Francine Farrugia made use of the identities of multiple MCAST employees to submit duplicate payroll entries, diverting funds into her own account, a court heard on Thursday.
The accused entered the courtroom wearing a mask, accompanied by a nurse.
Francine Farrugia is facing multiple charges including money laundering, fraud, and misappropriation of over €2.3 million in public funds. The former Siġġiewi local councillor served as a manager within the salaries department at the MCAST.
Farrugia exploited her access to MCAST’s internal salary system to issue illegal double payments to herself over a two-year period, a court heard. In total, €2,337,258.80 was allegedly transferred fraudulently.
Inspector Wayne Rodney Borg explained how internal investigations uncovered that approximately €2.3 million had been fraudulently siphoned from MCAST’s payroll system.
He stated that Farrugia had access to the salaries system, which she allegedly manipulated by making double entries.
One example showed that a salary registered under a fictitious name “John Borg” was entered twice, once into Borg’s legitimate account, and a second time into accounts belonging to Francine.
This was repeated in the name of many other employees, the court heard.
An analysis of Farrugia bank accounts showed that she had transferred the amounts into her personal bank accounts. Investigators presented a detailed breakdown in court, identifying transfers of around €422,000 in her Revolut account and €1.9 million in other bank accounts. These included three accounts at APS, one at HSBC, one at BOV, and two at MeDirect.
Initially, the amounts per transaction ranged between €5,000 and €6,000, but over time, these payments increased significantly, sometimes reaching €18,000 per transaction in 2025.
The inspector referenced the lavish shopping sprees recorded in her account transactions, including €113,000 spent at Harrods in London. During a search of her residence, police discovered large quantities of luxury clothes, high-end handbags, and jewellery, including a €5,000 necklace, backed by a corresponding transaction. Documents of very recent promise of sales were also found.
When interrogated, Farrugia declined to answer the police’s questions. A CD recording of her interrogation was submitted to the court. Despite her silence, she cooperated with police regarding her residences, handing over her keys, Borg said.
Searches across all her properties were finalised on 11 August 2025, with the cooperation of her legal team. These yielded further evidence of high-value purchases and documents related to recent property transactions.
Testimony of MCAST CFO
During Thursday’s sitting, MCAST Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Marita Brincat testified. She briefly explained how her role covers the preparation of accounts for auditing and oversight of all financial operations.
“Payroll fell under a separate department”, she said.
Brincat explained how she first became aware of the irregularities after police handed over a specific Revolut account number for her to analyse.
In May 2025 alone, twelve transactions were funneled into Farrugia’s Revolut account. The names of MCAST employees were being used in the transactions but the bank accounts receiving the money actually belonged to Farrugia.
Brincat clarified that she verified employees had not received the excess payments by reviewing their payslips. The inflated amounts were visible solely in the bank file and did not appear on the payslips.
Transactions were removed from the system by Farrugia
She also stated that the payroll system permits salaries to be distributed into two different accounts. On a monthly basis, she reviews the bank file and cross-checks it with the payroll file, to confirm that the figures correspond.
She explained that her audits relied on a report and bank file prepared by the payroll unit, where Farrugia was involved.
This file needed to match another internal payroll file. Under normal circumstances, all transactions would be visible in the payroll system. However, the unauthorised transactions were deliberately removed from the system, the court heard.
Brincat presented an example of a payslip showing an employee received just over €2,000 in a given month. Yet a second payslip, never received by the employee but not deleted from the system, recorded a post-tax adjustment of around €9,000 deposited into Farrugia’s account.
She added that no MCAST employee ever reported missing salary payments.
No fraudulent transaction reported to MCAST
During her review, Brincat discovered that in some months some transactions were listed for employees who had not actually worked in that month. When Farrugia was not on duty, no transactions were made.
Brincat explained how the auditors, PKF Malta, completed the audit for 2023, the year when Farrugia allegedly began misappropriating funds. She confirmed that the auditors highlighted no issues in their findings. Brincat emphasised MCAST was never notified of any fraudulent transactions by auditors.
Under cross-examination, Brincat was asked whether the system pointed out any irregularities.
She replied that any modifications to the system would generate an audit trail but she never requested one. She explained that it was considered unnecessary at the time, as any discrepancies would be adjusted if an MCAST employee did not receive their payment.
Defence lawyer Peter Fenech asked the witness to clarify: “if she had not confirmed the amounts, Farrugia would not have received any money?” The witness agreed.
Brincat added the checks were performed after the bank file is sent and by then the fraudulent transactions had already been removed. She confirmed that there was no reconciliation between the bank file and actual expenditures. Auditors never raised any concerns, she confirmed.
She also said she had noted had some payroll changes in receiving the payroll file during some months. She confirmed that she never audited those changes since the audit is carried out after she recieves the bank file.
Defence lawyer Peter Fenech also asked if she had noticed the same bank account number being used multiple times. She replied that the entries were not listed after each other so it was hard to notice.
Anita Muscat, Francine’s colleague at the Payroll Unit also testified. She confirmed that once the salaries data is entered, Francine Farrugia would create a payroll file and forward it to Brincat. After receiving approval, Farrugia would then prepare and issue the bank file. If Farrugia was not there, Muscat would do it.
The witness mentioned an instance when she had sent the bank file herself. Two days later, Farrugia had called her up saying she had resent the bank file to Brincat and told her she had found a mistake.
Bail granted to Farrugia
Bail was requested by the defence. The prosecution did not object to bail at this stage but stressed that the conditions must include a strict curfew to properly control the accused. Bail was granted against a €50,000 deposit and a personal guarantee of €25,000.
She was ordered to sign the bail book daily at the Qormi police station between 8am and 4pm. Farrugia was warned of the consequences of breaching the bail.
The sitting was adjourned to 26 August at 9am.
Farrugia was represented by defence lawyers Peter Fenech and Amy Zahra.
Prosecution was led by AG lawyers Alessia Schembri and Michael Muscat, with police inspector Wayne Rodney Borg.
Defence lawyers Stefano Filletti and Thea Licari appeared for MCAST.
The case was heard before Magistrate Rachel Montebello.