Fraudster ordered to refund family more than €53,000

A man who passed himself off as a CID officer has been ordered to refund over €53,000 to the victims of his fraud.

Plaintiffs Joseph and Maria Anna Vella and their daughter Maria Sciberras told the court they had been introduced to Gino Zammit in 2004 and were told that he was a police officer who had been assigned to work with the Criminal Investigation Department.

They trusted him as a result and in the last seven months of 2004 Mr and Mrs Vella loaned him Lm15,352 towards his business.

Furthermore, Mr Vella and Mr Zammit had travelled to Turkey together. Prior to their departure, Mr Zammit had insisted that Mr Vella hand over to him half the cash he was carrying. Mr Vella handed over to Mr Zammit Lm2,225 while they were still in Malta.

But, when they got to Turkey, Mr Zammit told Mr Vella that the Turkish authorities had confiscated the money.

On her part, Mrs Sciberras told the court that she had problems with her husband and that Mr Zammit had offered to get her information about his financial affairs. She paid Mr Zammit Lm4,000 for information about a safe deposit box allegedly held by her husband with HSBC and borrowed a further Lm5,000 to pay Mr Zammit for more information.

The plaintiffs subsequently realised that Mr Zammit was not a police officer and that he had not carried out any work on their behalf.

They asked the court to order him to refund them the sum of Lm26,577,

Madam Justice Anna Felice found that Mr Zammit had obtained the money from plaintiffs under false pretences and ordered him to refund € 41,608.25 to Mr and Mrs Vella and €11,646.87 to Mrs Sciberras.