Casino Malta Limited failed to report suspected activities by an alleged drug trafficker and another player linked to bribery and tax evasion. Malta’s FIAU announced it had fined Casino Malta, run by Eden Leisure Gaming, €233,000 for serious and systemic failures in its measures to prevent financial crime. The directors of the casino are Ian De Cesare, Kevin De Cesare, and Corey David Plummer. Allegedly, Malta’s Prime Minister Robert Abela was legal counsel to the Eden Leisure Group.
The Maltese-registered Novum Bank was fined €89,156 by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) in August 2022, following an onsite compliance review that was carried out in 2019. It is unknown why FIAU waited more than three years to dish out the fine. The Malta-based bank owned by the Dutch billionaire Marcel Boekhoorn has been fined by FIAU for shortcomings in its efforts to detect potential money laundering. Novum Bank was ordered to tighten up its checks on clients.
Malta was grey listed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in June 2021. This had been long coming. In a bid to not become grey listed and impress the FATF, Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) was over-fining individuals and firms. The FATF did not fall for such games and grey-listed Malta. The FIAU continued issuing very high fines to targeted companies and individuals. Malta has now been removed from the FATF grey list after a year. Some companies and individuals who were hugely fined took legal action against the FIAU.
A fine imposed on the now-defunct Bulgarian-owned laundromat Satabank plc by Malta's Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) has been slashed from €327,500 to €68,000 after the bank appealed the penalty. The FIAU announced that a fine they had issued against the bank in October 2018 had been reduced by the Court of Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction). As usual, details of the judgment have not been disclosed to the public. Satabank became notorious with a €3.7M AML/CFT penalty.