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2 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 8 JULY 2026 NEWS Brothers of pardoned oil scandal court finds they were victims A court has fully acquitted five brothers of complicity in cor- ruption, after it found they were not accomplices in the oil brib- ery scheme concocted by their own brother, George Farrugia. Instead, the court ruled that the five brothers were victims of George Farrugia's secret op- eration to bribe Enemalta offi- cials in exchange for oil supply contracts. The massive scandal was revealed by MaltaToday in January 2013. The brothers, who served as co-directors of the fami- ly-owned firm Power Plan Lim- ited, had been accused of back- ing their brother, state witness George Farrugia, in his illicit schemes to bribe high-rank- ing officials at the state ener- gy corporation Enemalta and the Mediterranean Offshore Bunkering Company Limited (MOBC) back in 2005 and the years prior. However, in a scathing 76-page decision delivered on Monday, Magistrate Yana Mi- callef Stafrace ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove its case. The court tore into the cred- ibility of the prosecution's star witness, George Farrugia—who had been granted a presiden- tial pardon in 2013 to spill the beans—labelling his testimony "evasive" and entirely "uncor- roborated." The case, which had been run- ning since February 2015, saw brothers Raymond, Antonio (Twanny), Salvu, Emanuel and Gaetano Farrugia arraigned. It is only one of a slew of cases in- stituted against seven different people connected to alleged corruption in the Enemalta oil scandal. Some of these pro- ceedings remain ongoing. Although prosecutions against minor players at Ene- malta have not been successful, the main accusations, against former Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone, his consult- ant Frank Sammut, and oil bunkering partners Francis Portelli and Anthony Cassar, remain pending more than 10 years on. With the acquittal, the court also threw out a sweeping freez- ing order that had been slapped on the brothers' personal assets and properties since 2015. The Family Empire In 1990s, the Farrugia fami- ly business, which started out in their father's time as John's Garage, grew into a sprawling corporate group. The family empire comprised several branches: John's Garage Limited (chauffeur-driven cars and car hire), John's Auto Care Limited (mechanical repairs, panel beating, and spraying), Sundays Travel & Tourism Limited (tourism and travel), J.F. Motors Limited (importing SsangYong and Daewoo vehi- cles) and Power Plan Limited (petrol stations and fuel trad- ing) While the brothers divided up the day-to-day operations of the various sectors, Ema- nuel ran the chauffeur-driv- en division, Salvu and An- tonio handled repairs, and Raymond oversaw travel and general group manage- ment, George Farrugia was given free rein over Power Plan Limited as its manag- ing director. However, the court heard that the brothers' involve- ment in Power Plan was largely limited to their formal roles as directors, with several testifying that George kept them at arm's length from the company's oil operations and financial dealings. Unlike the other branches of the family business, where work was visible, practical and easier to follow, Power Plan's operations revolved around oil tenders, commissions, interna- tional transactions and deal- ings with foreign suppliers—a side of the business that the brothers described as increas- ingly difficult to understand. Reports of corruption in Enemalta's heavy fuel oil procurement The police investigation kicked off in January 2013 when Malta Today broke the news exposing corruption in Enemalta's heavy fuel oil pro- curement. The reports implicated Frank Sammut, a member of the Fuel Oil Procurement Committee, who was allegedly pocketing "consultancy fees" from Dutch oil giant Trafigura into a Swiss bank account. When the net closed in on George Farrugia, who acted as the local agent for Trafigura and French oil firm Total, he secured a presidential pardon on 10 February, 2013. He then pointed the finger at his five brothers, claiming they were fully aware of, and had approved, the kickbacks he was paying to state officials to se- cure lucrative oil tenders. The brothers were prosecuted when George testified that as his business partners, the broth- ers were "100% conscious" of the payments and had given him the go-ahead to proceed with arrangements that alleg- edly began in 1996. This meant that they were to be ar- raigned as accomplices to the crime. 'They knew everything!' Taking the witness stand, George Farrugia had said that the family board was fully in on the illicit arrangements, a claim his brothers com- pletely rejected. He testified that the bribery began in 1996 when Alfred Mallia, then head of En- emalta's petroleum division, demanded a cut to store To- tal's diesel at the Ħas Saptan facility. "I did not give him an answer right away and told him that I would get back to him on this matter later on," George Farru- gia testified. "I went and spoke to my brothers to tell them that he had asked for a payment on the work we were doing. I spoke to George Farrugia was granted a pardon scandal he was involved in. Police eventually were acquitted, with the court saying they secret operation ĦALEY XUEREB hxuereb@mediatoday.com.mt MaltaToday broke the oil scandal story in January 2013