Tajik woman 'posed as financial intermediary in €200,000 fraud'

A Tajik woman has been denied bail this afternoon after she was charged with defrauding two Maltese businessmen and a Maltese company out of nearly €200,000. 

Inspector Jonathan Ferris and Inspector Raymond Aquilina from the Economic Crimes Unit arraigned 50-year-old San Gwann resident Eva Aydelman before magistrate Francesco Depasquale, accusing her of having misappropriated €150,000 from two businessmen on the pretext of her acting as an intermediary between the men and a Chinese bank. 

Inspector Ferris explained that two days ago the police had received a complaint from a developer who had been introduced to the accused by a friend, who happens to be her landlord. The developer was seeking financing investment in relation to a business development involving the purchase of two premises in Valletta for conversion into a boutique hotel. 

The accused had told the developer and his business partner to travel to Hong Kong, where she had instructed them to make contact with the China Construction Bank. In Hong Kong, the three had signed various forms opening accounts at the bank for the men, as well as insurance policies for a requested credit facility of €17.5 million. 

The men returned to Malta on the 17 October, after which they started to press the accused to give them updates about the status of this credit facility. Aydelman then asked for another specimen signature, claiming that the Chinese bank had noticed differences between the specimens and the signatures on the forms. After encountering unexplained delays in the granting of the loan, the businessman had made enquiries with the bank, finding to their horror that no request for a credit facility had ever been filed. 

A few days later, the complainant was notified that €5 million had been received by the vendor of the Valletta palazzos via SWIFT transfer. He checked the transfer and it emerged that the funds were not issued by the Chinese bank but from one in Germany. When the complainant was inquiring, he had received a scanned copy of his application for the credit facility, which bore the men’s signatures. 

He had smelled a rat because the complainant and his business partner had never put pen to paper on the same form, at the same time. The police were informed and had carried out investigations, which resulted that the scanned copy of the agreement bore a striking similarity to a specimen signature card, retrieved from Aydelmann’s residence.

“It was identical to that found on that document,” said the Inspector, reminding the court that the card was meant to have been couriered to China and not held at her flat.

“Also, the text in the PDF file could be highlighted as one, except for the signature, which indicated that the signature was pasted after the document was scanned,” said Ferris. “We know that the loan insurance has been granted, but there is no loan. It was a mise en scene intended to make the complainants believe that something was happening when in fact nothing was being done.” 

The total amount, including the insurance cost, misappropriated was calculated to be some €195,000. Aydelman was charged with fraud, misappropriation, forgery, making use of forged documents and with acting as a financial institution or intermediary when not in possession of the requisite licence. 

Defence lawyer Roberto Montalto entered a plea of not guilty and requested bail, pointing out that the strong ties the woman had with the island and her clean conviction sheet.

“Aydelmann stands charged here because of a financial transaction gone wrong,” said Montalto. “The reason for this and the responsibility will emerge later. Before complaining to the Commissioner of Police, the injured party made no attempt to retrieve the money owed through the civil courts.”

“I know that given her capacities and past business dealings, €150k the minimum, is not a sum that she would be unable to repay,” added Montalto. 

Inspector Raymond Aquilina, also prosecuting, objected to bail on several grounds - amongst them the fact that the woman had asked to make contact with a prosecution witness during her detention at the police lockup. He requested the accused’s assets be made subject to a freezing order.

Montalto strenuously objected to the latter request, describing the freezing order as having “become an indiscriminate tool which the courts have become all too eager to accept. Everybody thinks that once the prosecution requests this order it should be acceded to without the defence being given the opportunity to contest.” Magistrate Depasquale did not accede to the request for bail, however. 

Neither did the court entertain the defence’s request for a temporary ban on the publication of Aydelman’s name, pointing to the gravity of the offence, saying it was one which the public was entitled to know about.

Aydelman appeared to lose consciousness towards the end of the sitting, slumping into the arms of a young woman who is thought to be a close relative. She was taken to hospital by ambulance after her arraignment. 

This is not the first time the Aydelman family has featured in local headlines. In April, Aydelman’s 53-year-old husband Simon had been charged after allegedly shooting a pistol at her in their San Gwann home. Luckily the bullet had missed its target, penetrating the television and the window behind the television, before lodging itself in the façade of a building across the road.