Asset Recovery Bureau has limited tools to follow crime money

The government’s organisation responsible for following the confiscation and freezing of money and assets associated with crime has minimal resources to do its job, and demands by its officials for investment in proper surveillance tools have fallen on deaf ears.

Under the political wing of Justice Minister Jonathan Attard, the Bureau, established following EU pressure, has been left with limited resources and personnel, significantly limiting its effectiveness.

Officials who spoke to The Shift on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal, described the situation inside the Bureau as very difficult, with no clear structure or standard procedures for how it functions, and a lack of tools to extract the proper data and intelligence about top criminal organisations and individuals operating on the island.

They insisted that, so far, the Bureau’s officials have been conducting their ONSIT – the gathering of open-source intelligence – from Google, with critical online tools used by intelligence and secret services worldwide being almost non-existent.

“Our organisation is plagued with several issues and we have been completely ignored,” a senior official told The Shift.

“We lack the proper tools to conduct our research. We do not have access to the proper tools, and we only gather our information by searching news articles on Google. This is very amateurish,” another official said.

The endemic Maltese problem of nepotism also hits the ARB, with recruits being inserted in the office through political contacts and without following standard procedures and training.

A recent recruitment of a top manager in the Bureau’s administration is a case in point, with a collective agreement signed with the General Workers Union completely ignored and proper recruitment protocol bypassed at the Justice Ministry’s instructions.

Questions sent to Eunice Fiorini, the new head of the ARB, who was handpicked by Minister Attard, were ignored.

Fiorini herself was, until a few months ago, the CEO of the Government’s Court Agency. She was removed from the Court due to performance issues and was instead assigned to manage the ARB.

The situation at this vital agency is deteriorating rapidly, with many officials resigning and the Bureau becoming depleted of adequately trained professionals.

Over the past few years, Malta has built a reputation for impunity, with very few cases of money laundering and organised crime reaching the court, particularly when it comes to major crimes and corruption.

Many allegedly involved politicians, particularly those under the administration of disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, were either let off the hook by the police and the Attorney General or were only arraigned after external pressure from NGOs and magisterial inquiries.

In many cases, crucial evidence was lost or not confiscated in time, making a final conviction in a court of law nearly impossible due to a lack of proper evidence.