Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/994982
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 JUNE 2018 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA NIGERIAN princes and gold bullion scams are redolent of an innocent age of email spam. But when your name crops up among Malta's great and good to join a "presidential team" by none other than spam king 'J.P. Monfort', you know you've landed in the pantheon of spam art- ists. This being just weeks since the big inbox clean- up brought over by the EU's General Data Protec- tion Regulation, nothing could be more fortuitous. "We have invited you to join the presidential team in your country," Jaime Pozuelo-Monfort writes in an email from his base in Albania. The industrious Spaniard says he is setting up 200 such think-tanks manned by "top notch experts", in an email that comes with rendered im- ages of people like former minister Michael Frendo, former University rector Juanito Camilleri and EU Court judge Peter Xuereb, who have not consented to become members of this policy-making team. This is first-class bullshit, delivered to an impressive list of academics, journal- ists, lawyers and politi- cians by the king of spam. Some of the people in this long list are requesting to be delisted already, hop- ing that Monfort is pliable under GDPR threats. But Jaime Pozuelo-Mon- fort brags that he has been able to flood the mailboxes of almost 12 million pro- fessionals, by his own ac- count. "My name is Jaime P. Monfort, author and social entrepreneur, pre- pared from exile a coup to the Establishment in Spain to end once and for all with the impoverished situation of misgovernment." In his Malta email, he invites his victims to join his multidisciplinary team to "construct creative, im- aginative, prospective and analytical policymaking proposals… Congratula- tions on the nomination to join your country's most prestigious team, you are one of your country's best experts and a poten- tial crew member in the world's most revolutionary journey towards the best possible future, a border- less World of Eutopia and Cornucopia." His CV boasts the most industrious of academic records: since 1994, 10 degrees, from a Master's in telecommunications from Madrid polytechnic, and degrees in financial analysis and financial engi- neering from Madrid and Berkeley, and degrees from the LSE, Columbia Univer- sity, Georgetown, and now undertaking a Master's in global diplomacy at SOAS in London – simultane- ously studying for a Mas- ter's in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His 'Monfort Plan' claims to have devised a solution to "lessen the burden of poverty" through "creative policymaking", and says he is fluent in English, French, German and Spanish, as well as working knowledge of Albanian, Italian, Portu- guese and Russian. One person who actually met him was none other than the former Spanish minister and president of the European Parliament Josep Borrell, who sug- gests that Monfort is "an unbalanced person who needs psychiatric help" – but not a fraud. As president of the Uni- versity Institute of Flor- ence, Borrell gave Monfort a letter of recommenda- tion for a scholarship, but was turned down by the corresponding US univer- sity. When Borrell refused to give him another letter of recommendation, Monfort began harassing him with emails. In one of his videos, amateurish productions in which Monfort is seen talking about his 'Monfort plan' with the most unusu- al of backgrounds (one of them looks like the shower of an outdoor swimming pool), he claims to have sent emails to 16,000 pro- fessionals in Argentina, 20 of whom answered back. So far, some Maltese re- cipients have asked Mon- fort to delist them from his list although it will be a hard feat for them. Now based in Albania, the Span- ish spammer's visions for a "global party" and a think- tank gathering world ex- perts to solve global ills, seem unstoppable. Hit by the Spanish king of spam in the week of GDPR Maltese politicians and CEOs get a twice-daily dose of spam king's political drivel Cash trumps card According to a recent study conducted by the European Central Bank (ECB) people in Germany carry around more cash than in any other country of the Eurozone. In 2016 the German citizens had €103 in their wallet on average – the average of all European countries came down to only €65. Following Germany comes Luxembourg (€102) and Austria (89). Portugal (29), France (32) and Latvia (41) make up the tail light. If we look at the number of transactions that are made in cash, Malta is placing first (92 percent) followed by Cyprus (88), Greece (88), Spain (87) and Italy (86). In Germany 80 percent of the transactions are cash-based. But there is a slope between the "cash-loving" southern countries as well as Germany, Austria and Slovenia on the one hand and Finland, Estonia and the Netherlands on the other hand. Only 45% of the transactions in the Netherlands have been made in cash. The same pattern could be observed in Estonia (48) and à (54). Males used more cash than females, but they also made more payments per day, regardless of the means of payment. People who were older than 40 also used cash more often than younger people. According to this the transactions made by card decrease for people older than 40. On the contrary, the level of education did not make a big difference. The ECB tries to explain the popularity of coins and bills by looking at the amount of money people spend per payment on a day-to-day basis. Almost two thirds of the payments were less than €15. Amounts up to €45 were most likely to be paid in cash. longer but we knew this and we also knew that we would be slightly ahead of the market readiness to shift." And as expected, the onset of cryptocurrencies in Malta means Fexserv is also looking into adding this as an option to Myney once the regulatory landscape in Malta becomes clearer. With banks like Bank of Val- letta or BNF taking a cautious approach to cryptocurrencies – only recently it adopted a policy not to allow any SWIFT payments to cryptocurrency exchange platforms – digital banks like Revolut and Trans- ferwise are filling in the gap, allowing users to use their free accounts as a 'middlemen' be- tween your bank account at BOV, and a cryptocurrency ex- change such as Coinbase. mpace@mediatoday.com.mt Jaime Pozuelo-Monfort (top) brags that he has been able to flood the mailboxes of almost 12 million professionals, by his own account. He appropriates images of business and political leaders to create the impression that he leads a global think-tank that will solve the world's ills (right)