Five years in jail, €10,000 fine and 15-year suspension for VRT fraud

Police have arraigned two men over the issuing of a number of VRT certificates to cars that were never tested.

In separate arraignments today Jesmond Pulis, 52, and Stephen Zerafa, 39, both from Zabbar, pleaded guilty to charges of knowingly making use of false documents, making false declarations to a public authority and forgery.

Inspector Sergio Pisani from the police force's Traffic Section told the court that police had investigated the XTC VRT station in Zabbar following a tip-off and discovered that Pulis' “assistant”, Zerafa, had been signing documents in Pulis' name while the latter was on a three-month trip to Thailand and would wire money to him via Western Union. Around 100 certificates had been issued to vehicles, 20 of which had not even gone to the testing station, the court heard.

Pulis alone was also charged with a number of other charges relating to his failing to safeguard standards and regulations in vehicle roadworthiness testing and certifying cars that had never been tested and relapsing. He was also charged with several offences relating to registration of employees.

The court was also told that Pulis' VRT test station was not registered with Transport Malta as required by law and could therefore not validly issue VRT certificates.

The police inspector said that the certification of potentially unsafe vehicles was particularly galling in view of the authorities' ongoing campaign to improve road safety.

Just this week, a high level EU conference on road safety was held in Malta, with former Ferrari Formula 1 team racing director and UN special envoy Jean Todt amongst the attendees.

Both Zerafa and Pulis  known as "xelinu," pleaded guilty to the charges against them.

“You already had a suspended sentence and you breached that too. Do you have something to say for yourself?” the court asked Pulis. “Nothing,” he replied.

In view of his admission, Pulis was jailed for three years for this offence, the court also bringing into effect a two-year suspended sentence which he had been given in 2013 for intentionally ramming a car in which his ex-partner was a passenger. He was also slapped with a €10,000 fine and had his VRT test station licence revoked for 15 years.

Zerafa will be sentenced after a pre-sentencing report is completed.

Lawyer Peter Paul Zammit appeared for Zerafa.