Updated 5.15pm, adds PL statement

Enforcement agency LESA did not manage to wriggle out of a contract it signed with Princess Operations Limited, a company owned by alleged kidnapper Christian Borg, binding it to continue leasing cars until 2025, with the possibility of extending it until 2026.

LESA is leasing 24 cars from Princess Operations following a €108,405 tender. The only other bid was offered for €192,501.

The Local Enforcement System Agency is a government agency responsible for enforcing laws delegated to regional authorities or local councils. It does so through its community officers or wardens.

CEO Svetlick Flores last year told Times of Malta that the agency was “seeking relevant legal advice” regarding a tender awarded in 2021 to Borg’s company.

Asked for an update, Flores said LESA was “bound to follow the provisions of the tendering process”.

He added that it was LESA’s intention to issue another tender when the current tender expires next year.

The director of Princess Operations is Joseph Camenzuli, a former official photographer for the Labour Party. The company’s sole shareholder is Princess Holdings Limited, a company set up in 2015 owned and managed in entirety by Borg.

Borg, a notorious entrepreneur, was arrested and charged in court last year in connection with a botched kidnapping. A court heard how he and his associates allegedly threatened to torture their victim and rape his sister. 

Christian Borg seen in one of his luxury cars with a large cat cub.

Borg is the franchise holder for Sicilian car rental firm Sicily By Car, which last December saw its office at Malta International Airport raided by the police financial crimes unit as part of a fraud investigation.

During the raid, FCID officers seized several card payment machines and other equipment, including laptops and computers.

The raid was part of a wider fraud investigation involving the controversial car rental franchise in Malta.

Borg is also the person behind the controversial car hire-purchase company No Deposit Cars Malta, based in Qormi. Camenzuli is the company director.

The company hit the headlines for privacy practices that the data commissioner described as “absolutely abnormal... not acceptable... [and] very invasive”.

No Deposit Cars and its parent company, Princess Holdings are currently facing a legal challenge from many of its customers, who have asked the police to rescind their vehicle hire-purchase agreements and investigate the firms for fraud and tax evasion.

Borg’s company denies the allegations and says it believes the customers are just looking for a way out of their contracts.

The LESA agreement is not the only tender to have been awarded to Princess Operations Limited.

In 2020, the Department for Contracts awarded three tenders with a combined value of almost a quarter of a million euros to the company set up by Borg in 2018.

The three contracts were worth €157,680, €50,808 and €39,420, and were issued for the leasing of 38 low-emission vehicles including motorbikes and vans. 

According to the tender call, applications were assessed on “price/cost effectiveness”.

Princess Holdings beat 42 other applications submitted by 13 different companies to win the three contracts, despite rival bids coming in cheaper for two of the three tender submissions.

PN statement

In a statement, the Nationalist Party said that through the LESA and Transport Malta contracts, the government was assisting in the money laundering of an alleged drug trafficker through public funds.

Instead of fighting organised crime, the country was assisting it because this same alleged trafficker did not just carry out land deals with Prime Minister Robert Abela but also passed on monies to the accounts of Abela and his wife.

PL's reply

In a reply, the PL accused the PN of deceit and said payments the Prime Minister received had been for services rendered through his legal profession and through court procedures, as has already been shown.

Information showing that the Prime Minister had everything in order, the PL said, had already been published.

The PN, the PL said, should be the last to speak about money laundering having created a scheme which lacked scrutiny and created great doubts, a scheme it would have to answer for shortly.