Notorious criminal Alfred 'Il-Porporina' Bugeja dies at 67

Alfred Bugeja, better known as Il-Porporina, a name synonymous with crime in Malta since the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 67.

Bugeja passed away at the St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly, just two weeks after being released on parole from Corradino Correctional Facility.

Bugeja spent the majority of his adult life in and out of prison, convicted of multiple crimes over several decades.

His criminal career began at the age of 14 when, as he revealed in a 2024 interview, he was encouraged to steal a pair of wipers by a schoolteacher. By his late teens, he had already received his first conviction for car theft, setting the stage for a life of crime.

His notoriety peaked in the early 1990s with a series of high-profile crimes and prison escapes. In 1992, he evaded capture for six months after escaping from police custody at St Luke’s Hospital. He was eventually arrested while attempting to rob a jewellery store in Marsa. Less than four months later, he escaped from Corradino Correctional Facility alongside fellow inmate David Monsineur.

Their escape, involving breaking locks, sawing iron bars, and scaling walls, led to a major prison crackdown and the dismissal of top prison officials.

In 1994, he married fellow inmate Helen Azzopardi inside Corradino prison. The wedding reception, attended by then-Home Affairs Minister Louis Galea, triggered a political controversy, with the Opposition calling for Galea’s resignation over what was perceived as mismanagement of the prison system.

Despite repeated incarcerations, Bugeja remained involved in criminal activity well into the 21st century. In 2012, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for a string of offenses dating back to 1992, including a hold-up, car theft, and an attempted bank robbery. In 2015, he received a 33-month sentence for a 2008 warehouse theft, followed by a seven-year prison term for orchestrating a drug deal from his cell.

That same year, his wife Helen was sentenced to nine months in prison for attempting to smuggle heroin to him in a pair of shoes.

In 2014, he went on an eight-day hunger strike after he was denied prison visits following a positive test for drugs. 

In 2020, MaltaToday reported that Bugeja was strapped to a restraint chair in the middle of the prison's central hall to quash the pirsoner's protests. The incident stemmed from a disagreement with prison officials over the use of uniforms for inmates.

 He was strapped to the chair in the middle of the hall, surrounded by other prisoners, and spent approximately 45 minutes bound to the chair. 

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