On 24 October 2022, a German online portal reported: “Iosif Galea has been found guilty of tax evasion by a Frankfurt District court which handed him a 30-month prison sentence”. Less than 10 months later, Iosif Galea, Joseph Muscat’s travelling partner, is back in Malta. He stands charged with financial crimes and misuse of electronic equipment. How come? What happened to the 30-month prison sentence? Was Galea’s sentence reduced for good behaviour? Or did the Maltese authorities engineer his early release on the pretext of a European arrest warrant?
Galea’s lawyer stated that Galea served his prison term in Germany and insisted on returning to Malta. “After a year and a half in the foreign jail, he longed to go home,” the lawyer added.
Galea was arrested between 14 and 15 May 2022 in Brindisi while on holiday with former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. He should never have been on holiday, least of all with a former Prime Minister. Galea should have been arrested months before. Galea was on police bail but still travelled abroad. He had a European Arrest Warrant issued against him by the German authorities which Malta’s police ignored for a year - despite three reminders from the Germans.
Galea should have been investigated years before when then Inspector Angelo Gafa discovered that Galea had allegedly leaked sensitive information from the Lotteries and Gaming Authority (later the Malta Gaming Authority). Gafa was investigating John Dalli when he stumbled upon Galea’s suspicious activities. Gafa wrote a note in the police file ordering Galea to be investigated. But in 2013, Labour came to power. And Galea was never investigated. An inquiry looking into the Maltese police’s failure to extradite him was “not given justification why the 2013 case was not investigated or why it was left pending for almost a decade”. Galea was protected repeatedly from the law and shielded from extradition.
In 2015, Daphne Caruana Galizia reported that Galea was under investigation by the Italian anti-Mafia authorities for alleged involvement in the money laundering of profits of the Ndrangheta-controlled cocaine market. Galea was director of Betsolutions4U, a company part-owned by GVM Holdings Ltd which provided an Ndrangheta-linked company, Betuniq with offices in Malta. Galea was later removed from the list of suspects.
Galea was also linked to Bet90Sports whose auditors were Brian Tonna’s Nexia BT. Bet90Sports was believed to be a legacy of VeltycoGroup/B90 Holdings which was suspected of scamming 200,000 vulnerable people of over 200 million euro. The Velytco group was founded by German Uwe Lenhoff who died mysteriously in a German prison. Soon after, a whistleblower aged 34 died in Serbia of a “heart attack” despite being in good health. After Lenhoff’s inexplicable death Veltyco was renamed B90 Holdings PLD and Iosif Galea was appointed its new director.
Meanwhile the German authorities were pursuing Galea for evading 1.7 million in taxes over a period of 32 months between May 2017 and December 2019. Galea as director of Tipin failed to pay tax on his income from sports betting. Despite repeated reminders to Maltese police, the Germans’ European Arrest Warrant for Galea was ignored.
Galea was so confident of being protected that despite being on bail and having a European arrest warrant on his head, he travelled to Italy with Joseph Muscat. But Italian police swooped, triggering damning headlines for Malta. “As a location for many large online casinos, such a case was not exactly welcome,” a leading German online portal reported, “especially since the person concerned was probably able to act undisturbed over a long period of time with the help of people close to government. In the end, he was only arrested in May 2022 during a holiday in Italy on a trip with former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat”.
The Maltese police tried to cover the whole thing up. They made no public statements about his arrest. His arrest only became public through media reports. Only after his arrest did the Maltese police issue their own European arrest warrant to attempt to bring him back to Malta and spare him prosecution in Germany. But their efforts failed. Galea was extradited to Germany, prosecuted and sentenced.
But despite years of Galea’s suspicious activity, he was still considered a “fit and proper person” by the MGA. In fact he was a key official, a money laundering reporting officer, a compliance officer and a director of Malta gambling companies. Only after his arrest and extradition to Germany did the MGA finally strip him of his directorship.
When Italian police pounced, Joseph Muscat denied any connection with Iosif Galea. “To indicate the contrary is not only gratuitous but absolutely baseless sensationalism”, Muscat declared. Muscat just threw Galea under the bus. “We were travelling with a larger group of friends and acquaintances for a short holiday. A few hours after our arrival we were informed that Mr Galea was detained - the rest of the group continued with our holiday,” Muscat added.
But Galea was no mere acquaintance. He was the boyfriend of Michelle Muscat’s private secretary, Maria Grech. She was appointed Mrs Muscat’s private secretary on a full-time basis and accompanied the Prime Minister’s wife on most of her Marigold foundation events. Galea himself is closely linked to Labour’s inner circles. His father was the chief of staff of Minister Michael Farrugia. Galea was photographed embracing Labour’s former Zurrieq mayor, Natius Farrugia at one of Jason Micallef’s election parties. He was on a trip with the former PM.
Malta’s police corps conveniently closed both eyes to Galea’s suspicious activities for years. So did the MGA. Our authorities failed to investigate him, failed to arrest him, failed to extradite him and let him go on holiday with Joseph Muscat. Now, the Maltese authorities have repatriated him from a prison in Germany. Expect mistakes in the charge sheets, erroneous dates, lost documents and other somersaults in his ensuing prosecution - because Joseph Muscat has no connection with Iosif Galea.