A woman who allegedly received disability benefits she was not entitled to told a court she was embroiled in the racket after seeking help from a ‘committee member’ at a Labour Party club.
The woman and her husband said they met the man at the Fgura Labour club in 2019, and that he directed them to an office in Paola, from where they were told to visit family doctor and then Labour MP Silvio Grixti.
The couple said Grixti handed them an envelope and instructed them to give it to the medical board on the day of her interview.
When the doctors opened the envelope, they read the letter and ended the interview. She said she “barely” sat down for the interview when it was over.
The woman is one of scores of people being prosecuted by the police for allegedly defrauding the government of thousands of euros in taxpayer money, after having received severe disability benefits they were not entitled to.
Police were first alerted to the racket in 2021. Grixti was detained and questioned and resigned from parliament in December that year.
In September 2023, Times of Malta revealed the details of the racket and the staggering scale at which it was being run.
Grixti allegedly provided false medical documents to help people receive monthly social benefits for severe disabilities they did not suffer from.
It is believed to have been an organised operation, with individuals acting as intermediaries to facilitate the process, and with claimants telling police they were referred to Grixti by Labour officials, ministers’ aides and even customer care officials from the Office of the Prime Minister.
The OPM and the rest of government denies any knowledge or involvement in the racket, and Grixti and others charged with running the racket have all pleaded not guilty.
A series of notes in sealed envelopes
Testifying before Magistrate Leonard Caruana, the couple described how they were directed from the PL club to the Paola office to Grixti’s clinic and finally to the medical board interview, each time being handed a sealed envelope with a note or a letter inside it.
The couple said they never opened the envelopes and remained unaware what they contained. Each envelope was sealed by the person who handed it to them and opened by the next person he directed them to.
Each time, the note seemed to indicate to the receiver what they had to do to help the woman receive benefits she was not entitled to.
The woman told the court she has been suffering from an autoimmune disease for decades and that, throughout the process, the couple were told they were being assisted to receive financial aid to help with expenses related to her several medical conditions.
The papers she used to get the benefit, however, were allegedly forged.
In September 2023, Times of Malta revealed the details of the racket and the staggering scale at which it was being run.Advised to visit Labour club
The couple said they first sought help from the PL club after the husband retired from work. He applied to start receiving his pension and had not received it after three months.
He tried calling the social security department to see what was stalling his application but said officials were not helpful and the couple began to feel financial pressure.
They were told to visit Fgura’s PL club and ask to speak to “someone from the committee”.
The couple, who live in a different region, told the court they met a man at the club who heard how they were struggling with money, wrote something on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope, and directed them to visit an office in Paola where they would find a man and hand him the envelope.
“The other man wrote another letter, sealed it in an envelope and told me to visit Dr Silvio Grixti,” the woman told court, adding that she had never met Grixti and did not know him.
The couple said they visited Grixti at a Żejtun clinic, where the doctor filled in a form and told her to inform him when called in for the medical board interview.
Upon receiving her appointment date, she informed him, and he asked her to visit him again.
I told her I have this envelope. She opened it, showed it to one doctor, showed it to the other and told him, ‘OK?’ And then turned to me and said, OK madam, you may go, you’ll hear back from us'. Weeks later, she started receiving monthly €450 payments
“He handed me a sealed envelope and said, ‘when you go tell them you have this’,” she recalled.
“When we went to [the medical board interview] there were three doctors, two men and a woman. I had barely sat down, she asked me what I suffer from. I told her I had [the condition] and she asked me if I have any papers.
“I told her I have this envelope. She opened it, showed it to one doctor, showed it to the other and told him, ‘OK?’ And then turned to me and said, OK madam, you may go, you’ll hear back from us.”
Weeks later, she started receiving monthly €450 payments.
This is not the first time claimants told police about the short duration of the medical board interview and that it was surprisingly uninquisitive.
Claimants need to appear before the government board, made up of rotating physicians who carry out a perfunctory interview.
The revelations have since raised questions over why the board, which is tasked with validating the applications, failed to notice so many fraudulent cases.
Doctors on the board say they were unaware of any wrongdoing and the racket was designed so meticulously that there was no way for them to determine that the forged documents were not genuine.
Lawyer Jason Azzopardi was defence counsel to the couple.