by Carlo Bonini
The implication that there is something sinister in moving on in one’s career is unwarranted. It is something that many of us have done, including you.
I have left my job with the Lotteries and Gaming Authority (now the Malta Gaming Authority). Ever since, as a matter of prudence and policy, I have never been on the MGA’s books in any capacity, nor have I ever expressed an interest in offering any services for which RFPs have been issued over the years.
Cybergaming Consultants provides its services to several gaming clients. Under the regulations in force at the time, a key official was mandated by law to also be a director. My job as key official was to be the point of contact between the licensee and the Authority. The law mandated me to ensure ongoing compliance with each and all obligations emanating from the gaming licence. During my tenure, Centurionbet Ltd was always fully compliant with its obligations.
Obviously, I am well aware of our obligations when onboarding a client. There was nothing to suggest that the shareholders of the company at that time had any connection with criminal activities or that they were acting on behalf of third parties. In good faith and using our best endeavours, we could ascertain this and I am sure that with its resources and access to other regulatory bodies, the LGA also ascertained same when carrying out its due diligence exercise prior to issuing of the gaming licence.
I have to clarify that I resigned from director and key official of Centurionbet Ltd on the 14th August, 2015. Allegations about the company’s possible links to the criminal world were made years later. Indeed, the MGA only revoked the licence in question towards the end of 2017.
On the 13th August, 2015 I was informed that the company was being investigated by the executive police of Malta. I duly delivered to them all the files and informed the MGA that I was resigning for these reasons. Albeit, I could only attest that the client was in good standing in terms of its adherence to obligations under the licence, I am not an investigator and had to assume that the police had information which I did not have. For the sake of completeness, I am attaching a copy of both the form K and my email to the MGA at the time.
In the light of the above, I do trust that we can rise above sensationalism which unfortunately has tainted most articles that I have read on the matter, and that if you still deem it fit that I deserve an honourable mention in your book, the facts above are reproduced by way of factual context.
Given that in my replies, I am referring to the MGA, I am copying in the CEO of the Authority, so that the Authority will have the opportunity to make any clarifications that it deems necessary.
Wishing you every success with your book and journalistic endeavours.
Best regards,
Tony
Dr Tony Axisa
CEO
Cybergaming Consultants
DARREN DEBONO
We received the following from Darren Debono’s Maltese lawyer:
I refer to your email of the 5th September 2019 wherein you state that you are co-authoring a book examining the circumstances prior to and the aftermath of the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in 2017, and also refer to our short telecommunication earlier on this morning.
You state that my client will feature in the book.
My client fails to understand how he could possibly feature in a book about the circumstances mentioned above and nor do you give any indication of the circumstances or the manner in which.
You are therefore kindly requested to make available the extracts that will refer to my client and explain how a connection will be created between the allegations mentioned in your email and the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
In the circumstances, please note the following:
My client is facing charges in Italy regarding alleged participation in a smuggling activity of oil out of Libya, which charges are being denied. The case is ongoing and he has the right to be presumed innocent. However, your publication may prejudice his right of fair trial.
My client has no connection with the Mafia of Acireale or anywhere else and is not being charged with such activity. Any mention of such fictitious connection is pure conjecture and will damage his legitimate fishing business.
Your email fails to refer to how your publication will create a connection between the two allegations above and the murder of Ms Caruana Galizia. This failure is evidence that your email sent on the eve of publication is only intended to pay lip service to your duty to give my client the right to respond without actually giving him an adequate opportunity to make effective representations.
Please be advised, so as to avoid any unnecessary actions for libel and damages in any of the jurisdictions in which the book is distributed.
Regards
Dr. Victor J. Bugeja LL.D,B.A.,LP.,
Dip. Not. Pub., AMRSH., DSS
Advocate
YORGEN FENECH
We received the following from Yorgen Fenech’s lawyers:
We write on behalf of Yorgen Fenech and the Tumas Group Company Limited and refer to your email of the 2nd September 2019 addressed to the attention of Mr Fenech requesting comments on a number of unsubstantiated statements ahead of the publication of a book you intend publishing together with other undefined authors.
Firstly Mr Fenech categorically rejects any allegations, assertions, and/or suggestions made in his regard as completely baseless and unfounded. In this respect reference is made to numerous public statements made by our client denying the said allegations, and therefore it is indeed unethical and unlawful that you seem intended in persisting with the reiteration of such falsities, despite the absence of any shred of evidence corroborating the veracity of such allegations.
Furthermore, we note from your email that you may be implying some form of association in illicit activity by the Tumas Group with third parties. Any statement, suggestions, and/or insinuation to that effect is entirely baseless, gratuitous, and speculative and is herewith rejected in the strongest manner possible as totally unfounded both in fact and at law.
The Tumas Group conducts its operations in full compliance with all its obligations at law. You are well aware that the Company is not in a position to divulge any specific details in respect of any patrons or clients, including of the casinos operated by the Group, but rest assured that such casinos apply strict compliance procedures and take all required actions at law whenever there may be suspicion of any illicit activity, and indeed has been the case when such action was required.
In the light of the above, you are herewith reminded of your duty and obligation to duly verify the veracity and accuracy of any statements you may wish to publish and not to misrepresent any facts by colouring them with innuendos, insinuations, and/or suggestions purposely intended to twist such facts and/or provoke false inferences.
Finally you are solicited to desist from making and/or publishing any allegations and/or make any insinuations referred to in your email public, and are herewith holding you responsible for any damages which may be sustained as a result of any such publication.
Yours
Karl Briffa
Joseph J. Vella
GVZH Advocates
We went back to lawyers Briffa and Vella and asked them to comment on Alfred Degiorgio’s lucky turn at casinos owned by the group run by Yorgen Fenech. We asked them if it seemed odd to them that Alfred Degiorgio could walk away from the Portomaso casino with €440,000 over a period of time; whether his gambling was flagged as suspicious; whether they checked the provenance of the money that was gambled; and whether Yorgen Fenech thought this money was a cloak payment for services Alfred Degiorgio carried out for a third party while Yorgen Fenech was aware of the transaction. This was their response:
The matter to which you make reference once again regarding the running of the Tumas Group Casinos has already been comprehensively addressed in our previous email, but since you keep returning to this subject we would only add that our clients are strictly precluded by law from providing you wi
th any information in addition to what has been already stated in the said email such that your repeated requests are therefore being done with an ulterior motive.
For the record, however, we refer you to the evidence tendered by a representative of the casinos operated by Tumas Group in July 2018 in the ongoing proceedings before the criminal court against Alfred Degiorgio and others relating to money laundering charges, which evidence had clearly established that Alfred Degiorgio’s last visit to the said casinos goes back to 2012 in the case of one casino and 2013 in the case of the second casino.
Consequently, the inferences and insinuations made in your last paragraph are so spurious, false and contrived that they do not merit any consideration whatsoever.
Yours
Joseph J Vella
Karl Briffa
GVZH Advocates
To be absolutely sure, we asked the lawyers to categorically state whether Alfred Degiorgio had gambled in Yorgen Fenech’s casino after 2013. This was their response:
Dear Mr Delia,
Please refer to our earlier email of today which is very clear on this matter.
Regards,
Joseph J Vella
ALFRED DEGIORGIO, GEORGE DEGIORGIO, VINCENT MUSCAT
We have contacted the lawyers for the three men charged with murder for Daphne Caruana Galizia with a request for their comment. The lawyers said they would ask their clients to see if they had any comment. None was forthcoming by the deadline.
The three men are awaiting trial. All their requests for bail have so far been denied. They have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
THE AUTHORS
CARLO BONINI has spent the past 25 years investigating white-collar and organised crime in Italy and internationally. He has been described as ‘the Woodward of Italian journalism’. He started working as a journalist aged 19 in his native Rome as a city reporter with Il Manifesto. Since then he has worked for Newsweek magazine in New York and Il Corriere della Sera in Milan before joining La Repubblica in Rome in 2001. His bestselling Suburra has been made into a film and a successful Netflix series.
MANUEL DELIA started dabbling in journalism a few months before the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia. In life, she encouraged him to write, and after her death, he resolved to try and keep her legacy going. He spent his early years in student politics and journalism before reading politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science on a Chevening scholarship. Between 1999 and 2013, he held several civil service appointments including press secretary to Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami and head of policy in several government ministries. He unsuccessfully contested the 2013 general election on the PN ticket and thought he had left politics for good until the writing bug bit him again in 2017. He blogs on Truth Be Told (manueldelia.com) and writes a regular column on politics for The Sunday Times of Malta. This is his first book.
JOHN SWEENEY is an old-school reporter who used to work for BBC Panorama and Newsnight. His interview with Malta’s prime minister ended with him accusing Joseph Muscat of being Europe’s ‘Artful Dodger’ – a charge the PM denied. He has covered trouble around the world, gone undercover to make films in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Chechnya, and North Korea and challenged Donald Trump over his links to organised crime and Vladimir Putin over the shooting down of MH17. But he is probably best known for shouting at the Church of Scientology. He has written 10 books including the best-selling novel Elephant Moon. He loves a limoncello.
BY THE AUTHORS
CARLO BONINI
La Toga Rossa (1998)
Il Fiore del Male (1999)
Guantanamo: Viaggio nella Prigione del Terrore (2004)
ACAB. All Cops are Bastards (2009)
Il Corpo del Reato (2016)
L’Isola Assassina: La Sfida di Daphne al Cuore Corrotto dell’Europa (2018)
with Giuseppe d’Avanzo
Il Mercato della Paura. La Guerra al Terrorismo Islamico nel Grande Inganno Italiano
(2006)
with Giancarlo De Cataldo
Suburra (2013)
La Notte di Roma (2015)
with Giuliano Foschini
Ti Mangio il Cuore (2019)
JOHN SWEENEY
The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceaușescu (1991)
Trading with the Enemy: Britain’s Arming of Iraq (1993) Purple Homicide: Fear and Loathing on Knutsford Heath (1998) Rooney’s Gold (2010)
Big Daddy: Lukashenko, Tyrant of Belarus (2012)
Elephant Moon (2012)
Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology (2013) North Korea Undercover: Inside the World’s Most Secret State (2013) Cold (2016)
Road (2017)
Copyright © Carlo Bonini, Manuel Delia, John Sweeney, 2019
First edition published in Malta in 2019 by Midsea Books
This edition published by Silvertail Books in 2019
www.silvertailbooks.com
The right of Carlo Bonini, Manuel Delia and John Sweeney to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Silvertail Books or the copyright holder
Cover: Faye Paris
The writing of this book was completed on 9 September 2019.