Employees of a gaming company whose licence was suspended following a money laundering probe by Italian authorities this afternoon staged a protest at the Gaming Authority offices in Mrieħel.

Some 20 employees of Uniq Group, complained they had not been paid their salaries.

They said they had not been paid since June and stopped working in July.

“We have mortgages to pay and the banks are breathing on our neck to honour the deadlines,” Fabio Zanda told Times of Malta.

“We are being unfairly punished for the deeds of others, and expect Maltese authorities to safeguard our rights,” he added.

“To add insult to injury, those of us who applied for a job with other gaming companies, were treated like criminals for the simple fact that they worked for Uniq Group,” Mr Zanda noted.

Other employees who preferred to remain anonymous vented their frustration they had been abandoned, as the company directors were all  deported to Italy as part of the probe.

The authority had suspended their gaming licence on July 23, following an investigation spearheaded by the Italian police on illegal gaming activities and money laundering linked the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta'. In total six companies registered in Malta had their assets seized.