The government today denied “helping” human traffickers, as reported in Times of Malta today.

In a statement referring to the newspaper’s front page story entitled ‘Maltese authorities may have helped traffickers’, the government said that after weeks of investigations by the Police with the assistance of Identity Malta, which uncovered this case of human trafficking, the Government can confirm that there were no public officials involved.

It is to be noted that Ukranian nationals do not need a visa to travel to Malta and therefore they did not need any help from local authorities to conduct their illegal activities, the government said.

On the contrary, the results obtained in this investigation show that Maltese authorities are functioning well and responding in a timely manner to any abuse of the system.

There are currently 23 persons who are being questioned in relation to this successful operation, the government said.

In its story, Times said that investigators believe that Maltese authorities may have held the traffickers and will “be shining a spotlight on entities involved in the issuance of work permits and border control”.