Former gaming official charged with money laundering, extortion and bribes

Jason Farrugia, the former Chief Technology Officer of the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA), has been charged with money laundering together with his wife Christine in connection to his work as the authority.

The two pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday afternoon. Both were charged with money laundering, but Farrugia was handed a raft of other offences.

The offences include extortion, accepting bribes, trading in influence, fraud exceeding €5,000, misappropriation, disclosing conditional information, and computer misuse. 

Both were denied bail. 

Farrugia was dismissed from his post at the MGA in December 2021 over improper access and misuse of company data. The case had been referred to the police for further investigation. 

Farrugia had been with the MGA for 10 years, fist employed as a Licensee Relationship Executive, and later occupied the positions of Systems Monitoring Executive and Information Systems Manager respectively.

He was then appointed Head of ICT & Records and later as Chief Technology Officer.