OLAF report presented with missing documents in Dalli sisters' money laundering case

A lawyer has flagged missing documents which should have been attached to a report by the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF regarding former EU commissioner John Dalli, exhibited in a fraud and money laundering case against his daughters.

The compilation of evidence against sisters Louisa Dalli and Claire Gauci Borda continued before magistrate Caroline Farrugia Frendo today. They are accused of running a $600,000 Ponzi scheme which defrauded several American pensioners of their life savings. Previous sittings heard how funds from the scheme were wired to a company registered at John Dalli’s Portomaso address.

The case has been ongoing since 2018, originally against the Dalli siblings along with Eloise Corbin Klein, Charles Ray Jackson, Elizabeth Jean Jackson and Robert Mitchell McIvor, who were all charged with fraud, misappropriation, forgery and making false declarations to a public authority.

As the case dragged on, beset by procedural difficulties and delays, four of the accused passed away, the last of whom, Corbin Klein, died earlier this year.

Prosecuting police inspector Hubert Cini took over the case after former lead investigator Inspector Yvonne Farrugia became Malta’s European Prosecutor at the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. In September this year, Cini presented a copy of the OLAF report as ordered by the court in a previous decree.

The court had seen evidence revealing that officers from OLAF had called for action to be taken against Dalli’s daughters, leading to the court requesting the exhibition of the OLAF report.

In the meantime, the prosecution exhibited the report, which however, had a large number of references to documents annexed to the report. Lawyer Stefano Filletti dictated a note to the court. “To date, these annexes have not been given to the defence. At this stage, the defence would like a clarification about the following points: When the OLAF report was sent to the AG, did it have the annexes attached? If, when the acts were sent by the AG to the police, were the annexes attached? If they were not received by the police, or if they were, and cannot be found today, what happened to them?” Filletti argued that even if the documents had disappeared, the police could make a request to OLAF to send another copy of the annexes so that they can be exhibited in these proceedings.

Cini promised to go through all the case documentation again and request guidance from the AG.

The case continues in February.

Lawyers Stefano Filletti and Stephen Tonna Lowell are defence counsel to the Dalli sisters.