PN leader Bernard Grech is the latest person to fall victim to a host of fake emails which are being circulated around newsrooms.

Emails circulated to a number of media outlets, including The Malta Independent, supposedly show how Grech is coordinating a disinformation campaign centring on spoofing a number of media outlets with PN MP Jason Azzopardi.

The emails are fake, and this newspaper has already exposed how they are being sent through a Czech fake emailing website in such a manner that it seems as if they are arriving from their actual email address.

“I have been informed that fake emails in my name are circulating as part of a widespread disinformation campaign in Malta”, Grech said on Monday.

He is not the first victim: a number of newsrooms – such as Lovin Malta, NET News, Newsbook and Strada Rjali – and blogger Manuel Delia have seen their websites spoofed with articles which seek to lay doubts on the case against Yorgen Fenech – who will stand trial for the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

“After cloning news websites to deliberately spread fake news, the perpetrators are now specifically trying to damage the Opposition,” Grech said.

“These are dangerous anti-democratic tactics. We cannot allow them to go unpunished. We cannot accept to strengthen the culture of impunity that led to the murder of a journalist,” he added.

Grech said that the police’s cybercrime unit needs to be beefed up and the government and opposition must meet urgently to make sure the laws regulating cybercrime are strengthened ahead of the upcoming election.

“Robert Abela cannot remain silent about this. Silence is complicity. We will not remain silent,” he said.