Former MGA CEO found guilty of unlawfully disclosing information while in office

Former Malta Gaming Authority CEO, Heathcliff Farrugia, was found guilty of revealing professional secrets to Yorgen Fenech, the alleged murder mastermind behind the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Mr Farrugia had resigned from his position in 2020 after being charged for his communication with Mr Fenech.

A report by MaltaToday states that chats extracted from Mr Fenech’s phone, which was seized as part of the murder investigations in 2019, revealed 24 pages of text. An in-depth analysis revealed that chats between the two took place on 23rd September 2019, between 9pm and 10pm.

Mr Fenech had told Mr Farrugia that he was disappointedwith the result of Tumas Gaming’s anti-money laundering compliance review. The company owns Oracle Casino and Portomaso Casino.

His complaint to Mr Farrugia centred around the fact that this review had given his organisation a bad reputation.

In return, Mr Farrugia told Mr Fenech that he would be delaying the release of the report and that another inspection was going to take place inside Casino Malta, owned by Eden Leisure, a rival of the Tumas Gaming-owned casinos.

Magistrate Ian Farrugia ruled that he was disclosing information to a person who wasn’t meant to be aware of it.

To this, Mr Farrugia said in court that he wanted to calm Mr Fenech down and to make him aware similar inspections were also carried out on other casinos.

Despite so, the court highlighted that internal information about a list of entities selected for anti-money laundering investigation was secret and sensitive information and intended to remain strictly confidential.

Therefore, Mr Farrugia was found guilty of the charges brought against him but was conditionally discharged for three years, as long as he doesn’t commit another crime within the period.