Farmers found guilty of subsidy fraud

A court has handed suspended sentences to two farmers from Mellieha, after they were found to have misrepresented imported tomatoes as locally-grown produce at the Pitkalija and then claimed state aid subsidies.

Full-time farmer Joseph Attard, 55, and 57-year old Joseph Manuel Galea had been accused of importing seven tons of tomatoes from Sicily in 2003. Two tons of the imports were sold at the Pitkalija farmer’s market, masquerading as locally grown tomatoes. 

Investigations began after an eagle-eyed official noticed that the tomatoes which were being sold were in too ripe a condition when compared to those grown locally. 

The court had heard one agricultural expert testify that some of the fruit had been “artificially placed” in one of the greenhouses in such a way as to give the impression that the greenhouse was full. 

Galea had told the court he was a part-time farmer, his primary job being that of a technical officer at the abattoir. Galea insisted that his involvement with the case was limited to Attard using his garage to store tomatoes. 

For his part, Attard claimed that the tomatoes he had sold at the Pitkalija were grown in his greenhouses and denied attempting to claim subsidies for an ineligible product. 

Attard claimed that he, together with Galea, had transported the tomatoes from Sicily on board the catamaran. He confirmed that the tomatoes were stored in Galea’s garage and claimed that as he had sold most of the produce on the street, he did not give any receipts. 

Court-appointed agricultural expert Antoine Vella had reported that the tomatoes were not grown locally. During his visit to the defendants’ greenhouses, Vella had reported that the tomato plants were too young to give fruit. He described finding local tomatoes scattered artificially to give the impression that there were a few plants which had reached maturity, however after this he had noted a large number of empty tomato crates from Sicily in Galea’s garage. 

While the court expert had not found any Sicilian tomatoes on the farm, he confirmed that the produce being sold at Pitkali was not locally grown.

The amount of subsidy the men could have expected to benefit from was not specified, but is thought to be in the low hundreds of euros. 

In fact, the farmers’ lawyers had argued that effectively the case revolved around a fraud of Lm1.01, although this amount was contested by the prosecution. 

The Director of Agriculture from the Ministry for Sustainable Development, called to testify, could not officially confirm what the subsidy given for tomatoes was at the time, as in 2002, “subsidies were calculated over the global amount, not individuals”. 

The court, presided by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, noted that the accused had claimed to have sold the Sicilian tomatoes to third parties and denied passing it off as local produce at the Pitkalija. However, they could not produce receipts to prove this. 

She noted that for the crime of fraud to subsist, there must be an intention to obtain money by false pretences, at another’s cost. In this case, said the court, a mise en scene had been created by the accused; they had gone to Sicily, imported an amount of tomatoes and then mixed them with local tomatoes to give the impression that the produce was all local and thereby benefit from the government subsidy. 

The accused had failed to prove that the tomatoes found at the Pitkalija were produced locally, held the court. Nor had they proved that that the imported tomatoes had been sold elsewhere. 

The men were found guilty of defrauding the government and handed a 12-month prison sentence suspended for three years. 

Inspectors Kevin Farrugia and Ian Abdilla prosecuted.