Documents containing Opposition leader Adrian Delia’s ‘forged’ signature are linked to a shelf company which was one of several beneficiaries of suspicious payments believed to have originated from a London prostitution racket.

Dr Delia last week went to the authorities with documents which he says had his forged signature and asked them to investigate whether the documents were in any way linked to the findings of a money laundering probe, of which he was the subject last year. 

Dr Delia’s calls for an investigation came as The Sunday Times of Malta recently reported how the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit had in 2018 concluded there was reasonable suspicion that Dr Delia had been involved in laundering the proceeds of a London brothel back in the early 2000s. 

The suspected money laundering had seen money from an alleged Soho brothel deposited into an offshore bank account Dr Delia held in Jersey. 

The funds were then allegedly moved to other jurisdictions including Switzerland before they were eventually deposited into a Maltese bank account. 

It was at this point that a number of cheques were made to several shelf companies owned by the Bajada family, clients of Dr Delia, who are suspected of having run the prostitution racket.

MaltaToday yesterday reported that the documents presented by Dr Delia to the police – which are now also being probed by a magistrate – were company paperwork linked to company called Frankef Ltd.  

Incorporated back in 1998, Frankef Ltd belonged to Kris Bajada, the son of Eucharist Bajada who is suspected of having masterminded the London brothel operation. Dr Delia was also a minority shareholder in the company.  

Dr Delia strongly refutes any allegations of wrongdoing and declares he has always acted according to the law

Sources told Times of Malta that the FIAU probe into Dr Delia had found that Frankef Ltd had in fact received around Lm25,000 (some €75,000) in cheques that are believed to have stemmed from the prostitution racket. 

This, they explained, had resulted from information provided to the FIAU by Bank of Valletta as part of its money laundering analysis.  

Sources said Dr Delia and Mr Bajada junior “were and are currently” involved in a number of companies. Some of these – including Frankef – featured “in passing” in the FIAU analysis as recipients of cheques.  

The companies range from logistics service providers and fashion imports to others purportedly involved in drilling and oil field services.  

The sources told the Times of Malta that the link between the forged signatures on the documents presented by Dr Delia and the alleged criminal activity reported on by the FIAU was there, but the documents did not disprove the findings of the FIAU report.  

“The suspected money laundering analysed by the FIAU saw money that allegedly came from brothels, put into Dr Delia’s offshore account and then moved around before it came to Malta. This company Frankef Ltd only appears at the end of the money trail. The main questions about the provenance of this money in the first place and why it was moved around in this manner, are not rendered mute,” a source said. 

Preliminary analysis indicates signature may have been forged

He later added that a preliminary analysis did indicate that Dr Delia’s signature may have been forged on these company documents, however this only posed more questions to investigators.   

Meanwhile, the Times of Malta has sent a list of questions to the Opposition leader about the offshore account in his name which allegedly received the earnings of Soho prostitution. 

After a week of reminders, a spokesman for Dr Delia said it would be “imprudent” to get into specifics, saying the magisterial inquiry into the alleged forgeries precluded further comment. 

“Dr Delia strongly refutes any allegations of wrongdoing and declares that he has always acted according to the law. He categorically denies he has ever been involved in any illegal transactions which also counts for his years as a practising lawyer,” the spokesman said, adding Dr Delia was “a victim of signature fraud”. 

ivan.martin@timesofmalta.com