Debonos made €82 million in just one year
The Daphne Project reports that the Libya-Malta-Europe fuel smuggling ring run by Gozitan brothers Darren and Gordon Debono together with Libyan and Sicilian associates linked to the mafia earned the operation up to €82 million in just one year through a single Italian buyer.
According to The Times of Malta, which is part of the Daphne Project, hundreds of Italian police files, corporate documents, marine data and UN reports have been uncovered, and corroborative interviews have been carried out by the Investigative Report Project Italy (IRPI). The material reportedly shows a multi-million-dollar operartion “carried out under Maltese authorities’ noses.”
In response to questions about the leaked files and the ongoing operation, the police are quoted as saying they could not do anything about the operation because the smuggling took place outside Malta’s territorial waters.
Italian police, however, believe this not to be entirely true, as tankers filled in Libya made ship-to-ship transfers at the edge of Hurd’s Bank, a shallow area on the periphery of Maltese territorial waters – under Malta’s control.
The Daphne Project says it has seeing marine surveillance logs showing how tankers owned by the Debonos – including the Barbosa Star, Sea Master X and Amazig F – were observed either transferring illegal shipments onto larger tankers at Hurd’s Bank or directly emptying their shipments into a dolphin in the Marsa area of the Grand Harbour. It is believed that the dolphin 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.
Involved parties
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, northwestern Libya, are reported to have been under Ben Khalifa’s control, allowing the diversions 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 ship-to-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 did not reply to the Daphne Project’s questions at the time of publication.
Italian investigators are said to have found a third channel through which Libya’s smuggled oil was moved through Malta. Through wiretapping, 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 two brothers appears to have operated as a floating fuel station in Malta’s territorial waters.
Stop and search
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 check-ups, 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.
The Times of Malta reports that certificates were falsified to show the oil as originating in Saudi Arabia. Those certificates were then sent to the MalteseLibyan 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 foreign affairs ministry spokesperson is quoted as saying that the official was tasked with certifying the notarised documents and not with authenticating the certificate itself.
The Daphne Project is a collaboration between 18 media organisations in 15 countries which seeks to continue the work of Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered in a car bomb explosion last October. The project is co-ordinated by French NGO Forbidden Stories.