Malta Nostra: how Italian Mafia is using the island to launder money
The Italian crime organization choose the Mediterranean state to invest in new businesses
A stroke of good luck. A case of fate that would potentially allow to track down the treasure trove of Gomorra, that is the money the Casalesi clan piled up in years and years of criminal activity. The year is 2005. Nicola Schiavone, the son of notorious boss Sandokan, drops his wallet on a street. The Carabinieri del Ros, an Italian enforcement branch collect it, and find between a banknotes and a receipt a business card featuring the name of Bruno Tucci. Tucci is an Italian entrepreneur with a base in Malta. The investigators tap him. Listening to his calls on tape they get to the conclusion that Tucci might be one of the entrepreneurs through whom the Casal di Principe clan intends to launder its Malta money stockpile.
Setting up night clubs, restaurants, gaming companies: this is the idea of the Casalesi clan according to the investigating officials. They promptly send a rogatory to authorities in La Valletta. They plan to follow the money, and stop laundering operations before they even onset. Alas, La Valletta delays an answer, and when it finally gets to the Italian investigators it is not exhaustive. That results in totally losing track of the money Gomorra is believed to have hoarded and hidden in Malta. That was until now. The documents L’Espresso obtained will allow now to retrace and follow Tucci’s lead. A resident in Malta, Tucci is a shareholder in two companies on the Island: MBT Services Limited, incorporated in 1996, and Genergia Ltd, incorporated in 2010. None of the two ever filed a balance sheet. There is no way, therefore, to get an idea of the assets and business operations of the two companies. Our outlet reached out to Tucci, but he did not provide any information. The only certainty is that both companies are still operating.
This is just one of the dozens of stories concerning Mafia that L’Espresso gathered when going through the secret list of Italians who set up companies in the former British colony. Malta is a new Panama in the heart of the Mediterranean. A sort of “Grown Close to Home” tax haven, where tons of money from rackets, extortion and drug trafficking can be laundered. There is no need to go through customs or board planes. It takes just a two hours boat ride from Pozzallo or Portopalo di Capo Passero to reach its coasts. A briefcase stashed with cash, or often even just a wire transfer, and money launderers are set: millions of dirty euros can be reinvested in the legal economy. Once laundered, that money can even yield a profit and at very low taxes, sometimes even none at all. And more than anything else, it is a secure system, because Malta is a member country of the European Union, the currency of which is the euro, and no one checks on you if you are arriving from Italy. There is no need for reinventing stratagems: not too zealous local authorities will suffice. Considering how things went so far, someone in La Valletta must have closed more than one eye on the origin of the money that in recent years landed on the Island.
Haru Pharma Limited. A name like so many in the endless Maltese Registry of Companies. Haru Pharma is the perfect showcase to hide an embarrassing past: that of the Calabrò family, the narco ‘Ndrangheta family specializing in cocaine trafficking with the South American cartels. Once stars in the ill-famed Anonima Sequestri (a journalistic term for kidnappers, TN), and later drug traffickers with a net worth comparable to that of Mexican El Chapo Guzman’s cartel, the Calabrò family comes originally from Sal Luca, a little village on the slopes of Aspromonte. This is where all Mafia bosses overseeing the European drug trafficking business reside. They are shrewd and quiet people with a strong sense for business. And they chose Malta to hide their wealth. Haru Pharma is headquartered in Balzan, just a few miles away from La Valletta.
Despite having been operating for four years already, the company never filed a balance sheet, which makes it impossible to get an idea of the assets and business operations of the company. We did retrieve, however, other records. Its sole shareholder is Haru Pharma Holding Limited, incorporated in the Island of Saint Kitss and Nevis, a Caribbean tax paradise, the government of which is the British monarchy. Saint Kitss and Nevis guarantees an absolute secrecy on the identity of the company’s partners. Head of the Maltese branch is Sebastiano Calabrò, whose name happens to be the link between the anonymous Maltese shell company and the ‘Ndrangheta. “Bastianeddu”, as his family nicknamed him, is heir to an important Mafia clan, the one including the Calabrò and Romeo families. Both made their huge fortune through kidnappings first and international cocaine trafficking later. Convictions accrued by some bosses, among which Sebastiano's father, do not seem to have stopped operations of the clan.
They came recently back on the anti-Mafia radar screen for alleged money laundering. According to the Italian prosecutors, part of the proceeds of his cocaine trafficking was used by the San Luca ‘Ndrine to buy one of Milan's most traditional and oldest stores. The Caiazzo Pharmacy opened more than 100 years ago in the square by the same name, right on the back of the city’s central rail station. This is where thirty-year-old Sebastiano Calabrò currently works. He is the same guy appearing in the Maltese Registry of Companies as director of Haru Pharma Limited. The finding allowed, for the first time, to trace a factual link between offshore companies and individuals with ties to the powerful San Luca cartel.
The nature of business changes, not so where the money originates. From pharmacy products we go to online gambling. The latter is an industry on which the government in La Valletta is betting heavily by supporting it with a generous tax regime, to understate it. This time we are talking about a Mafia clan based in Reggio Calabria. It is a criminal group which came under the focus of the Italian magistrates for the so-called “Gambling” probe. A major investigation on money laundering, it led already to seizing companies, cash and real estate worth € 2 billion. The familiar face of the system is that of Mario Gennaro, 42 years old, dubbed “Mariolino” by his friends. The boss decided to cooperate with prosecutors, and secured himself a just three-year sentence.
He told prosecutors to have been sent to the former Mediterranean British colony on behalf of the most powerful clans in the city. The goal: to invest Mafia funds in online poker and betting sites. The industry, the Maltese Minister for Competitiveness Emmanuel Mallia said, is worth € 1.2 billion, or 12% of Maltese national GDP. These figures translate into a consistent business for many people on the Island, first in line accountants and lawyers, who happen to be sometimes very well-known professionals and firms. This is what the story of the Mafia clan Gennaro was representing shows. His deals involved some twenty companies on the Island. The trademark concealing the Mafia clan is a company named Betuniq, owned by Uniq Group Limited. Shareholder of the latter are a company run by Gennaro, and Gvm Holdings, a fiduciary trust company headed by David Gonzi, lawyer and son of the former Maltese prime minister, Lawrence Gonzi. A high-up, Gonzi Junior shows in the corporate documents of many other enterprises of the Mafia group.
On these grounds the prosecutors in Reggio Calabria launched an investigation on him, the documents of which were later handed over to a Maltese court. A year went by already since then, and given the time elapsed, some Italian sources in prosecuting offices fear that the Maltese authorities filed the case. The likely hypothesis casts shadows on the real will of La Valletta to pursue the case, the more so, after the finding supported by the documents examined by L'Espresso that several other companies are escaping Italian prosecution offices. The records of all the companies related to gennaro show the clan as being partner of Gonzi’s Gvm Holdings. Such is the case of Global Promotions Holdings and Mgame Holding Limited. After learning from the press that he was being probed, the son of the former Maltese prime minister stated that he “had only held quotas on behalf of third parties, and provided legal services to one of the companies.” Theoretically, his version is credible, given that Gvm Holdings core business is in fact providing legal and fiduciary consulting. The Gonzi case shows, nonetheless, what Malta has become in recent years: a European country in which lawyers and accountants have been serving any sort of people, sometimes even Mafiosi.
Another fact unveiled by scrutinizing the Maltese Registry of Companies is that the ‘Ndrangheta officially entered business with some Israeli citizens. Thanks to software, these people can boost the profits the Calabrian Mafia reaps from the slot machines and online poker businesses. A case in point is Ehud Goldshmidt, nick-named “Udi”. An Israeli citizen carrying a German passport and residing in Lecco, Northern Italy, Goldshmidt’s name emerged in an investigation of the Anti-Mafia Bureau in Reggio Calabria on Senator Antonio Caridi, who was charged of being a member in the Calabrian criminal organization. What does Goldsmith have to do with the ‘Ndrangheta? Allegedly there is a link here, because according to the Italian prosecutors, Goldsmith “is fully at the disposal of the Raso-Gullace clan,” one of the most ill-famed and dangerous 'Ndrangheta families based in the plains of ??Gioia Tauro. The plains are the back land only miles away from the harbor where much of the cocaine bound for Europe lands on the continent. According to a Calabrian investigating court, Goldsmith – probed by the Anti-Mafia Bureau in Reggio Calabria - allegedly “favored the criminal enterprise's businesses, especially slot machine operations, in relation to the development of a software platform to manage online poker gaming to be developed in Israel and approved in Italy.” The documents L'Espresso obtained confirm a Maltese corporate link between the ‘Ndrangheta and the Israeli businessman. As a matter of fact, Goldsmith shows as shareholder in two companies: Wantedplay Limited and Beproga Limited. Both brands share two very specific features. They were founded by Stefania Casati, the wife of Antonio Pronestì, investigated on Mafia charges along with “Udi”, and relative of the late boss of the clan by the same name, Girolamo Raso. Furthermore, both companies have on record as shareholder Noam Bartov, a computer technician, who is also an Israeli citizen.
More ‘Ndrangheta, drug trafficking and gambling. This time, however, with no computer nerds as intermediaries. The name of the boss is Nicola Femia, also known as the “slot machine Lord”. Following a 26-years term sentence on Mafia charges, he is now cooperating with investigating officers. He does not show up in the Maltese Registry of Companies. This is not the case, however, of Fernando Orlandi’s name. Orlandi was for a few years the President of the Casinò Venezia on the Island, that is, the company through which the boss's daughter stated to have laundered a part of her own treasury — she was also sentenced in the first instance on Mafia charges. Linked to the Calabrian Mazzaferro clan, which already in the ‘80s was able to bring over every two months from South America to Italy around 3,000 pounds of cocaine, is Femia, a new generation boss. He shares his time and energies between his business and finance operations and high-up socialites’ social opportunities. As the Mafioso told prosecutors himself, he had managed to take over into his corporate network half of the Italian gaming and slot machines market. On charges of ??having laundered part of her Dad's money also daughter Guendalina is under probe by the San Marino authorities. And it is here that, for the first time, the name of the clan shows up with a link to Casinò Venezia in Malta.
In defending herself from those charges, the boss's daughter said that the € 580,000 wired from her San Marino account to a Cypriot company were intended to fund “entrepreneurial operations in Malta related to Casinò Venezia.” Top executive at the casino was at that time and until the end of 2013 the very Orlandi. Consequently, was boss Femia’s money laundered thanks to Orlandi's willingness? This is a disturbing possibility, all the more so because 40% of the casino was property of the City of Venice, and therefore of the citizens of the Italian town. There is no doubt that the Maltese Registry of Companies contains evidence to a role played by Orlandi. A resident in London with Italian citizenship, Orlandi is shareholder holding minor stock in two companies on the Island. One is Casinò Venezia; the other is called Sportalnet Limited and officially states being a provider of “innovative digital gaming software and systems.” Both companies have a commonality in a further shareholder. That is International Trust Ltd., a Maltese fiduciary company of which it is impossible to learn who hides behind.
Like big corporations, Mafia organizations also cooperate when needed, and they also need middle men capable of brokering a dialogue between them. The man is called Antonio Padovani. He is from Catania. Prosecutors believe him to have solid ties to Sicilian Cosa Nostra clans. Italy’s Finance Guard seized goods from him on occasions. But there is more to the man: prosecutors with a court in Naples point to him as being the entrepreneur middle man between the Camorra and the Mafia as the management of bingo and slot machines halls is concerned. The ‘Ndrangheta with Mario Gennaro would have liked to participate in this a joint venture as Gennaro himself told prosecutors. Emerging here is virtually a Mafia crime triad that chose to settle its main base in Malta. Leaving aside the case lead by the courts, it is a fact that the Maltese Registry of Companies shows the names of Patrizia Fazio and Luigi Fabio Padovani, the former the wife, the latter the son of Padovani, an entrepreneur from Catania. Both turn out to be also shareholders in Non Solo Bet Limited. What does the company do? Gaming, of course, but, alas once again, it is impossible to learn any details on the company's business operations. Despite five years of operating officially, Padovani’s company never filed a balance sheet.
They call him “Scimmia” (Monkey) but they recognize in him an authority of a boss. Scimmia, whose real name is Alfonso Diletto, is believed to be the right hand of godfather Nicolino Grande Aracri, a higly respected ‘Ndrangheta personage later emigrated to Emilia, a region in Central Italy. On charges of being an ‘Ndrangheta boss last year Diletto was sentenced to 14 years on Mafia charges in the first instance, along with Giovanni Vecchi, a quick ladder-climbing entrepreneur from Reggio Emilia, who served time in jail for allowing the ‘Ndrangheta to partner with him readily.
The partnership dealt with the building sector. Though his Save Group, Vecchi was in fact the owner of a small empire. He worked with large public and private tenders, which included the Caltagirone group (a very well-known businessman in Italy). The group won bids for a total of a half a billion euros worldwide, all across Eastern Europe to Africa. Italian investigators say that Diletto and Vecchi joined society in Save International in 2013 with the very goal of sharing the proceeds of those foreign contracts. Shortly after, they appointed director of the company Artur Azzopardi, a member in an important Maltese law firm. In other words, a valued professional on a Mafia boss’ payroll. A repeat of the relation of former Prime Minister Gonzi’s son with the companies of Calabrian boss Mario Gennaro.
