Grixti kept records of the amounts he received from the disability pension racket

The two police inspectors who led the investigation into a €6 million disability pension fraud case have testified about the notes kept by former Labour MP Silvio Grixti.

Among other things, they listed the amounts he had diverted from the disability pension payments to healthy recipients.

In March, Grixti and four other individuals – Roger Agius, Emmanuel Spagnol, Dustin Caruana and Luke Saliba – were charged with forming and participating in a criminal organisation, defrauding the Social Security Office of an amount exceeding €5,000 and falsifying official documents.

The men are also accused of forging and knowingly using public documents, making false statements to authorities and possessing items intended to be used for fraudulent purposes. They are also accused of money laundering.

Grixti is accused of having presented applicants with medical certificates confirming disabilities which they did not actually suffer from, thus granting them entitlement to the benefit after they had appeared before a medical commission.

Police accuse Agius, Spagnol, Caruana and Saliba of acting as middlemen to collect payments from fraudulent recipients.

In their testimony today about the investigation, Inspectors Wayne Rodney Borg and Andy Rotin told Judge Rachel Montebello that some of the people identified as fraudulent recipients of medical payments told police after the fraud was discovered that they had gone to Grixti to apply for those benefits.

The application requires the signature of a medical specialist, which is not the case with Grixti, Borg explained in court.

A detailed list of beneficiaries was found on Grixti’s laptop, grouped by their connection to the various defendants, along with records of the amounts Grixti had received and the total amounts paid out by the Social Security Administration to the fraudulent beneficiaries.

In addition to the names found on Grixti’s laptop, other names were found in handwritten ledgers that police recovered from Roger Spagnol’s home, inspectors said.

The books also showed how Spagnol and Grixti had divided the income, the court was told.

Three of the benefit recipients examined by Inspector Shaun Friggieri had identified Agius as either the person to whom they had given the money or as the person who had helped them successfully apply for the Disability Allowance.

Caruana’s name did not appear in the books, Friggieri said, adding that there appeared to be no relationship between him and Spagnol.

Several of the benefit recipients interviewed had told investigators that they were expected to hand over the first year’s benefits, around 5,000 euros, to the person who had provided them with the false documents.

When asked by the judge whether the people who had mentioned Grixti had also told the police that they had paid him the money, Inspector Rotin replied that this had not emerged from his investigation.

The inspector told the court that Agius made an audio-visual statement to the police in July with the assistance of his lawyers. The court was informed that Agius received a total of €43,398 in disability benefits between June 2016 and November 2023.

Prosecutor Abigail Caruana Vella of the Attorney General’s Office assists Inspectors Wayne Rodney Borg, Shaun Friggieri and Andy Rotin.

Lawyers Franco Debono and Arthur Azzopardi are assisting Grixti, while lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Alessandro Farrugia are acting for Agius.

Lawyers Michael Sciriha and Roberto Spiteri are representing Caruana and Spagnol, and lawyers Jose Herrera and Matthew Xuereb are representing Saliba. Lawyer Anita Giordmaina represented the Social Security Office.