An Italian national wanted back home for his role in a €440 million embezzlement fraud who is about to be extradited from Columbia laundered his ill-gotten gains through Malta, according to Colombian authorities.

According to the extradition file, Roberto Amoruso laundered the proceeds of the crime through cryptocurrencies, gold bars and current accounts in Malta, Cyprus and Madeira.

The 49-year-old accountant had fled to Medellín, Colombia in a bid to escape Italian justice but he is now being held in a prison cell in Bogotá, where is awaiting extradition later this week.

He was arrested at José a Córdova airport in Rionegro after Colombian immigration officials realised there was an international arrest warrant out for him.

According to Italian investigators, Amoruso was the brains behind a criminal organisation that illegally pocketed hundreds of millions of euros in state incentives associated with the Covid-19 pandemic between 2019 and 2020, which involved at least 70 people.

The organisation, headquartered in Rimini, had reportedly taken advantage in a drop in public procurement controls during Italy’s Covid-19 outbreak, which left close to 200,000 people dead and 20 million infections.

They collected credits and false documentation from shell companies that supposedly provided food and other basic necessities for public pandemic care centres.

More than 80 raids were carried out and at least 35 court orders were executed against companies and individuals as part of the Italian authorities’ investigations.

In the midst of the Guardia di Finanza crackdown, Amoruso fled and wound up in Medellín in May 2022, where he was apprehended and transferred to Bogotá for extradition proceedings. Those proceedings wrapped up on 3 March 2023.

Now that the extradition is set, Amoruso will face Italian justice where the Maltese connection in the laundering is expected to be further detailed. It is understood much of it took place during Malta’s ‘Blockchain Island’ cryptocurrency craze.