How the Maksar gang rose through the underworld - and ended behind bars

Adrian and Robert Agius, better known by the family nickname Ta' Maksar, are suspected to have built on a criminal network inherited from their father Raymond. 

Agius senior, an alleged contraband cigarette smuggler with business interests in construction and second-hand cars, was murdered in 2008 in what is believed to have been a hit ordered by a rival smuggler.

He was shot twice in the head by a hitman wearing a motorcycle helmet while at Butterfly Bar in Birkirkara. The case remains unsolved.

Such was the notoriety that would come attached to the Maksar nickname, the brothers successfully argued that making any reference to it in the indictment leading up to their trial on murder charges could be prejudicial.

Raymond Agius was shot twice in the head in the Butterfly Bar, Birkirkara. File photo

The brothers, along with their associates Jamie Vella and George Degiorgio, face lengthy jail sentences after being found guilty on Friday in connection with the murders of lawyer Carmel Chircop and the 2017 car bombing of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Their rise in the criminal underworld predates the two murders as they are suspected to have capitalised on the vacuum created by a series of underworld assassinations that wiped out key players in the smuggling trade between 2012 and 2015.

Their fortunes appeared to have been cut short in December 2017, when the Maksars were among ten suspects arrested in connection with the probe into Caruana Galizia’s assassination.

Two months prior to the arrests, the journalist was blown up by a car bomb placed inside her car and detonated outsider her Bidnija home. While associates Alfred and George Degiorgio were charged with the murder alongside Vince Muscat, known as Il-Kohhu, the Maksar brothers were allowed to walk free as investigators believed they did not have enough evidence linking them to the murder.

Robert Agius climbs in to a prison van after a site visit as part of his trial. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

This was not the brothers’ first close call with justice. Robert Agius, the younger of the two brothers, was charged with heroin trafficking, cocaine possession and illegal keeping of live ammunition in May 2012. Agius had been identified as a suspect after police caught a woman who had landed in Malta from Cairo with two plastic blocks filled with heroin.

The woman turned on Agius and told police she had agreed to smuggle drugs in for him. In a controlled delivery, set up by the drug squad, police swapped the narcotics with decoy wooden slabs, and caught Agius receiving them on tape.

However, once proceedings against Agius began, the woman, a crucial witness in the case, refused to testify.

Agius walked away free from court in 2020 after it declared that the prosecution had not sufficiently proved the accused’s intention to sell or traffic drugs.

As for the cocaine possession charge, the court observed that the suspect substance had never been scientifically analysed by the police and so they had not even proven that it was an illegal drug.

All that was proved was the possession of a live bullet. For that Agius made off with a €500 fine. Adrian too would have his close calls with justice before finally being convicted on Friday. 

Adrian Agius during a site visit as part of his six-week trial. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

When lawyer Carmel Chircop was gunned down in Birkirkara in 2015, the older Maksar brother was high on the list of suspects. Investigators questioned him after Chircop’s wife told police her husband was increasing worried about Agius due to a financial dispute.

The dispute centered on a €750,000 loan given to Agius by the lawyer in connection with the failed More Supermarket venture. During the interrogation, Agius told investigators he was abroad at the time of the murder.

He was released without charge. In 2018, as the brothers continued to frustrate attempts to bring them to justice, the police roped in Europol and identified the Maksars as “high value targets” heading a local crime group.

Prosecutors' first shot at nailing down the brothers would only come three years later, and only after one of the gang members, Vince Muscat, offered to turn state’s witness.

Vince Muscat turned state witness and brought down his former gang members. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

The deal saw him received a 15-year sentence for his role in Caruana Galizia’s murder, and a complete pardon to tell-all about Chircop’s assassination. On the strength of his testimony, prosecutors were able to charge Robert Agius and fellow gang member Jamie Vella with supplying the bomb used to murder Caruana Galizia.

Both were found guilty of complicity in the murder. In the Chircop case, the Maksar brothers, Vella and George Degiorgio were all charged with complicity in the 2015 shooting.

While Adrian Agius, Vella and Degiorgio were all convicted, jurors found Robert Agius not guilty of the lawyer’s murder.