Insurance company employee accused of redirecting €80,000 in customer payments

An employee at a life-assurance company has been remanded in custody after being accused of redirecting some €80,000 of customer payments to his accounts.

Sicilian-born Salvatore Giuseppe Massimo Pirrello, 51, from Marsaskala was arraigned before magistrate Noel Bartolo on Friday, accused of fraud, misappropriation and computer misuse.

Police Inspector Wayne Rodney Borg, assisted by prosecutors Andreas Vella and Yvette Borg Cardona, explained that Pirrello had been arrested after an investigation into suspicious transfers reported by the life assurance group that employed him.

Working in the accounts department, the defendant had access to information pertaining to monthly payments by corporate clients, as well as the authority to change the banking details for those payments.

Pirrello is alleged to have changed recipient account details in several cases and transferred a total of €80,000 to a number of other accounts, some of them abroad.

The court was told that of those transfers, €28,000 were deemed suspicious and immediately reversed by the bank; the transfer of another €6,000 was also rejected. Pirrello had returned €25,000 of the money he is accused of misappropriating, said the prosecution. 

He pleaded not guilty, his lawyer Joseph Bonnici, requesting bail after telling the court that Pirello had repaid the majority of the money and “only” had around €10,000 left to return.

The prosecution objected to the bail request on the grounds of potential interference with evidence, the absence of any ties to Malta and the fact that the victims had not yet testified.

Prosecutor Andreas Vella told the court that at the time of his arrest, Pirello was found to have already booked flight tickets to Italy and corrected the defence’s figures, saying that a total of €20,000 was still unpaid.

Magistrate Noel Bartolo denied bail at this stage, due to the risks of the defendant tampering with evidence or absconding.

Lawyer Beppe Darmanin appeared parte civile