Only seven fake residence permits found in stolen identity scam
It had been claimed that 18,000 forged documents had been issued
Only seven fake residence permits were discovered, Identità’s former Chief Head of Compliance told a court on Tuesday as he refuted allegations that these ran into thousands.
Criminal proceedings against car dealer Bernard Attard, 33, from Żebbuġ and former Identità employee Maria Rita Spiteri, 32, from Siġġiewi resumed on Tuesday afternoon before Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech.
They are accused of offences in connection with residence permits that were fraudulently issued to third country nationals. The pair are facing multiple charges including money laundering, human trafficking forging official documents and fraud. In the case of Spiteri, the charges are aggravated since she was a public officer at the time.
They deny any wrongdoing.
During Tuesday’s sitting, Claudio Spiteri, the former Chief Head of Compliance at Identità, told a court that while there was talk of “thousands” of fake residence permits during their investigation only seven such fake documents were found. He explained that Identità had 16 files related to the case.
In August 2024, a court upheld a request by former MP and lawyer Jason Azzopardi to launch a magisterial inquiry into an alleged scam which saw Identità allegedly issuing several residence permits on the basis of forged documents. Azzopardi had claimed that some 18,000 such documents had been issued.
The court also heard that despite the fact that Attard owned several companies, he had never paid taxes in his life.
In court it emerged that the investigation saw the officers going through different documents including letters addressed to individuals not living at a particular address, fake rental agreements in order to obtain a residence permit, and other suspicious documents.
Spiteri also spoke about an investigation into three Egyptian citizens who were allegedly married to UK nationals. However, when contacted by Identità, the UK nationals denied any connections to these men.
One such UK national took the witness stand on Tuesday and told the court she did not know the Egyptian man who got a residence permit as her family member. The woman had been previously married to a British citizen between 2000 and 2012. The Egyptian individual in question is currently facing separate criminal procedures before a different court.
In a previous sitting, three other British women had been summoned to testify and similarly told the court they had no connections to Egyptian, Moroccan or Libyan nationals. Some of those men who obtained a fake residence permit also testified in the proceedings against Spiteri and Attard recalling paying thousands of euros to the pair in exchange for fake documents.
A Libyan national with refugee status from France told the court that he had met an intermediary, who has since been deported, at the latter’s barber shop in Gżira. The barber introduced the witness to Attard. He paid him €500 up front and then gave him €5,500 when he realised that there was no reason to suspect anything was wrong since he had received a letter from Identità.
The case continues in May.
Lawyers Andrea Zammit and Manuel Grech on behalf of the Attorney General's Office are prosecuting, assisted by police inspectors Lara Butters, Christian Abela, Andy Rotin, and Keith Caruana Darmanin.
Lawyers José Herrera, Matthew Xuereb assisted Attard.
Lawyers Alfred Abela and Rene Darmanin assisted Spiteri.
Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech presided over the court.