Why Maugeri officials laundered €15m through Malta

Milan magistrates investigating the money laundering carried out by officials of the Salvatore Maugeri Foundation have discovered that most of the €15 million siphoned off through Malta via the Bank of Valletta and SIB Laboratories Ltd based in Balzan were used to conduct business in Chile, Argentine and Israel and to buy villas in Sardinia, vineyards and planes. SIB Laboratories Ltd also boasts that it has business with Iran and Umberto Maugeri was in India when an arrest warrant was issued for him.

The magistrates are piecing together information they are getting from data in computers and from what five arrested Maugeri officials have told them about the trail of money they got out of Italy between 2004 and 2011. Most of the money was for Pierangelo Dacco` and Antonio Simone.

Malta was used extensively after 2008 when the company SIB Laboratories Ltd was set up a few months after the general election. The money was passed on by the Milan based company Periplo which has the same address as that of the office of the Italian accountant Gianfranco Parricchi at Via Pacini, 28. Parricchi is also a director of SIB Ltd whose company secretary was Dr David Gonzi, the son of the Prime Minister till he resigned after the media broke the news of the Maugeri scandal.

SIB Laboratories Ltd told the company auditing their accounts that they have not been authorised to say who the people behind Periplo are.

So far investigations carried out by Milan magistrates have found that SIB Laboratories Ltd was given €15.6 million for its research projects with the University of Malta and the Russian Academy of Science in nanotechnology, telemedicine, space medicine and innovative technology.

The University of Malta said last week that it received only €11,771 from SIB Laboratories Ltd. Milan magistrates investigating the case have found out that up to €12 million ended up in Costantino Passerino’s accounts in Malta.

The last time he was in Malta was on 6 October 2011 when he was accompanied by his consultant Gianfranco Mozzali. Both of them (photo above) have been arrested since mid-April and are being investigated for money laundering, tax evasion and misappropriation of public funds.

Passerino and Mozzali were both in Malta at least twice in 2010: on 15 October and on 18 and 19 November. Milan magistrates have collected evidence that Malta was used at least till the end of 2011 by a network of persons who laundered up to €70 million by sending them to overseas accounts for largely fictitious business activity that cost much less to finance.    

Magistrates are investigating what they believe is a huge money laundering operation by Maugeri officials including Passerino and Mozzali through a complex web of connections involving the Catholic group ‘Comunione e Liberazione’, universities, research institutes and well connected persons “to open doors”.