Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri called a press conference to convince us that Malta’s crime rate is the lowest in 15 years.
Where did he get that from? CrimeMalta Observatory published its Annual Crime Review and the minister conveniently invited the Observatory’s director, Saviour Formosa and Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà to a press conference to dazzle the media with his amazing success. All major news outlets parroted the minister’s message.
Nobody bothered finding out what CrimeMalta Observatory really is. Its name sounds like a reputable international organisation. But it’s just an amateurish creation of Labour loyalist and ONE favourite Saviour Formosa. Judging by its appalling website it’s a one-man show.
“CrimeMalta has been set up specifically to create a medium for crime related information and to serve as a Maltese focal point for the reduction of crime,” Formosa writes. A cursory glance at that website betrays its dilettantism. It’s littered with errors – “Acknowledgements are due to the Malta Police Force, the University of malta (no capital M), the Planning Authority and may (sic) enforcement related entities”; “A thanks (sic) goes to stakeholders…”; “Crime is not a static occurrance (sic)”; “The CrimeMalta Observatory will further include new areas of enforcement as more entities take up their infringment (sic) aspect on board”.
Nothing on the website indicates who funds it or who runs it apart from its self-declared director – Saviour Formosa. What is clear is that it’s a grotesque scam, masquerading as some reputable organisation.
Formosa’s claim to fame is his sycophantic praise for “the efficiency of the Police Corps” on ONE TV. When Joseph Muscat was forced out of office, he could not contain his fury. In a cringeworthy article in Times of Malta, he referred to protesters as “the screamers”, “the sudden virgins” and “the santo subitos (sic)”. He accused Nationalist MEPs of seeking “to undermine the nation”.
He claimed civil society “is tempered by political infiltration and members with dubious pasts”. He accused the media of “competing with the anarchic social media in dishing out untruths”.
The police commissioner was passing inside information to the Caruana Galizia assassination middleman. Deputy Commissioner Silvio Valletta was travelling abroad with the alleged murder mastermind. Assistant Commissioner Ian Abdilla cancelled the interrogation of Yorgen Fenech. Yet Formosa was clamouring “to let the entities work and deliver, let the police do their work in peace”.
The man who accused the media of “dishing out untruths” was selected by Robert Abela to sit on the media committee tasked with making proposals for the media sector.
Riding on Formosa’s “annual review”, minister Camilleri boasted on the Maltagov site that “Malta is a secure country –reduction in criminality rate”. “The figures render the islands very safe,” Formosa chimed in. He previously insisted that Malta “is one of the safest countries in the EU”.
It turns out that a proper organisation, The Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (GITOC), gave Malta an Organised Crime Index of 4.65. That’s worse than Sri Lanka (4.64). Even worse than Eritrea (4.34). Malta ranks 109th out of 193 countries. In Europe, it ranks 20th out of 44 countries.
Cocaine use and trafficking are rising. Yet, prosecutions are falling. That doesn’t mean criminality is down. It means the police are failing- Kevin Cassar
“Last year’s record low figures even include figures for crimes related to drugs,” Formosa added. He gave the impression that drug-related crime had fallen. But police commissioner Gafà contradicted him. He stated that there was a 24 per cent increase in drug prosecutions. He boasted that cash seizures related to drug trafficking had doubled by €500,000 from the previous year. Police superintendent Keith Arnaud told journalists the police are witnessing a sharp increase in cocaine use and that 2022 was a record for cocaine seizures with 3000kg, worth €400 million, intercepted.
Formosa messed up. The number of cocaine related arraignments have dropped from 411 in 2016 to just 100 in 2020. But the number of cocaine related medical emergencies has risen from 110 in 2016 to 273 in 2020.
The number of individuals seeking first treatment for cocaine addiction increased from 390 (2016) to 497 (2020).
Cocaine use and trafficking are rising. Yet, prosecutions are falling. That doesn’t mean criminality is down. It means the police are failing. There were 273 cocaine medical emergencies in 2020 but only 100 arraignments. That’s not “efficiency of the Police Corps” as Formosa suggests – that’s dismal ineptitude.
The public isn’t swallowing Camilleri’s propaganda about falling criminality. Criminality is now the public’s top concern: 27.6 per cent pick criminality as their biggest worry.
The public is right. The US State Department commented in its latest Malta report that the “government decreased law enforcement”. While Malta is “predominantly a transit and destination country for human trafficking”, no traffickers were convicted in 2021.
No new prosecutions were launched for sex trafficking either.
The US State Department concluded that “Perennial issues with rule of law, corruption, slow court proceedings and an understaffed police force continued to hamper prosecutions and convictions”.
Italy’s Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA) reported that “the ease with which customs controls are avoided” in Malta “facilitated the migration of Italian organised crime to Malta”.
The European Drug Report 2022 by the EU drug agency (EMCDDA) and Europol commented that “Malta was being increasingly used for transportation of cocaine because of Malta’s perceived less intensive interdiction measures”.
GITOC pointed out that the human trafficking market “largely evades police interference”. They describe links between Maltese criminals and Cosa Nostra and Ndrangheta as well as with Libyan militias. Interpol notes that “a number of global organised groups operate these trafficking rings through Malta”. When was the last time that any organised crime group was prosecuted, let alone convicted in Malta?
“Prime Minister Robert Abela pledged to restore the rule of law… however, these commitments are yet to be tested,” GITOC noted. “Law enforcement is still poorly resourced and the perception of government corruption has worsened steadily.”
Interpol, GITOC, the Italian DIA and the US State Department are all concerned about Malta’s serious crime and its links to foreign organised crime networks. But Formosa’s reassuring us that “the figures render the islands very safe”.
Who will you believe?