The unseen enemy: organised crime networks exploiting Malta’s geography

Malta has always been a strategic hub at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. This has attracted businesses, tourists, and... criminals.

In an interview with MaltaToday, Assistant Police Commissioner Malcolm Bondin said Malta’s strategic position makes it an ideal transit hub for significant drug trafficking operations.

“Geographically, Malta is in a perfect position,” he said. “If we’re talking about trafficking of huge quantities, and larger criminal networks, Malta tends to be used for its logistics base and its strategic position as a transit country.”

Record quantities of cocaine have been intercepted by Customs in the past. In 2022 Customs seized a record-breaking 1.5 tonnes of Colombian cocaine, with an estimated street value of €300 million.

But these amounts are never destined for Malta, according to Malcolm Bondin. “Malta is a transit country […] There are vessels that leave South America and come to Malta directly, without stopping in any other country. This makes Malta strategically placed within the EU.”

Police inspector Clive Victor Borg agreed that most organised crime groups in Malta stay in the country for short periods of time, mostly to exploit the island’s strategic location for logistical purposes.

“The drug market supply chain is split across four stages,” he explained. “The first is in obtaining the raw material and manufacturing, then it’s logistics, then the drug needs to find the right market, and after it’s sold you have the laundering of proceeds.”

Bondin pointed out that Malta is well-connected to serve as a logistics base for organised crime groups, noting good sea travel connections with Italy as well as connections to Libya.

“But in Malta we don’t have the size to produce certain amounts of drugs. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it would be small, limited amounts.”

From Ecuador with love: Cocaine that was transiting through Malta on its way to Georgia in 2020 (Photo: Malta Customs)

Seasonal and opportunistic crime

Bondin said there are plenty of seasonal organised crime groups, but some involve themselves between Malta and third countries. These tend to be the bigger crime groups that work in drugs and smuggling.

Malta’s attractiveness to tourists makes it a target for organised crime groups (OCGs), particularly those focusing on theft and scams. “Organised crime groups target tourism-heavy areas,” Bondin said. “They engage in pickpocketing, tourist scams, card readers. Wherever there is a booming economy, you will find these people.”

Borg said pickpocketing tends to increase in summer because of increased opportunity. “Malta is also part of an open border network, the Schengen. Criminal groups can use these open borders to facilitate their movement. It’s not a bad thing, but we have to acknowledge that law enforcement needs to do more because of this.”

Ultimately, organised crime is going to go wherever there is opportunity, Bondin explained. “It’s going to go where it can thrive, where it can get products, carry out logistics, it goes where people have money. It’s not going to go somewhere where the economy is bad and people don’t have money.”

Borg added that organised crime groups, while opportunistic, always measure the risks of what they are going to do.

“As law enforcement we are bound by laws and procedures, but these people don’t care. They’re always three to four steps ahead. They exploit opportunities.”

Crime goes where there’s opportunity and valuables

Apart from tourist-targeted crimes, many organised crime groups in Malta tend to engage in theft. Bondin recalled catching one particular group responsible for a string of thefts in Sliema.

“They target certain places where they know they can find stuff. They tend to target flats and will go there when people are at work. They will go into an apartment block and target several flats because they know most people will be at work during the day. They also know that the economy dictates that, generally, both the man and woman work nowadays, so many residences will be unattended.”

Borg pointed out that criminal groups don’t tend to target specific demographics, and are more concerned with valuables. “The most common, achievable and easy-to-transit valuables are cash and jewelry. So they will target areas where there is opportunity to do this, like urban areas, rather than seeking out a specific demographic.”

However, Borg pointed out that demographics come into play when it comes to online fraud committed by these criminal groups. “The elderly might not be as well-versed on social media and IT, and so might be targeted more because they are more vulnerable. In this case, demographic can be a factor. But when it comes to property theft this is not the case.”

Left: A cocaine shipment hidden in a container of bananas busted at Malta Freeport in 2022 was estimated to have a street value of €300 million and (right) an 800kg cocaine cache found in a container originating in Colombia in 2022 (Photos: Malta Customs)

Laundering cash

Advancements in technology have provided opportunities to criminal organisations in several ways. One such way is in laundering the proceeds of crime.

Borg said todays advancements make it possible for criminal groups to launder their money anywhere in the world. “If I am in an EU Member State with a robust legal framework with intelligence and law enforcement working well, is it worth remaining here or transiting the money through third countries?”

Bondin added that bitcoins have also changed the criminal game. “Nowadays you can be paid through bitcoin and you can launder the money in this way,” he said.

Researching crime: Malta’s advantage

A Europol report published last month revealed that Italian mafia-style and Georgian homogenous criminal networks are some of the most dangerous crime groups with a presence in Malta.

The findings were part of a comprehensive analysis on the growing presence of international criminal networks in the European Union.

“Malta was one of the countries that contributed the most to that study,” Borg said. “We need to consider that larger countries might not have given as big a contribution as others. But just because Malta reached its obligations and reported in full, while another country couldn’t for other reasons, it doesn’t mean that there should be more concern.”

Having a single police force also helps with this, Bondin said. “It’s easy for us to collect the data requested by Europol. But bigger countries that split into various entities and agencies struggle to collect that data properly.”

This streamlined approach can sometimes make Malta appear more crime-ridden on paper compared to countries with fragmented reporting systems. However, this does not necessarily reflect reality.

Catching up with organised crime

Criminal groups are always going to be steps ahead of law enforcement, Borg said. And the modus operandi of these groups has changed considerably in recent years.

“In COVID-19 their operations went indoors. And we can’t forget contemporary digital communications, which are mostly encrypted. This makes things safer for their operations. Travel has also become easier – nowadays you can book a flight for €10. These are all things to help organised crime groups and criminal networks to commit their crimes.”

Bondin acknowledged that Malta’s legal framework for tackling organised crime has improved but still lags behind countries like Italy and the UK, which have long-standing, specialised laws to combat such activities.

“We don’t have the structured legal framework that other countries have. There have been improvements, but I think we can do better to fight organised crime at a national level,” he said.

Ultimately, both officers stressed the importance of international cooperation in combating organised crime. “It takes an organised network to defeat another organised network,” Borg said. “If we work in silos, this becomes an advantage to criminals.”