While much of the country has been focusing on the oil procurement commissions scandal, many may have missed what, in reality, could very well have been the larger racket – and one that is believed to have leeched directly from the public coffers.

It is, in fact, the shady business of fuel bunkering that is the focus of the investigations that led to Francis Portelli and Anthony Cassar being arraigned in court on Thursday. They were charged with money laundering, trading in influence in public tenders and having corrupted former Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone (ultimately responsible for Mediterranean Offshore Bunkering Company Limited at the time) and Frank Sammut (the former chief executive of MOBC). Mr Tabone had joined the Island Bunker Oils Company in 2008, after he left Enemalta. Charges presented in court against Mr Portelli and Mr Cassar relate to their positions as directors of Island Bunker Oils and a number of shipping industry subsidiaries.

Apart from that, not much is known about the details of the case against Mr Portelli and Mr Cassar, although upcoming court proceedings will shed considerable light on the case.

But a number of informed sources speaking to this newspaper have confirmed that the case against Mr Portelli and Mr Cassar revolves, at least in part, around the purchase of a ship or a number of ships by Island Bunker Oils or its subsidiaries.

From documentation freely available online, it transpires that Island Bunker Oils operated three ships for bunkering purposes: the M/T Mistra Bay, the M/T Anchor Bay and the M/T Golden Bay.

Sources highlighted the fact that MOBC had originally intended to purchase at least one of the ships, the M/T Anchor Bay, which has changed names a number of times over the years and which had once been named the M/T Oarsman, for bunkering runs. MOBC was headed at the time by Mr Tabone in his capacity as Enemalta chairman and Mr Sammut as MOBC chief executive. 

But for some reason the MOBC appears to have backed out of the purchase, according to our sources, only for the ship to be purchased instead by a company controlled by Mr Portelli and Mr Cassar. The ship was then operated by Island Bunker Oils, which, after MOBC had been dissolved, somehow managed to take on a large part of MOBC’s former bunkering business.

Sources allege that the M/T Anchor Bay, instead of being purchased and operated by MOBC, had been purchased by Mr Portelli and Mr Cassar for USD600,000, only to have been leased back to the MOBC for USD3,000 a day.  That would mean that the ship paid for itself in just 200 days of service at the MOBC, at the expense of the public coffers.

Police charges against Mr Portelli and Mr Cassar include allegations related to their ownership of subsidiaries Oarsman Maritime and Anchor Bay Maritime – both presumably named after the ship in question, which had been named the M/T Oarsman until September 2003 and the M/T Anchor Bay until September 2010. 

It now belongs to a Turkish-owned shipping company registered in Malta and bears the name M/T Oluwakemi.

The police are alleging that Mr Tabone and Mr Sammut, together responsible for MOBC and who were arraigned earlier in the week on separate charges, had been corrupted by Mr Portelli and Mr Cassar.

As such, it is believed that the charges against Mr Portelli and Mr Cassar of having corrupted Mr Tabone and Mr Sammut go back to the purchase of the M/T Oarsman-M/T Anchor and its subsequent lease to MOBC. The charge of trading in influence in public tenders, it is believed, relates to bunkering tenders awarded after MOBC had been wound up.

The police stated in court this week that the arraignment of Mr Cassar and Mr Portelli had absolutely nothing to do with the allegations of oil procurement commissions.  Their case, the police said, was more serious since Mr Tabone and Mr Sammut were public officials at the time when the alleged crimes were committed.