Malta government's Bill 142 encourages bribery, corruption, and organised crime

Malta government’s Bill 142 undermines the criminal punishment of the corrupt when witness testimony or other evidence of corruption is not available to prosecutors. The bill with no telos or public purpose, was tailor made for party insiders and rushed through parliament by government in one day last August. It enables the cancellation or pre-emption of criminal charges through a settlement agreement with Malta’s tax authorities. Malta’s former consul to Shanghai and his wife are the latest to ask for a deal with tax authorities to kill money laundering and tax evasion charges against them.

Aldo and Isabel Cutajar are implicated in nearly €2 million in suspicious payments from Hong Kong, made to him while he was a full-time public official, that investigators have said could be linked to corrupt visa sales to Chinese nationals. In 2020, the couple were charged with money laundering and pleaded not guilty. They are now seeking a tax settlement which will extinguish all criminal charges against them, claiming that they were never charged with corruption in the first place. Bill 142 excludes settlement for crimes related to corruption.

The Cutajars join a growing list of high-profile cases where the accused walk away from money laundering and tax evasion charges, thanks to Bill 142. Konrad Mizzi’s associate Aron Mifsud Bonnici, and Nigel and Mikaela Scerri, the accountants in business with former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s close friends Diane and Karl Izzo, and car dealer Christian Borg, a former client of Prime Minister Robert Abela, have reached tax settlements that cancelled their ongoing criminal proceedings without the consent of the prosecutor.

Mifsud Bonnici was accused of money laundering, tax evasion, and making false declarations to the Malta Tax and Customs Administration (MTCA). On 23rd July 2025, more than €1.6 million of Mifsud Bonnici’s assets were frozen in a court order as part of the case. Nigel and Mikaela Scerri were arraigned in January 2025 on tax evasion and money laundering charges when authorities reportedly discovered a €1.5 million discrepancy in their tax and VAT declarations.

Christian Borg, a car dealer, was charged in a €1.6 million tax evasion and money laundering case, and was previously charged with kidnapping in a separate case. Prime Minister Robert Abela, Borg’s former legal advisor, once profited from a 2018 property deal with him. Borg’s current tax settlement agreement also covers his co-accused, Monique Mizzi, and Joseph Camenzuli, a former Labour Party photographer.

Criminal charges for tax evasion are one of the only tools available in Malta for tackling organised crime. The notorious criminal Al Capone ruled over an empire of gambling, sex trafficking, bribery, narcotics trafficking, robbery, extortion, and murder. He remained out of reach of the law until he was convicted on tax charges and served a prison sentence in Alcatraz.

Malta’s ability to tackle tax evasion was a reason it was placed on - and later removed from - the FATF Grey List. Bill 142 is not a solution. It encourages bribery, corruption, and organised crime by protecting perpetrators from criminal punishment and strips away the autonomy of the chief prosecutor.