Raw footage of Paceville mogul Luke Chetcuti discussing his conversation with a minister about taking over a part of St George’s bay beach has been leaked online.

The footage, which was taken by a TV crew and originally appeared on French TV dubbed in French, shows Mr Chetcuti telling one of his employees how he intends to take over part of the public beach for his hotel, including part leased to the Decesare family for the Intercontinental Hotel.

Mr Chetcuti is the owner of H Hotel in Paceville. The woman seen in the video is the former general manager of the hotel. 

In the video, he can be heard saying how he raised the issue during a private dinner conversation he had with Economy Minister Chris Cardona a week earlier, in which he demanded part of the public beach.

The video was leaked to Russian video site Rutube.

“Minister Cardona started texting the Tourism Minster [Konrad Mizzi] there and told him ‘we have to help Hugo’s, they always help us and we have to get them part of the beach',” Mr Chetcuti can be heard saying in Maltese.

“He [Mizzi] said that the beach is small but we’ll see what we can do to enlarge the beach,” he continues.

The cameras then zoom in on the pair as Mr Chetcuti appears to discuss the existing concession deal the Intercontinental Hotel has in place.

“Although he’s got until here, the permit is until there. He keeps taking more. We’ll take the [unintelligible] piece. We’ll try”.

When the first footage was aired a few weeks ago, Minister Chris Cardona, who is also Labour’s Deputy Leader for Party affairs and responsible for raising funds for the party, did not reply to questions.

On the other hand, Minister Mizzi said that the government had no intention to allocate another concession on the same beach.

The footage was taken by a crew for French TV show Enquête Exclusive (Exclusive Inquiry) which focused on Malta and what it dubbed a "corruption paradise".