Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is denying claims that he is under investigation for financial crimes in Italy.

He was replying to Newsbook following the publication of an article by Kenneth Rijock’s on his Financial Crime Blog.

The author writes that Italy’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has opened a criminal investigation into Muscat “and his Maltese criminal associates, involving financial transactions that they have conducted inside Italy”.

Muscat told newsbook that such allegations are an “invention”, and that he never had any “financial activities” in Italy. He added that “this discredited individual, who surely has no connection to any institution he ‘quotes’, is once again resorting to fabrications.”

In a later post on Facebook, Muscat said he will react approriately "at the time and by the legitimate methods of my choice".

Describing Ricock as a "not-so-good con artist who can only find fertile ground with the gullible", Muscat said he "never had any 'accounts' or 'financial transactions' in any country other than Malta."

Over the past couple of weeks, a disgraced former lawyer, whose claim to fame is having been at the service of the mob, seems to have taken a liking to me. Based in the United States, but of dubious origin, this individual, who has lost innumerable libel suits because he simply made up stuff, has taken a keen interest in using his failed tactics to invent stories about me.

I will react appropriately, at the time and by the legitimate methods of my choice.

In the meantime, there is some information which is already worth sharing. And this does not relate to the fact that I never had any "accounts" or "financial transactions" in any country other than Malta, as can be ascertained in my publicly available declaration of assets. May I remind everyone that I am the only Maltese politician to have subjected oneself to a magisterial inquiry which had access to worldwide databases and judicial authorities, with this inquiry confirming what I have just said.

Neither has this got to do with the fact that none of the authorities mentioned by this discredited individual would dream of sharing any such information with third parties, let alone a convicted money launderer who has a track record of being found guilty of naming them when inventing such fantasies.

It refers to the fact that even in concocting his weird conspiracies, he fails even to get his basics right. He grandly claims that the Unita' di Informazione Finanziaria per l' Italia (UIF) opened a "criminal probe" on my "financial transactions" in Italy, of which I have none. He even claims he was given permission to divulge the information. But that is besides the point.

In the desktop research he used to make up all this, for reasons we might come to understand later on, he fails to grasp one basic fact. The UIF is an administrative unit within the Banca d' Italia, the Italian Central Bank. Some knowledge of the Italian system, compounded with basic research by anyone who can read Italian, will show that the UIF does not carry out such investigations, but they are carried out by other different entities. Now, such an oversight might be forgiven to an unrefined outsider, but not to someone who claims to be an expert and to have been given this information from within the same authority.

To make it clear: this convicted felon and fraudster claims that an authority told him it is doing something that the same authority does not do.

This further confirms that this person is a not-so-good con artist who can only find fertile ground with the gullible.

It would be good if before rushing to reproduce such hogwash by a convicted fraudster, Maltese media worth their salt take the time to independently verify such outwardly claims, which now even include my aiding of terrorists.

My family and I were at least once subjected to the inventions of another con artist who has to date gone scot free despite everything. The facts showed that she forged documents and signatures, while those aiding her are still hiding behind the intricacies of legal "professional secret". I still have to understand what there is of "professional" in being an accomplice to a con and a fraudster.

For today I stop here.