at the hands of the accused. An Egyptian man and his fake marriage Azzopardi's claims were initially side-lined but they gained credi- bility when an Egyptian national, who was charged by immigration police with fraudulently obtain- ing a residency permit, decided not to plead guilty, forcing the prosecution to produce witness- es. In a court sitting last month, it transpired that the Egyptian man, Moustafa Ata Moussa Dar- wish, had produced a fake mar- riage certificate that supposedly showed him to be married to a British woman. This certificate would give Darwish a residen- cy permit for 10 years, given the British connection. After Brexit, Malta opted for longer 10-year residency periods for British na- tionals. Darwish's residency permit was issued in March 2023 but revoked on police orders in June 2024. The woman to whom Dar- wish was supposed to be married denied in court she was ever mar- Former MP Jason Azzopardi started posting on social media about a "massive scandal" at Identità involving what he claims are "18,000 false ID cards" issued to non-EU nationals