Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/455578
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 FEBRUARY 2015 11 News civil servants and George Farrugia against his five brothers – the share- holders of the John's Group whose subsidiary Powerplan was managed by George Farrugia – has led to their planned arraignment on 25 Febru- ary. It was already established that the Malta Security Service was aware that while Farrugia was managing family business Powerplan, he was also skimming off profits on oil sales from Trafigura and Totsa through his own secret company, Aikon Ltd. Emails have shown that his wife Cathy Farrugia was also responsible in issuing invoices for commissions on oil sales to Enemalta, which were being paid to Aikon. The company itself was set up through fiduciary company Intershore, to hide its ben- eficial ownership; but Intershore's directors relinquished their services to Farrugia when his brothers found out that the oil trader was skimming profits from Powerplan sales. In August 2012, seven months before MaltaToday broke the story of the Trafigura kickback to Frank Sammut, copies of Aikon Ltd in- voices were presented to Lawrence Gonzi by his Security Service detail. Gonzi instructed the MSS officer, a police constable, to pass them onto his superior, at that time Godfrey Scicluna, head of the MSS. The papers were part of a vital cache of invoices that Farrugia's brothers had deposited in court when they initiated action against George Farrugia, claiming that their brother had stolen €7 million in profits that should have been Powerplan's. They eventually settled for a payback of €1 million from Farrugia. When these invoices were passed on to Godfrey Scicluna, the MSS head approached a member of In- vestments Minister Austin Gatt's secretariat. According to court testi- mony and a hearing of the Public Ac- counts Committee, some of the notes in this voluminous file were shred- ded and the rest of the file passed on to the Tax Compliance Unit. The latest hearings in the PAC have served to reveal inconsistencies in many of the declarations made by several individuals called to testify. Notable examples were the testi- monies by Lawrence Gonzi. Gonzi, it has been proven, knew George Farrugia's wife Cathy at the time she worked as a secretary on the same floor at the Mizzi Organisation where Gonzi worked; and had also met George Farrugia on at least two occasions. What is unclear is why the police did not arraign the Farrugia brothers from the John's Group back in 2013, when they were already faced with the accusations made by the par- doned George Farrugia. A clue into this kind of gingerly approach by police investigators was the proximity of John's Group members to the Nationalist admin- istration, perhaps exemplified by the limousine cars provided for free to several ministers during the 2008 electoral campaign. At least one minister is known to have had his own private car garaged at the John's Garage for five years; and another two ministers had two BMW vehi- cles granted for their use before and after the 2008 election. It's the past of some Nationalist ministers, some of them still MPs, that could return to haunt them as the accused start giving evidence in court. sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt The invitation to the Paris Total 2007 party sent to Leli Mizzi and George Farrugia The email informing George Farrugia about the specifications advice given by Saybolt, a laboratory technically working for Enemalta The intimate emails between George Farrugia and Leli Mizzi, referring to the 2006 Paris Total party What is unclear is why the police did not arraign the Farrugia brothers from the John's Group back in 2013, when they were already faced with the accusations by the pardoned George Farrugia