Broker charged with Lm25,000 fraud

A broker was yesterday charged with defrauding a client of Lm25,000.

Mark Randon, 34, of Birkirkara pleaded not guilty to forging a Bank of Valletta cheque issued by Travelex Financial Services Malta Limited to Saviour Farrugia on June 12, 2002 and forging Farrugia's signature on the back of the cheque.

He also pleaded not guilty to the misappropriation of Lm25,000, defrauding Farrugia, Travelex and other people, making malicious use of the cheque and handling stolen property.

Magistrate Lawrence Quintano heard Inspector Bernard Zarb, prosecuting, explain that police started investigating the case after Farrugia filed a complaint.

Farrugia told the police he had entrusted his money to Randon, the managing director of Shields Services Limited, to invest it abroad.

In 2002, Farrugia noticed he was not being paid any interest on his money and told Randon that he wanted to liquidate the deal with Shields.

But Randon told Farrugia he was expecting a cheque from City Bank in England and eventually Randon gave Farrugia a cheque for £23,000, the inspector said.

Farrugia told the police he was expecting a second cheque for £95,000 from the foreign bank but only received a cheque for Lm34,000 issued by Travelex.

Inspector Zarb went on to explain that investigations showed that the £95,000 cheque had been cashed by Travelex.

Brian Micallef, the managing director of Travelex, told the police that Randon had asked Travelex to issue two Maltese cheques that added up to £95,000 (which amounted to about Lm59,000) and address one to Farrugia and the other to him.

But since the foreign cheque was addressed to Farrugia, Travelex issued both cheques on Farrugia's name, the inspector said.

It eventually turned out that Farrugia had only cashed a cheque for Lm34,000. He did not know anything about the cheque for the remaining Lm25,000 and said he had not signed it, Inspector Zarb said.

At the end of yesterday's sitting Magistrate Quintano ruled there were enough reasons for Randon's indictment.