Police are looking into the way alleged Daphne Caruana Galizia murder conspirator Yorgen Fenech traded high-end property with a businessman for a luxury car as part of a wider probe into organised crime and money laundering. 

The 2019 deal saw Fenech, and auto dealer James Zammit agree to part-exchange a Portomaso apartment, valued at over €1 million, for a lavish Rolls Royce Wraith, valued at around €250,000. 

They also agreed to exchange another luxury vehicle, a Porsche Panamera sports car, with investigators looking into suspicions that vast amounts of cash may have changed hands.

The matter is the subject of an ongoing investigation at the Police’s Financial Crimes Investigation Department. It forms part of a wider probe into Fenech’s business activity.

Contacted for comment, Zammit insisted the police had not spoken to him and had no knowledge of any investigations in his regard. 

He also insisted that his property swap with Fenech was a legitimate business deal and that no cash had changed hands.

The word “cash”, he said, had been used in discussions with Fenech as “slang” and intended to denote that the money would be paid in full.

Zammit said the property deal had been mostly financed through a bank loan.

He added that he wished he had carried out more business deals with Fenech, because those who had done so had always done well for themselves. 

Sources said the deals being investigated by the police came just a few months before Fenech was arrested on board his luxury yacht as he attempted to leave the country in 2019, just days after the arrest of murder middleman Melvyn Theuma.

Police suspect that while he was negotiating with Fenech, Zammit had just been informed by a local bank that they would be terminating their relationship with him.

This is believed to have been the result of concerns over suspicious financial activity that was passed on to the authorities for further investigation. 

Zammit said he holds regular meetings with the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit and no issues had been raised.

Sources said that at a point during his negotiations with Fenech, Zammit had difficulty registering the luxury vehicle to the Tumas magnate’s name. This was because Fenech had pending arrears on other vehicles. 

Incidentally, the Rolls Royce that Zammit traded with Fenech is the same vehicle that former assistant police commissioner Silvio Valletta would later be filmed fooling about in.

Valletta resigned from the police force amid suspicions that he may have leaked information from the Caruana Galizia murder probe to Fenech. He vehemently denies any wrongdoing.

Who is James Zammit?

Zammit is the owner of luxury car dealership Cars Unlimited but also of a wider business empire which falls under the umbrella of Zammit Holdings.

According to public filings, he is one of the main shareholders and directors of Finance House Plc, which finances loans for car purchases. 

Last February, he featured in a Times of Malta report which detailed how he was the registered owner of a luxury Range Rover that was used in a property swap by suspected gangster Christian Borg. 

Borg, along with five of his associates, stands accused of kidnapping a former employee and threatening to torture him and have his sister raped. 

Meanwhile, Zammit has also done business with another group of suspected organised criminals, Agius brothers Robert and Adrian, known as Ta' Maksar. 

Like Fenech, the two are also in court over their alleged involvement in the assassination of Caruana Galizia and the 2015 shooting of lawyer Carmel Chircop.

One of the luxury Mercedes saloons confiscated from the Maksar brothers when they were hauled in by police in 2021 has been traced to Zammit. He had also been involved in a property deal with Robert Agius. 

Property searches on Zammit show that in 2015 he had entered into an agreement to purchase part of a plot of land in Żebbuġ in an area known as ‘tal-Għarbi’, which belonged to the Agius brothers.

Asked about this, Zammit said that he had only bought the property on the back of a court order.

Ultimately, as a businessman, if the opportunity for a cheap property arises, he would try and seize it, Zammit said.

Zammit, the Maksar brothers and Borg had all used the services of Robert Abela before he became prime minister.