Suspected gangster Christian Borg is being fined €2 a day for an illegal animal enclosure on top of his Swieqi penthouse.

The Planning Authority fine, equivalent to the price of four pastizzi, is for “structures built without a permit on the roof of a penthouse, which exceed the maximum permissible height for the area.”

The structure, which resembles a cage, was boarded up soon after Momentum chairperson Arnold Cassola wrote about it, but not before being reported to the Planning Authority by the town’s local council.

Swieqi mayor Noel Muscat said the €2 daily fine was “absurd.”

“These sorts of penalties encourage wrongdoing, and I hope the government changes the law on this to stop this farce,” he said.

“In such cases, even a €2,000 fine is not enough for something so blatant,” he said.

Such decisions, he argued, were unfair on law-abiding residents and should not be tolerated.

Borg, known to own several exotic animals, first made headlines in 2022 when he was one of four men charged with a botched kidnapping. He has since been charged with various crimes related to money laundering and tax fraud.

In 2024, residents of Santa Luċija reported Borg’s car hire company for parking its cars on public roads.

He was also involved in a controversial property deal with Prime Minister Robert Abela, who pocketed €45,000 from the deal in 2018, before he became prime minister.

In March, PN MP Karol Aquilina said he would call Borg and two prison inmates as witnesses when he faces parliament's privileges committee over comments he made about Abela’s “criminal associations”.