The process to select a new head of the agency responsible for confiscating criminals’ assets has been started again after the justice ministry rejected the preferred candidate. 

The Asset Recovery Bureau has not had a chief executive officer for nearly a year, despite it being one of the worst performers in a review of the country’s anti-money laundering regime.

In June, Times of Malta reported how Police Superintendent George Cremona, who heads the force’s counter-terrorism unit, had been selected as the preferred candidate to lead the entity.

However, sources at the agency said Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis had flagged concerns that Cremona may have a conflict of interest in taking over the role as he is married to Magistrate Monica Vella.

A member of the ARB board, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said that they saw no issue with the matter and expressed frustration at the move to reject a “well-qualified and suitable candidate”.

Contacted for comment, Zammit Lewis would only say that he was consulting with the ARB on the matter. The minister is obliged at law to consult the board before taking a final decision, however, he can exercise his discretion and reject a candidate.

Starting from scratch

Sources at the agency said they had recently been instructed to restart the entire process from scratch and would be re-issuing a call for applications. 

Rejected a well-qualified and suitable candidate

The ARB used to be headed by Brian Farrugia, who left to take up the helm of another new agency responsible for assisting the victims of crime.

Earlier this year, the delay in appointing a new director was described as “nerve-wracking” by sources within the bureau, who raised concerns over how the entity fared when it was reviewed by international assessors.

This is not the first time that the criminal asset confiscation body has been left in the lurch.  

It was previously reported that ARB spent years in limbo after the justice ministry failed to give it the necessary legal tools to function. It was set up by law in 2015 but its operations were stunted, with some regulations not having been brought into force for a couple of years.

The government at the time had argued that it was carrying out “capacity building” to try and set up an entity that had never been delivered by past administrations.

In 2019, reports said that the bureau was left abandoned after the police commissioner and the inland revenue commissioner said staff shortages did not allow them to assign full-time officers to work there.

The bureau ended up in hot water last year when it sold off a Ferrari car, owned by a suspected drug dealer, despite him never being convicted of a crime in Malta.

The court had ordered the attorney general to pay the car’s original owner €70,000 in compensation.