Commissioner defends delay in police investigation of Gaffarena expropriation

Police Commissioner Michael Cassar insisted that the police force did well to await the findings of a National Audit report before they themselves started investigating the expropriation of half a house from Marco Gaffarena.

Police on Thursday swooped onto the Lands Department’s offices to commence their investigations into the expropriation, and Cassar insisted on ‘Ghandi Xi Nghid’ that “every relevant file is now under lock and key”. 

When questioned by host Andrew Azzopardi as to why he didn’t order a parallel investigation when the controversy first erupted several months ago, Cassar claimed that the Auditor General had better resources at its disposal than the police to investigate potential economic crimes.

“It would be presumptuous of me to claim that the police economic crimes unit would have been better equipped than the National Audit Office or the Internal Audit and Investigations Department (IAID) to investigate the case,” he said.

Cassar warned that the economic crimes unit is under-staffed, manned by a mere five police officers, despite economic crime “being the most prevalent type of crime”.

“Economic crime investigations are complex and voluminous, and officers must read up to 50,000 documents for one case alone, which is no joke for such a small staff force. Moreover, they must continuously deal with all the new cases that pour in.” 

As such, he said he plans to add four more police officers to the ECU as soon as they complete their university courses at the end of the month. Such recruitments would be over and above the accountants, auditors and other non-police professionals that the unit will employ as per a budgetary measure.

Cassar insisted that the ECU must treat with equal importance cases of fraud – regardless of the amounts of money involved.

“In the United Kingdom, police won’t even look at a fraud report if it involves less than €5,000,” he said. “However, it’s my policy to treat cases of alleged fraud with equivalent importance – whether it’s €10 million or €1,000."