Episode 8: The Lion and the Mosquito

And O to the listeners. This episode contains a reference to suicide.

Corruption, especially between the media and politicians. Eats away at the heart of democracy.

Cord in prison, Malta. Right here we will early twenty eighteen, about six months after Daphne's murder. Daphne's free assassins, Vincent Lakoff, Chinese George and Alfred the Bean have been held here on pre trial detention since before Christmas. What follows is a dramatization based on courtroom testimony by Vincent the kaff Muscat. We provided color in places without changing any of the

Three middle aged contract killers, no doubt familiar with the frequent rituals of Malta's legal system when it comes to organized crime, arrest, interrogation, delay, confinement, postponement and then all too often temporary release which eventually becomes permanent.

And are so often in prison life at the moment they're stuck wasting their lawyer has so far failed to show up.

Since the arrests, things have mostly been going in the favor. In the outside world, the battle to uncover the plot to kill Daphane has reached a stalemate. Public protests that Daphanie's murder have become a permanent feature of Maltese politics, but the government appears to be weathering them.

Jephane's family are trying to bring international political pressure to bear on the Mall's government, and they're helping a team of investigative journalists to reinvestigate loose ends in her stories, but so far, nothing that's been published has led to a breakthrough.

The one man who does know all the details of the plot, Melvin the Middleman, is struggling to keep his life together under the strain of the secrets he carries. He's drinking heavily, even contemplating ending it all, but so far he is keeping his silence, and all the while, the accused architect of the murder, Mister alleged Mastermind, remains unnoticed by law enforcement. His wealth and influence probably allow him to remain one step ahead of the authorities at any time.

So although the three men in this prison interview room are locked up and under investigation for Daphanes's murder. They have reason to be quietly confident. If they can just stick together and keep their mouths shut, all his attention should eventually go away, just like it did after all the other car bomb assassinations in Malta.

But on this day, for the first time, something's not right. In fact, it's very very wrong. Ho Chinese George motions Vincent the Cough to come closer, close enough so he can whisper without the guard.

Hearing Lisma station by that chilt mind continct with that it's my child.

Chinese George tells Vincent that he didn't sleep a wink last night. Something surprising was bothering him his ace. Vincent listens with a straight face, unresponsive. Chinese George goes on, does Vincent want to tell him something? Are you sure? Because he thinks there's something Vincent should be telling him.

Again, Vincent the Cough doesn't respond, chance.

It and there it is, the accusation spoken out loud. Vincent, you want to speak at the depot. The depot is multi slang for police headquarters. In other words, somehow George has discovered that Vincent has begun speaking to the police.

Secretly, Chinese George is accusing his fellow murderer of breaking the criminal code of silence after years of knowing each other and working together from the Carmel Kirk Coop drive by shooting to Daphne's murder. George believes that Vince is snitching and snitching about the murder of Daphne Carona Calizzia.

Before Vince can respond, their lawyer finally entered the role. The meeting begins as if nothing has been said. But from now on everything has changed between Chinese George and Vincent de Kov. The betrayals have begun.

From iHeart Podcasts, Topic Studios in Vespucci, I'm John Sweeney and I'm Manuel Delia and this is Crooks Everywhere, Episode eight, The Lion and the Mosquito.

I was there for one of the earlier sittings, actually present in the courtroom, and what impressed me was he had George, the George Jaw, who sat in the middle. His brother was sitting to his right side, I believe, and Vince to his left, and there was this complete silence.

Kurt Sansone has watched Vincent Lakoff Muscat and the two Di Giorgia brothers, Chinese George and Alfred the Bean in Court. He is the executive editor of Malta Today and has been covering the investigation into Daphnese murder for years.

Given the dynamic between them, I would say Vince Muscat was sort of the person who tagged along to the brothers.

The junior partner, and perhaps he'd grown tired of all that, or since that being the junior partner made him more vulnerable, disposable, not part of the inner circle.

They didn't give him all the information. I mean, they just gave him the information that he needed to know. Listen, we're going to do this. You'll be here at this time.

After they're arrested. Vincent Lakoff may also have been under greater financial pressure than the other two killers. We don't know how much of the unwilling financial support from Melvin the middleman reached Vincent. Certainly no one bought his family member's pedigree dogs from China.

It was mainly George, that GEORGEA and Alfred the Georgia doing the dealings and making the arrangements which he would then obviously willingly tag along and being involved in.

Or maybe Vincent has realized that Daphne's murder had provoked a backlash too large for any of them to ride out in silence. If that theory is true, it's a real tribute to the Maltese public, the ordinary people who keep attending the demonstrations and protests in Daphne's memory for month after month after month, refusing to let the story die, and without knowing it, spooking her killers.

Whatever Vincent's reasons, it begins to see greatly negotiating with the police for a reduced sentence or a pardon in exchange for a confession. And the first piece of information he's offering in exchange for his freedom is the name of the next guy up in the chain, the man who hired him and the the Georgio brothers, Melvin Toma, the increasingly panicy Middleman.

But it turns out that an offering to become an informant, Vincent the Cough is miscalculated in two crucial ways. He's both underestimated and overestimated multice law enforcement. Underestimated because in fact, the authorities are already close to finding out Melvin the Middleman's identity. Anyway, the di Giorgio brothers constant demands for donations from Melvin has left multiple clues that the authorities are able to follow.

Whenever Chinese George or Alfred de Bean called Mario de Georgio, the police are listening, The brothers never refer to Melvin by name, instead referring to him as dead guy. But it's obvious to the police eavesdroppers that that guy is a crucial connection to whoever else was involved in Daphnie's skinning.

By the time Vincent Leakoff begins negotiating at the depot that's the police headquarters, detectives are already watching Mario di Giorgio's house, taking photos of Melvin when he visits.

But Vincent d Koff has also overestimated moul dieselaw enforcement. In spite of his knowledge of the crime world, he clearly hopes that the police will be able to keep his betrayal less secret.

Perhaps he should have known better. Even by Maltese standards, this is not a murder investigation that is secure or anything like it. As we've heard, every important breakthrough in the case is discussed in the presence of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, his chief of staff Keith Schembri and Jeopardy Police Commissioner Sylvio val Letter. And as we've also heard, those lasts who are both close personal friends of mister alleged Mastermind himself, Keith Skembrie texts mister alleged Mastermind on

So it is not surprising that Vincent de Koff's betrayal very quickly reaches mister alleged Mastermind, and then that information quickly moves down the chain. According to Paul Karwna Galizia's book, when mister Alleged Mastermind passes on the news to Melvin, the middleman, he immediately panics, unable to believe it. It's not true, it's not true about the cough.

Melvin's already spent thousands of euros of his own money paying for gifts and treats to keep the assassins happy behind bars, trying to avoid exactly this outcome.

But eventually he does believe it. Naturally, he doesn't hesitate to pass the bad news further on down the line to Chinese George and Alfred de Bean the contract killers who are also being betrayed. They are amazed as well, and then no doubt ready to take action. Melvin the Middleman must know that by informing the the Georgia family of Vincent de Kof's betrayal, he could well be triggering further than the violence, that he could be signing another

After the warning, Vincent the Cough is well aware of the danger he's in now. After all, he used to be part of the death squad. He requests and gets additional protection in the prison he's now guarded. When he eats, separated from his fellow killers, he asks his family to bring in food so he doesn't have to touch the prison meals, who knows what strings that Georgia's might be able to pull inside the prison kitchen, and.

There are the strings they can pull outside. Later in Quartron testimony, Vincent Kof said he received a warning that his partner and their children might be killed in an acid attack, So isn't just watching his own back.

Jason, as a party Daphnese family lawyer, has experience of what these kind of threats can be like. Years later, as a party, cross examined Chinese George Georgio in court. Chinese George didn't appreciate the line of questioning, so in front of the judge, the police, in the entire court, he stood up and began saying things that made Jason as a party feel threatened.

If I say it was an enjoyable experience, I would be lying. George de Georgia was livid when when he was looking at me, and I do remember his eyes, I cold ice cold eyes looking at me, terribly angry, using very foul language and yes threateningly, and I remember you could hear a pin drop.

After these courtroom threats, Jason as a part of the receives offers of asistance from the police, and the threats have never been carried out, but back in twenty eighteen, Vincent d Kov's decision to turn informant has clearly painted a target on his back. And it's not just the Georgia Emily. He has to worry about the Talmaxar brothers. The alleged bomb suppliers also allegedly make a friendly approach to Vincent Dakoff's family, offering them money if the Cough

After Vincent Nakov's decision to speak to the police, Melvin the Middleman begins to feel in even greater danger. As we heard, Melvin is already worried that he knows too much about mister alleged Masterminds crimes. That is, in spite of their closeness, he has become a liability to mister alleged Mastermind. If Vincent the Cough gives Melvin's name to the police, mister alleged Mastermind will have an even stronger incentive to have his old friend disappeared. Melvin the Middleman's

It is around this time that Melvin the Middleman drunkenly climbs onto the roof of his own house and contemplates ending at all, But instead he has a change of heart. Instead of jumping, he decides to fight and to use the secrets he's carrying to protect himself.

Soon after, he purchases a second smartphone, but this phone isn't for making calls. Instead, one day at home, he switches on the new phone and sets it to silent, an aeroplane mode. He needs to make sure that it cannot receive a call or make a sound. His girlfriend's daughter has shown him how to do this.

More than technology isn't really his.

Thing, Melvin the Middleman opens a voice recorder app on the phone and sets it running, allowing the device to record every sound in the room around him. His girlfriend's daughter has shown him how to do this too. Now, with the voice app running, he locks the phone and slips it into his sock, where it stays hidden. From now on, whenever he meets mister alleged Mastermind, every word will be secretly recorded. Every incriminating remark will be stored

Melvin Hobbs dead. The tapes might just give him enough leverage to keep himself alive.

Bevin Toma was saying, Listen is very well connected, immensely rich. I'm no one compared to him. I don't have friends in high places, and so better take precautions.

Years later, in court, Melvin Toma will describe mister alleged Mastermind as a lion and himself as a mosquito in comparison, a being that can be crushed without trace.

And soon it is not just audio recordings. Melvin the middle Man begins building an entire archive of evidence. It includes the selfie of himself with the Prime Minister's chief of Staff, Keith Skembrie, the two of them ah me in ah during that bizarre tour of government offices organized by mister alleged Mastermind.

One taped conversation is particularly revealing. On the tape, mister alleged Mastermind describes the moment when he informed Keith Kembri that Daphne had been murdered on his alleged Mastermind's personal orders. That the whole crime was his plan.

Keach Cambrie froze, his face became white, eshen white. You can hear him saying this to Melvin Tooma on tape being secretly taped recorded by Melvin Tooma months after the murder.

The implication is that Keach Cambrie wasn't in on the plan to kill Daphne and wasn't even aware that alleged Mastermind was responsible, and so, according to mister alleged Mastermind,

But if this is the case, keefs Gmbrie does not denounce mister Alleged Mastermind. He does not contact Europe's police agency europe On. He does not contact the Multi's police with this breakthrough in the case. Instead, he pulls himself together and continues working with his close friend mister Alleged Mastermind, helping him to cover up the crime by allegedly sharing confidential details of the investigation. To this day, keeps Gambrie

There's another reason why the cover up being ground. Alleged mastermind might be unreveling. Just as Daphnese killers are beginning to turn on each other, the Deafney Project, the international team of journalists who gathered to follow up lose ends in her stories, are continuing to.

Work, searching, above all, for the story that might reveal the motive for her murder.

They get some impressive scoops. We've heard how the Definite Project reported on Malta's passport sales scheme, its public hospital scandal, and the shady deals with Azerbaijan, but so far still nothing that seems linked to Daphne's murder.

Then Jacob Borche, a Daphney Project reporter for the Terms of Malta, gets an intriguing anonymous tip. The tip off is to look up one phrase in Daphne's entire journalistic output, seventeen Black along with Stephen Gray, a reporter from v and it so happens a friend of ours. Jacob begins searching through Daphne's archive for every mention.

The first blog post to mention it is typical Daphne, a cryptic, intriguing teaser. The whole post is just one sentence long.

February twenty second, twenty seventeen. Seventeen Black the name of a company incorporated in Dubai.

Underneath that sentence are some photos of politicians the key ones. First a picture of the Prime Minister Joseph Moscat, second a photo of Chief of Staff Keach Cambri, and finally a photo of Health and Energy Minister Conrad Mitzi. And that's it. What could be linking these powerful men with a Dubai company called seventeen Black. Of course, the last two men, she Cambria and Midsi, are the same politicians Daphne had already identified in the Panama Papers as owning

Most of the other seventeen Black blog posts don't seem likely obvious place to finances though.

February twenty second, twenty seventeen, I have discovered that this clique is using a company called seventeen Black, which is incorporated in the United Arab Emirates UAE and registered in Dubai, to move large sums of money around. The ultimate beneficial ownership of seventeen Black is concealed by nominees protected under UAE law.

Quick translation, the ultimate beneficial ownership is concealed means the rill owner is a secret.

In other words, definitely believe that seventeen Black was a company acting as yet another tool to hide payments to Maltese politicians and powerful men. She also found that the Maltese financial authorities had investigated seventeen Black and found there was quotes a reasonable suspicion of money laundering and all the proceeds of crime on quotes. That is to say, it looked pretty dodgy, but no action was taken by the police. Dafely also didn't know who was behind seventeen Black.

And gradually the scandal of seventeen Black was overshadowed by other scandals, even on Dafnew's on blog at this point after her death, it still isn't clear why that anonymous tipster had suggested looking into seventeen Black, but the Definitely Project reporters aren't about to give up easily.

A company called seventeen Black was playing in a really important role in all of this, but we didn't have a lot more and we didn't have proof, and so we went back to the data.

Bassi and Obermayer and the rest of the Daphne Project organizers decided to take a fresh approach. They would re examine some of the original leak files that had been behind the Panama Papers scoop, and in this huge database of files they find some leaked emails that hadn't seemed important when Daphne was alive.

In the middle of a haystack, a journalistic needle has appeared.

We were looking inside that that part of data, and we found this email which didn't say a lot, but it said that there was a company called seventeen Black and that Metro to receive money.

That leaked email allows the Dafney project to confirm what Deafhney had alleged but hadn't been able to prove. It suggests that government ministers Conrad Mitzi and Keach Company had been expecting to receive had been promised regular large amounts of money moving into their Panama holding companies. All from seventeen Black.

Times of Mota eighty eight April twenty and eighty A total of one point six million dollars one point three million euros was transferred to seventeen Black to the BI company listed as one of the target clients which would pay in money to Keych Cambrees and Conrad Midsi's once secret Panama companies. League to documents show.

The definitely project breaking this story was huge. Midsi ande Cambree deny wrongdoing, proof that in spite of all these denials, the emails showed that Maltese politicians had planned to enrich themselves secretly while in office, and they were going to do so using a company that Maltese investigators considered under suspicion for money laundering and criminal activity.

And so this was the missing piece that helped to connect the Panama papers and to the money right, and so once we got puzzled that together we had a strong lead.

But there is still one big question unanswered. Around this time, a group of demonstrators stage of protests outside government officers with placards reading who owns seventeen black?

Exactly?

Who?

Who was planning to bribe these politicians? That question on the blucards is the question that everyone in more Thanao once answered, everyone.

Except mister alleged Mastermind. Mister alleged Mastermind can't afford for that question to be answered, and he knows that the closer the Daphne Project gets to his friend Keith Schenbury, the closer they will get to him. Because you won't be surprised to hear this, The real owner of seventeen Black is our mister alleged Mastermind, and he must know it might not be long before his real identity is exposed and.

The Deafnite Project are not his only problem now. Around this time too, the spring of twenty eighteen, the Maltese police investigation of the Dafnie murder begins to pick up the pace, and for the first time, mister Alleged Mastermind is mentioned by name. In the police investigation as a person of interest, even a potential suspect. For the first time, he is on the investigation's radar. For the first time,

Like Vincent the Cough and Melvin the Middleman before him, mister alleged Mastermind begins to crash slowly on the pressure, buckling under the stress of avoiding justice. First he turns the cocaine his daily use, ballooning as he tries to remain in control, and then he begins using tranquilizers to

Then, around eighteen months later, in November twenty nineteen, it happens again. A new Defnite project story is jointly published by the Times of Malta and writers and this does have all the answers.

Thousand Mortar ninth November two thouy and nineteen exclusive seventeen Black owner identified as local power station businessman. Local criminal investigators have been handed an intelligence report aiming the electro Gas power station director and businessman as the owner of the mystery Dubai company seventeen Black.

A story that fills in the final blanks that daphnely didn't live long enough to complete.

The Defney project identified the owner of seventeen Black as one of Malta's richest entrepreneurs, the owner of luxury hotels, casinos and real estate. And most importantly, he is also the director of something called Electrogas, a company which built and runs a brand new power station for the whole country.

The director of the electro Gas power Station Company is the same man we have been calling mister alleged Mastermind in this series up till now. He's a man who loves to gamble and whose father's lucky number at roulette was seventeen black. Not all gamblers turn out to be lucky.

We now know that a whistleblower had passed Daphne a huge strove of league documents from within Electrogas, documents that had the potential to reveal the full extent of the corruption involved in the company's dealings with government and the poor value it was actually offering the Maltese people. Daphnie was working on this strove with her son Metew when she was killed, and she never published her findings, but there were hints in her blog posts that she was

Power station, a couple of the owners of their magic new corruption power station, and it's Jorgan Fenek. So thanks for this, because it really figures.

His name is Jorgen Fenek, director of Electra Gas, owner of seventeen Black, and the alleged mastermind of Japhne's murder.

Her decision to include that name in this comment, probably written without a second thought, might be what signed her death warrant. It's just a few weeks later that prosecutors believe Jorgan Fennec, mister alleged Mastermind, orders her assassination. But even as he becomes an official suspect in Daphne's murder, mister Fennec still has a few more roles of the dice to play. That's Next. Crooks Everywhere is a production of iHeart Podcasts, Topic Studios and Vespucci. It's reported and