The Attorney General has filed a fresh request to extradite a man believed to have run a $50 million racket defrauding the US Navy. 

Frank Rafaraci, a 68-year-old Italian-American national, is wanted by the District Court of Columbia in the US over a raft of charges, including conspiracy to commit bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. 

He has been in and out of court these past few days as the authorities’ attempts to have him handed over to the US have been hamstrung.  

Rafaraci was first charged on Monday, hours after being arrested in Malta on Sunday evening, in a joint operation by the Maltese and US authorities.  

However, he walked out of court after Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace discharged him from arrest at the end of the sitting. 

Rafaraci was back in the dock on Wednesday after an urgent application for his rearrest by the Attorney General.

The AG argued that the criminal complaint filed and sworn by a US special agent before the US district court amounted to a document charging Rafaraci with crimes of a very serious nature in the US. An arrest warrant was also issued by the same US court.

The AG said he was “perplexed by the court’s decision to release the requested person from custody simply because the charge sheet is described under US law as being a ‘criminal complaint’.”

Rafaraci was “now effectively free to flee the Maltese Islands without having actually gone through an extradition hearing,” the AG said.

However, Judge Aaron Bugeja turned down the request for him to be rearrested.  Rafaraci will now face a fresh attempt to have him handed over to the US authorities, after the AG filed an appeal on Friday to have him extradited.  

The matter was set to be heard by Mr Justice Bugeja, however Times of Malta understands he has recused himself and a new judge will be assigned on Monday.