A new European anti-fraud prosecutor officially started operations on Tuesday after years of delay.
Speaking to Times of Malta, European prosecutor Yvonne Farrugia encouraged people to directly report crimes to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office via its website.
Farrugia, a former police inspector who worked her way up the ranks, was nominated by the government last year to sit on the 22-strong college of European prosecutors.
After an admittedly difficult year of fine-tuning how the EPPO will operate across 22 EU countries, Farrugia said the new anti-fraud office is now ready to begin investigating and prosecuting crimes that impact the EU’s budget.
Farrugia has spent the last few days liaising with local authorities to streamline cooperation between the different bodies.
Policing EU funds
Although the bar for investigating cross-border VAT fraud has been set at €10 million, Farrugia explains how the EPPO is empowered to probe all other types of fraud impacting the EU’s financial interests.
“Some were under the impression that EPPO would only deal with cases over €10 million. This is not the case. EPPO needs to be informed about all cases involving EU funds”.
To aid this, an inspector within the Financial Crime Investigation Department will be in charge of all cases linked to EPPO probes.
Farrugia’s anti-fraud mission is also aided by two local prosecutors working for EPPO, both of whom have served as high-ranking officials with the police force.
Martin Sammut, an assistant police commissioner and Geoffrey Azzopardi, a superintendent, were both accepted by the EPPO to act as delegated prosecutors in Malta.
EPPO u-turn
Sammut and Azzopardi will be responsible for investigating crimes and prosecuting them in the Maltese courts.
Farrugia’s own role will see her based at EPPO’s Luxembourg headquarters.
Malta intitially declined to join the EPPO in 2017 but reversed its decision after an international spotlight was cast on the government’s failure to fight corruption in the wake of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia's assassination.
It had said in October 2017 that the decision not to join the EPPO was based on “sound technical reasons” based on the principle of subsidiarity, where countries have a right to keep certain sectors under its control.
Five months later, then justice minister Owen Bonnici announced a change of heart and Malta’s participation in the EPPO was formally approved in August 2018.