Darren and Gordon Debono electronically tagged, on bail and prevented from leaving Italy

Two of the Maltese accused in Italy of the ‘Dirty oil’ scandal, Darren Debono and Gordon Debono, who oversaw the smuggling of tens of millions of euros of contraband fuel from Libya to Europe via Malta, are still out on bail after their arrest in Italy last October.

Italian police sources, speaking to this newspaper, have confirmed that the two Maltese nationals have, since their release on bail, had electronic tagging devices affixed to their wrists and are prevented from leaving Italian soil.

Such devices give the current location of people fitted with the device, which sets off alarm bells if the wearer ventures outside the area in which he is confined.

Electronic tagging, or electronic monitoring, involves placing a tag around the ankle or wrist of an offender which, in combination with a receiving device, can verify their whereabouts at specified times. This allows the monitoring and enforcement of curfews between specific times or in specific locations.

Without going into the specific merits of why the Debonos are being tracked in such a way, the Italian authorities – speaking on condition of anonymity – suggested to this newspaper that the use of electronic tagging was not exactly commonplace in Italy and that such devices are only employed when dealing with suspects in major criminal operations.

And the Italians clearly want to keep their hands on the Debonos, at least for the time being. Italian legal sources, speaking to this newspaper, have suggested that the Italian state would be inclined to reject any request on the part of Malta for the extradition of the Debonos, at least until Italian court proceedings involving them have been concluded.

Between June 2015 and June 2016, Italian authorities registered 31 illegal shipments of contraband fuel, comprising 82 million cubic metres of petrol they believe was purchased for €27 million and was worth €51 million on the market. €11 million in taxes are believed to have been evaded in the process.

Last October, after two years of phone tapping, the Italian authorities moved in on the Debonos. Darren Debono was apprehended in Lampedusa and Gordon Debono was arrested in Catania.

A new focus has been applied to the Dirty Oil scandal this week, after the Daphne Project reported how the Libya-Malta-Europe fuel smuggling ring run by the Debonos, together with Libyan and Sicilian associates linked to the Mafia, earned the operation up to €26 million in just one year through a single Italian buyer.

The Daphne Project sourced hundreds of Italian police files, corporate documents, marine data and United Nations reports, and corroborative interviews have been carried out by the Investigative Report Project Italy (IRPI).

The results reportedly show a multi-million-dollar operation was “carried out under Maltese authorities’ noses”.

In response to questions about the leaked files and the ongoing operation, the Maltese police are quoted as saying that they could do nothing about the operation because the smuggling took place outside Malta’s territorial waters.

The Italian police, however, believe this not to be entirely true, as tankers filled in Libya made ship-toship transfers at the edge of Hurd’s Bank, a shallow area on the periphery of Maltese territorial waters – under Malta’s remit.

The Daphne Project says it has seen marine surveillance logs showing how tankers owned by the Debonos – including the Barbosa Star, Sea Master X and Amazing F – were observed either transferring il- legal shipments onto larger tankers at Hurd’s Bank or directly emptying their shipments at a dolphin in the Marsa area of the Grand Harbour. It is believed that the dolphin, through which the fuel is pumped onshore, was connected to the Ħas-Saptan storage facilities, reportedly leased to the Swiss Kolmar Group AG.

The reports go on to say that the same marine surveillance logs show the tankers emptying fuel into the storage tanks of the Maltese San Lucian Oil Company in Birżebbuġa.

The players

Italian investigators, it is said, believe that Libyan fuel was smuggled out of the country with the assistance of a militia led by Fahmi Ben Khalifa, a business associate of Darren Debono.

Oil refineries near the port city of Zuwara, in north-western Libya, are believed to have been under Ben Khalifa’s control, allowing the diversion of tankers filled with refined diesel to Libyan ports.

The Daphne Project says that fishing boats containing large storage tanks were taken out to sea, while smaller tankers owned by the Debonos would wait for shipto-ship transfers.

Italian investigators reportedly identified many such tankers involved in the operation. Fuel then made its way to mainland Europe through more conventional channels.

Kolmar Group AG and San Lucian Oil Company Ltd had not replied to the Daphne Project’s questions at the time of publication, nor have they made any statements since this particular story broke on Wednesday.

Italian investigators are said to have found a third channel through which Libya’s smuggled oil was moved through Malta. Through wire-tapping, Italian law enforcement is said to have discovered how ships owned by the Debonos were used to unload smuggled fuel to a vessel at sea after which the small tankers were quickly sent back to Libya.

A vessel owned by the Debonos appears to have operated as a floating fuel station in Malta’s territorial waters.

Customs control?

Local fishing co-operatives based in Marsaxlokk are reported to have complained that Gordon and Darren Debono’s ship-to-ship transfers happened without any disturbance or police checks, and that their ships were allowed to dock at two bunkering facilities in Marsa and Birżebbuġa without being checked by the Customs Department.

Italian investigators, the Daphne Project says, have also found that a company owned by Gordon Debono – Petroplus Ltd – was used to fraudulently certify the origin of fuel shipments. Certificates were allegedly falsified to show the oil as originating from Saudi Arabia. The certificates were then sent to the Maltese-Libyan Chamber of Commerce, where a ‘co-operative’ worker would certify their authenticity.

Worse still, it is being reported that Italian police believe the forged certificates were moved through a Maltese notary and an official at Malta’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

A Ministry for Foreign Affairs spokesperson is quoted as saying that the official was tasked with certifying the notarised documents and not with authenticating the certificate itself.