Vital and long-awaited evidence about the workings of Yorgen Fenech's secret company 17 Black have been handed to Malta by the United Arab Emirates, MEP David Casa has claimed.

The PN politician said Dubai shared the information requested by Maltese authorities last month, specifically on November 22. 

A previous police request for information was not taken seriously by the secretive jurisdiction because it contained incorrect bank details for 17 Black.

Casa hailed the development as “important and crucial” and said authorities should now be able to make progress as they had no further excuses “to sleep on the investigation” into corruption and money laundering. 

“Over two years ago, investigative journalists revealed that the owner of the Dubai-based secret company 17 Black is one of the main shareholders of Malta’s power station and had planned to send kickbacks to persons at the highest levels of the Maltese government," he said.

“Despite the overwhelming evidence of corruption and money laundering in the public domain, Maltese authorities always blamed a lack of progress in prosecutions on an ‘un-cooperative Dubai’" Casa said.

He said he expected those involved in the "high-level corruption and money laundering connected to 17 Black to be brought to justice without delay".

Previous published emails showed Panamanian companies belonging to former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and ex-minister Konrad Mizzi were to receive €5,000 each per day from 17 Black. 

Its owner was a shareholder of the power station and is accused of being the mastermind of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination.

“The complete impunity for the corruption connected to 17 Black has had severe consequences for Malta’s reputation which has, in turn, impacted our financial sector and the livelihoods that depend on it. The necessary action must not be delayed any longer,” Casa noted.