'I borrowed €1,300 and repaid €21,000': victims tell of 'loan shark' ordeal

A woman has told a court she borrowed €1,300 from a loan shark on behalf of a friend and ended up repaying €21,000.

She was among several alleged victims who testified on Wednesday during the compilation of evidence against six members of the Pace family, who are facing charges including money laundering and usury.

The accused - Carlos Pace, 24, his half-brother Cleaven, 20, their father Keith, his partner Maria Grixti, 49 and grandparents Lawrence and Emanuela Pace, 73, from Marsa - deny the charges. 

Keith Pace, Carlos Pace and Maria Grixti are charged with usury, while Keith, Carlos and Clevan Pace are also accused of breaching bail conditions. The magistrate has ordered a ban on the publication of the alleged victims' names. 

'I will break down your door'

Testifying before Magistrate Lara Lanfranco, the woman said she borrowed €1,300 from Keith Pace on behalf of a friend. As a guarantee, she handed over a cheque for the same amount.

Under the agreement, she was to pay €450 a month until she could settle the €1,300 in full. But by the end, she had paid €21,000.

Last year, she said she borrowed a further €1,500. She wa expected to pay €500 by July and settle the balance by August, but said she was unable to keep up with the payments due to chemotherapy. It was not clear, through her testimony, whether she or a relative was undergoing treatment. 

She told the court that threats followed. 

“He told me, ‘I will break down your door.’ He phoned, messaged and came outside my door,” she said.

In November, she received a call informing her that Water Services staff would be visiting her home. When she opened the door, she said she found Keith Pace and Maria Grixti instead.

Carlos Pace allegedly took number plates from people who did not pay their money in time. Photo: Times of Malta

She said they threatened to take her son's car and rent out her flat in Gozo. They did not do so in the end, she said. She had previously given them a copy of the keys as a guarantee. Neighbours later told her they had seen members of the Pace family at the Gozo property.

The woman said she had sold property in Birżebbuġa and Gozo to repay various debts to others.

Other witnesses gave differing accounts of their dealings with Keith Pace.

One woman said she borrowed €1,000 from Pace and agreed to repay €1,300 in a single payment. When she could not do so, she agreed to pay €300 a month for four months. 

She told the court that she eventually paid €1,800 but still owed him an additional €1,400 for the €1,000 she had initially borrowed. Some payments were made in cash and others via Revolut, sometimes to Maria Grixti. 

She said she had approached Pace voluntarily and said, under cross-examination, that he did not threaten her. He would only call if she failed to call, which “was understandable” according to the alleged victim. She added that if she did not have the money, Pace would tell her not to worry.

Defence lawyer Adreana Zammit suggested that the woman had a gambling addiction, prompting objections from the prosecution.

Licence plates go missing

Another alleged victim told the court that she had grown up with Keith Pace, who was a neighbour and that they had attended school together. She had borrowed from him as she was in debt with other loan sharks.

She told the court she could not recall how many times she borrowed or the interest charged. 

She said she that at one point last year, she was unwell and spent six months in bed. During this time Pace would visit her and ask if her parents needed anything. He would sometimes bring sweets for the woman’s child.

She then needed to buy a car and  borrowed €6,000. She was repaying him €600 a month for 12 months. In the end, she would have paid €7,200 in total.

Asked if she had borrowed on another occasion from Pace, the woman claimed she did not remember.

Prosecutor Neville Galea quoted from the woman’s declaration to the police in which she had said that some seven or nine years ago she had borrowed €12,000 from Keith Pace and paid €7,000 in interest.

She confirmed: “that was because I took long to repay him... some four years in total, so interests accumulated.”

The woman was paying €400 to €500 a month, a sum that she sometimes could not pay in full and so Pace accepted lower payments.

Asked what would happen if she missed a payment, the woman said they always spoke about it but he never turned up outside her workplace.

Asked if she was ever threatened by Keith Pace, the woman said: " a person can be either calm or nervous”. She confirmed though, that once, he did tell her “tonight I will wait for you. You did not come for two days or three. I need money just as much as you”.

It eventually transpired, that when she was unwell, the police had knocked on her door since her car number plates were missing. Police later found through CCTV footage that Carlos Pace had taken them. He allegedly apologised to the woman and claimed it was a “joke”. The woman denied this was linked to missed payments.

'A lot of shouting'

Another woman told the court she began borrowing after the COVID pandemic and could not recall the amounts.

“Keith is the sort or person where there is lots of shouting and lots of insults, but in the end you reach an agreement".

She said she once called the police after Keith Pace and Maria Grixti came to her home to demand payment. On another occasion, she said her number plates were taken and returned only after she paid. 

"I needed the plates to work to pay him", she said, explaining that she wrote her registration number on cardboard and attached it to her car so she could continue driving. "All the Transport Malta officers I drove by stopped me. But I had to work,” she said.

At one point, while she was abroad and still owed about €17,000, she handed over her car keys as security. Keith Pace still had the keys, she said.

She later sought help from Caritas.

Other witnesses described borrowing €3,000, €1,500 and €30,000 under various repayment arrangements with some saying the total sums repaid far exceeded the original loans.  

One woman described selling her garage to Pace for €15,000 because her husband had just died and she needed money.  

One man said he and his father had borrowed €30,000 from Keith and Lawrence Pace 14 years ago. After his father's death around €5,000 remained outstanding. He said he later transferred a store in Ħamrun for the Paces for five years in lieu of payment, under an agreement that it would be returned to him. He told the court the property has not been returned and remains in their possession. 

At the end of the sitting, lawyers made submissions on the bail for four of the defendants who are still on remand.

Defence lawyer Franco Debono said the testimony heard so far showed the nature of the allegations but underlined that his clients denied all charges. 

He argued that no witness had clearly implicated Cleaven Pace and highlighted that Maria Grixti is the mother of a three-year-old child. 

He made reference to her criminal record, arguing that she was last convicted in 2009 over a vehicle transfer.

Prosecutor Michael Muscat said the main objection to bail was the risk of interference with witnesses. He made reference to testimonies in which the alleged victims referred to threats, intimidation, and blackmailing, by Pace or his family. He said some witnesses appeared uncomfortable giving evidence in the presence of the accused. 

Police inspector Lianne Bonello told the court that alleged victims had contacted police daily since the arrests, claiming that other family members were attempting to collect money. 

The court will deliver its decision on bail later.

Magistrate Lara Lanfranco presided.

AG lawyers Neville Galea and Micheal Muscat prosecuted assisted by police inspector  Lianne Bonello. Defence lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri and Adreana Zammit appeared for all six defendants. Lawrence Pace and Emanuela Pace were also assisted by lawyers Arthur Azzopardi and Jacob Magri.