The former chief executive of the gaming authority, Heathcliff Farrugia, has been convicted of revealing official secrets when he informed alleged murder mastermind Yorgen Fenech about an upcoming audit at a rival casino.

Magistrate Ian Farrugia conditionally discharged Farrugia for three years after he found him guilty of the charges brought against him.

Farrugia resigned in October 2020 shortly after he was questioned by police and subsequently charged over his communication with Fenech, an alleged conspirator in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and a casino owner.

Fenech served as CEO of Tumas Gaming and the Portomaso Casino.

Inspector George Frendo told the court that he had been tasked with investigating a number of chats that emerged from an in-depth analysis of Fenech’s phone, which was seized by police investigators when he was arrested in 2019 over allegedly commissioning the murder of investigative journalist Caruana Galizia.

One of the chats was between Fenech and Farrugia who at the time was CEO of the Malta Gaming Authority. Among the chats extracted by Europol experts, the police analyzed this particular chat over the suspected release of official and professional information.

Frendo explained that this particular communication contained 24 pages of texts on September 23, 2019, between 9 and 10pm.

From this communication, it was established that Fenech had spoken with Farrugia after saying that he felt disappointed with the result of the anti-money laundering compliance review at Tumas Gaming Limited which owned Oracle Casino and Portomaso Casino.

Fenech told Farrugia that the purpose of this review was just to give his organisation a bad reputation. He was not worried about the fine but the negative consequences on the firm.

Farrugia had tried consoling Fenech by telling him that the findings of the review of Tumas Gaming were not public and would try to buy time and delay the release of the report.

In the same chat, Farrugia revealed that another inspection was also going to take place inside Casino Malta, which is not owned by Tumas.

In light of these facts, the court concluded that Farrugia was disclosing this information to a person who was not meant to know these details.

The court noted Farrugia’s explanation that he had said that to Fenech to calm him down and to show him that they also carried out similar inspections on other casinos. The date of the inspection happened several weeks later

The court noted that the prosecution had proven its case against the defendant. On his part, while not denying that he was the one who sent those messages to Fenech, Farrugia explained he had done it to calm his anxiety and to show him that there was no form of discrimination against him and his casinos.

The court ruled that internal information about a list of entities that had been chosen for an anti-money laundering investigation was secret and sensitive information and was meant to remain strictly confidential between whoever is authorized to have that information.

He therefore found Farrugia guilty of revealing professional secrets and discharged him, on condition that he does not commit another crime within three years.

Farrugia has given notice of appeal. 

Lawyer Ezekiel Psaila was defence counsel.