Malta has a huge problem along with the EU as a whole. A former member of the Parliament of Malta, Jason Azzopardi, recently brought to light a corruption scandal of colossal proportions in the state agency Identità, which is responsible for managing identities and residence permits in this small Mediterranean island country.
The agency was alleged to have provided thousands of foreigners with false identity cards for a bribe. Unfortunately, these are not just a few cases of forged identity documents, but more than 18 000 false identity cards with addresses, where someone else actually lives. For a small country with half a million inhabitants, this is an unimaginable scandal.
According to available information, two people are being prosecuted in connection with this case: Bernard Attard and Marija Spiteri. It´s worth noting, that both of them are also being investigated for another crimes from the past. Bernard Attard, currently facing several criminal proceedings for fraud and money laundering, demanded bribes in the order of thousands of euros from citizens of third countries for the issuance of valid identity cards.
He used the services of the second indicted person, a woman named Marija Spiteri, who worked at the Identità agency. She was the one who was supposed to enter information about foreigners into the agency’s system and let them into the office through the side door after working hours so that they could be photographed. Fake documents were used to substantiate residence applications, on the basis of which valid identity cards were quickly issued to these foreigners.
Strange Letters in Mailboxes
The whole case became known to the wider public after the aforementioned ex-deputy and lawyer Jason Azzopardi filed a 60-page request for a judicial investigation into the issuance of forged documents to approximately 18,000 third-country nationals for thousands of euros. They have been issued since 2015 on the basis of marriage certificates and other documents forged by agency officials.
Azzopardi himself also mentioned, for example, four families who recently visited the police station in the city of Birkirkara to report the theft of their home addresses, which were used on foreigners’ identity cards.
As a result of this scandal, many Maltese found themselves in completely absurd situations. Bills with the names of people they had never heard of in their lives went to mailboxes at their addresses. The local newspaper Malta Today mentioned cases that looked something like this: A Maltese family received a letter from a mobile phone operator demanding them to pay outstanding bills. The bill was addressed to a person with an Indian-sounding name, but who never actually lived at the given address.
Elsewhere, there was mentioned the case of a Maltese lawyer named Louise Anne Pulis, who asked her husband to collect a letterbox in their long-vacant property. They were probably expecting a bunch of ads. However, he found mail in the mailbox addressed to four also unknown people who were apparently registered at their address.
And there were really many such similar cases. The persons to whom the letters were addressed simply deliberately used false information on a forged identity card. The Identità agency therefore advised property owners to report any irregular mail and urged companies and local services to verify clients’ addresses with official documents.
Schengen Area in Danger
Maltese MP Darren Carabott has been very vocal in his criticism of the Maltese government’s careless approach to the scandal, particularly Minister Byron Camilleri’s refusal to release the results of an internal investigation into 18,000 fake IDs. The aforementioned former MP Jason Azzopardi also expressed doubts as to why the police force did not request a judicial investigation based on the information it received in November 2022. Regardless the fact that the very concealment of the conclusions of the internal investigation only deepens people’s distrust.
This is undoubtedly a colossal failure by the Maltese authorities. The whole matter should be of great concern not only to Malta, but above all to all countries that are part of the Schengen area. We must bear in mind that the Maltese identity card can be used as a travel document in all European countries that belong to the Schengen area.
Many EU countries already have a problem with the enormous number of people residing in the country illegally. The consequence of this scandal is another thousands of people with false documents who can move practically without restrictions in a large part of Europe.
Moreover, it is not the first time that something like this has happened in Malta. This country has previously faced sharp criticism for selling so-called golden passports to citizens of Russia. However, it has never been such a large amount, and this unresolved scandal of the Maltese socialist government seriously threatens the security of the entire EU and the very existence of the Schengen area, i.e. one of the greatest benefits of European integration.
The security of the whole of Europe is at stake and the attitude of the Maltese government so far is truly reprehensible. Due to its seriousness and pan-European reach, the scandal will have to be addressed at the European level as well. In this matter, I will interpellate the European Commission how it intends to solve the matter.
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