Taxman still wants paid from victims claiming notarial fraud

A man who claims to have been defrauded by a notary who has faced multiple charges of misappropriation is demanding justice.

Despite providing evidence to the Inland Revenue Department and the police that the money he gave to his notary to pay his deceased brother’s succession tax was used to pay somebody else’s tax, Albert Mamo has not been given the money back and the tax department insists that he should make the payment anew. 

But Mamo is adamant that he will not make a new payment before the “stolen” money is returned to him. 

“I will not budge. I have been robbed and the authorities know that this was not a mistake done in good faith,” Mamo told MaltaToday. 

The notary involved, Philip Said, has faced multiple charges of misappropriation, with the latest in 2015. 

Two years ago, following the death of his brother Carmel, Mamo returned from Australia where he has been living for some 40 years.

While he was in Malta, Mamo contacted his notary and longtime friend, Philip Said, to pay the succession tax or causa mortis on the property inherited by his deceased brother. 

After giving Said a bank draft for €4,195, payable to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, Mamo was expecting the notary to provide him with a receipt and the necessary documentation to register the deed. 

After seeing that the monies had been withdrawn from his bank account but the deed had not been registered, Mamo chased the notary but Said was evasive and failed to present his client with the documentation confirming that payment had been effected. 

After visiting the Capital Transfer Duty Department at the Monti di Pietà building in Merchants Street, Valletta, Mamo was informed that while his brother’s causa mortis was still unpaid, the draft had indeed been cashed by the tax department but the money had been used to pay a stranger’s withholding tax. 

“I have no clue who the stranger, Paul Attard, is and was shocked to learn that the notary had used my money to pay somebody else’s tax,” Mamo said.

However, after presenting all the evidence that his bank draft had been cashed by the Commissioner, the IRD’s cash office in Floriana issued a new receipt after replacing the stranger’s details with Mamo’s. 

Said’s daughter, Jessica, offered to register the deed but she was stopped from doing so by the head of department, Patrick Grima.   

In a meeting with Grima, Mamo was told that despite the money being cashed by the IRD to pay somebody else’s tax, the department would not be returning the money or transfer the payment to cover his brother’s succession tax. 

“Despite Maltese law clearly stating that stolen goods must be returned to the rightful owner and the department has all the evidence that I have been defrauded, Grima insisted that he would not return the money to me. All he could say was that as far as he was concerned I still owed money to the IRD.”

Mamo has raised the issue with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, finance minister Edward Scicluna and justice minister Owen Bonnici, however, while everybody acknowledges that Mamo has been defrauded, no solution has been found. 

In a text message, Scicluna told Mamo, “Albert it seems you have been robbed on the way to pay the IRD. We are prosecuting the robber for fraud. You have to get the money from the fraudster by a civil case. In the meantime you owe the IRD money. These are the facts. If there was a legal way to get you the money back, we would. There isn’t.”

Speaking to MaltaToday, Mamo said “I have been chasing the issue for almost two years and I am sick and tired of people telling me ‘you are right but we cannot do anything to help you.’ All I’m asking for is to have what is legally mine returned.”

He has reported the matter to the police and legal action is under way.

Notary’s previous cases 

In 2012, Said pleaded not guilty to misappropriating almost €5,000 in monies entrusted to him by clients as a public official. 

He was charged with having committed the misappropriation to the detriment of Paul and Nikolina Vella, Carmel and Carmen Saliba and Sario and Antoine Saliba. 

Although the court said that Said was “a bit negligent” when he did not execute the tax payments and failed to contact his clients for months, it concluded that he did not act in bad faith or malice and was forgetful because of his mother’s health problems. 

Last year, Said, who still appears on the notary council’s official list of enrolled professionals, denied charges of misappropriating more than €4,000 entrusted to him by one of his clients to register the donation of a house. 

Police Inspector Ian Abdilla told the court that Joseph and Innocenza Bonello had called at Said’s offices in December 2013 intending to draft a contract donating a terraced house in Siggiewi to their son, Antoine. 

The contract was duly drafted and Antoine Bonello issued a cheque addressed to the Commissioner for Inland Revenue for €3,262 in payment of capital gains tax. A separate cheque for €630 was issued to cover the notary’s fees together with another cheque for €113.52  to settle VAT on the notarial fees.  

The last two cheques had been left blank on Said’s instructions, the court was told. 

An IRD official testified that the cheque in question had been used in partial payment for an unrelated contract of sale by a couple by the surname Tanti.  

Bonello’s suspicions were aroused when he noted that he had never been issued a receipt nor confirmation from the IRD. 

Further inquiries with the department resulted in him being informed that the contract had never been registered. 

After several attempts to contact the notary failed, he was left with no option but to involve the police.

Abdilla told the court that Said had admitted upon his arrest that he failed to register the contract, but had attributed this to “an oversight”.

He then, however, also admitted to using the cheque addressed to the Commissioner for Inland Revenue to pay for tax related to another contract. Said had claimed to be in financial difficulty at the time, and would need a few weeks to settle the amount with the Bonellos.  

The court also heard how the two blank cheques had been cashed by Said’s colleague, notary Peter Carbonaro, who testified that he had been asked to cash them by Said, as he had claimed to be in the midst of separation proceedings from his wife, and that she was observing his income.  

Inspector Abdilla said the police had received other complaints against Said and that there were separate criminal proceedings against the notary underway.