The police have charged a building contractor and a former clerk of criminal association, of making false declarations to the tax commissioner, money laundering and fraud running into several millions of euros.

In a separate case, and on a much smaller financial scale, the criminal court has found a number of people guilty of social benefits fraud. They formed part of a larger group identified in an investigation that was triggered by suspicious medical certificates in which applicants claimed to be suffering from epilepsy.

Both the above are examples of white-collar crime, alleged or proven. White-collar crime refers to non-violent, financially motivated offences committed by individuals or organisations usually in the course of their business or professional activities.

Such crimes can also involve fraud in public contracts, healthcare fraud, embezzlement and insider trading, to take a few other examples.

While violent crime attracts considerable public attention – because the public generally abhors violence – white-collar crime, which is essentially robbery, can have significant consequences for individuals, companies and society as a whole. So why don’t we hear more about this form of crime?

One reason could be the small number of police prosecutions against suspected financial criminals and money launderers, as pointed out by the Financial Action Task Force, which had placed Malta on its grey list. The FATF indicated that law enforcement authorities were not tough enough on white-collar crime.

Can we dare hope that things are changing for the better in this area, as in the case against the building contractor and former clerk? Our reporting indicates there are more such prosecutions in the pipeline, involving huge sums of money.

White-collar crime can admittedly be extremely difficult to detect and prosecute. It often involves the use of sophisticated methods to hide activities, such as creating complex financial schemes or using offshore accounts to conceal assets. The more substantial white-collar criminals often work with professional advisers such as lawyers and accountants.

White-collar crime tends to deprive wider society of the resources that would otherwise be employed to provide them with public services

The use of high-quality financial and legal representation can make it difficult for prosecutors to build a criminal case against suspects that sticks in court. And white-collar criminals sometimes have links to politics, all the better to protect themselves from prosecution.

Anti-financial crime processes have been re-engineered to make them more effective in dealing with white-collar criminals. However, more work is needed to toughen up the laws that regulate white-collar criminal activities. More law enforcement resources and political determination are also essential in stopping the theft of private and public assets targeted by white-collar criminals.

At the end of the day, whether it is individuals claiming social benefits they are not entitled to or businesspeople evading tax, white-collar crime tends to deprive wider society of the resources that would otherwise be employed to provide them with public services.

The Maltese public needs to take white-collar crime much more seriously. Even more critically, politicians need to dispel the impression that they condone it, especially when committed by persons known to be close to them or their party.

Government ministers have recently made appeals to ordinary people to do their civic duty by paying their taxes in full and on time. This is an essential prerequisite for a caring state that wants to provide its citizens with the public services they expect.

But it is equally important the ‘big fish’ are not allowed to get away with depriving public coffers of vast revenues for redistribution. In this area, there is a long way to go before the public can have full confidence in the police and the other institutions involved in prosecuting this type of crime.