As news of the fuel smuggling operation emerged, interceptions by the investigators show a growing apprehension inside the syndicate, to make sure payments circulated inside their offshore companiesItalian police investigators had been intercepting phone-calls from Darren Debono for two years in a bid to dismantle a €30 million fuel smuggling ring. The former Malta international footballer, today a restaurateur, used his fishing boats to transport smuggled fuel out of Libya so that it could be resold in Italian ports. He was arrested last week on the island of Lampedusa.Debono formed part of a crime syndicate with Libyan smuggling kingpin Fahmi Bin Khalifa who was arrested in August by a Tripoli militia, and a Sicilian mafia associate, Nicola Orazio Romeo. Another Maltese associate, Gordon Debono, was arrested in Catania on the heels of the police operation ‘Dirty Oil’.According to the dossier compiled by the Catanese prosecutor, the Italian investigators spent two years tapping Debono’s Maltese mobile phone – suggesting cooperation from the Malta Security Services. “He’s always being tapped when he is in Sicily.”

Source: Libya Today October 30, 2017 06:22 UTC