A number of fraudulent beneficiaries in the social benefits racket investigation had cited the name of doctor Silvio Grixti but did not say they had paid the former Labour MP, a court heard on Monday.
Grixti is one of five people charged with playing a key role in a massive disability racket that is believed to have cost taxpayers as much as €6 million.
Last year, Times of Malta revealed how Grixti, a popular family doctor, was implicated in a years-long racket to help hundreds of people fraudulently receive monthly disability benefits they were not entitled to.
Evidence indicates Grixti provided false medical documents to help people, often hailing from Labour strongholds, to receive social benefits averaging €450 monthly for severe disabilities they did not suffer from.
On Monday, three police inspectors who pieced together evidence as they dug deeper and deeper into the massive social benefits fraud explained how each focused on different suspects behind the racket, linking names to amounts received for their alleged role in the scam.
One line of investigation focused on certificates found in Grixti’s laptop, which was seized by police during a search at his Għaxaq clinic, said inspector Shaun Friggieri when proceedings against the former politician and four co-defendants resumed.
Police are charging Grixti with having allegedly played a central role by providing applicants with false medical certificates to secure them the severe disability allowance after they appeared before a medical board.
Co-defendants Roger Agius, Emmanuel Spagnol, Dustin Caruana and Luke Saliba allegedly acted as agents or go-betweens, raking in payments from successful beneficiaries.
Handwritten ledgers indicating sums split
The inspectors explained how different beneficiaries were grouped under different headings representing their alleged link to each of the defendants. The police also include the amounts received by the defendant and the amounts forked out by the Social Security Department to the fraudulent beneficiary.
Besides names found on Grixti’s laptop, police unearthed other beneficiaries through handwritten ledgers subsequently found at Spagnol’s home.
Those ledgers, presented in evidence, also indicated sums allegedly split between Spagnol and Grixti.
Some beneficiaries opted for their right to silence.
Three of those investigated by Friggieri named Agius as the person to whom they handed money or as the one who intervened to help them secure the severe disability allowance.
Caruana did not feature in those ledgers and there appeared to have been no relationship between him and Spagnol, said Friggieri.
Inspectors Wayne Rodney Borg and Andy Rotin, who worked jointly on the investigation, said some beneficiaries told police that they had gone to Grixti. Others got an application for the allowance from him.
Such an application had to be signed by a medical specialist and “Grixti was not”, explained Borg.
Various beneficiaries named Caruana as the person they had handed money to for the false documents.
The Social Security Department initially flagged a number of suspicious certificates which appeared to be “identical scanned copies, all presenting the same illness, namely epilepsy” and all signed and stamped by the same medical specialist.
When the suspected fraudsters were charged in court, all said they had obtained the certificates from Saliba.
Expected to hand over first year’s worth of benefits
Several beneficiaries also said once their application was approved, they were expected to hand over the first year’s worth of benefits, usually amounting to some €5,000, to the person who procured the false documents.
Asked by the court, presided over by Magistrate Rachel Montebello, whether beneficiaries who mentioned Grixti also mentioned they had paid him, Rotin replied that as far as his investigation was concerned, the answer was “no.”
He also informed the court that on July 16 at 11am, Agius released an audio-visual statement to the police in the presence of his lawyers, Jason Azzopardi and Alessandro Farrugia.
At the start of the hearing, Social Services Department director George Cremona confirmed that when the suspected cases emerged, the department had handed over all files to the police.
The police went back to the department, telling them to block all payments to those beneficiaries whose names were recorded in a spreadsheet-previously presented in evidence- and to demand a refund.
Agius, one of the defendants, had also received €43,398 in fraudulent payments from the department between June 2016 and November 2023.
The case continues.
AG lawyer Abigail Caruana Vella prosecuted together with inspectors Wayne R. Borg, Shaun Friggieri and Andy Rotin.
Lawyers Franco Debono and Arthur Azzopardi are counsel to Grixti. Lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Alessandro Farrugia are counsel to Agius. Lawyers Michael Sciriha and Roberto Spiteri are counsel to Caruana and Spagnol.
Lawyers Jose Herrera and Matthew Xuereb are counsel to Saliba. Lawyer Anita Giordmaina appeared on behalf of the social security department.