One day after he was sentenced to nine years in jail over a car importation scam, a car dealer appeared in court again today, charged with using a forged and stolen cheque to buy a Rolex watch which he sold within two hours at a fraction of the price. 

Duncan Buttigieg, 31, from Ghaxaq, appeared before Magistrate Audrey Demicoli charged with defrauding the agents of Rolex watches in Malta and a man to whom he had sold the watch. 

Yesterday, Mr Buttigieg was jailed for nine years after he admitted to defrauding several people who gave him between €1,500 and €6,000 in deposits to import cars from the UK. 

Police Inspector Anna Marie Xuereb explained how the police began their investigations in October last year after a €5,000 cheque used to buy the Rolex from the agent had bounced. 

She said the investigations had revealed that Mr Buttigieg used a cheque belonging to his former girlfriend to pay for the watch. The former girlfriend told the police she never gave her chequebook to anyone. 

Some time after the purchase, Mr Buttigieg contacted a man who advertised on Maltapark that he was a keen collector of watches and they agreed to meet. 

When he met Andrea Scicluna Calleja, Mr Buttigieg told him the Rolex was an unwanted gift and that he needed the money for his six-year-old son who was in hospital with cancer in his stomach. They agreed on a €2,000 price tag and some time later they met again and he paid him cash. 

Mr Scicluna Calleja told the court that when he arrived home in the evening, he found a receipt at the bottom of the box. When he saw that it had only been purchased by cheque just two hours earlier, he called Malcolm Lowell, the importing company's Managing Director. A few days later, the bank informed Mr Lowell that the cheque had bounced and the police began investigating. 

Both Mr Scicluna Calleja and Mr Lowell told the court that they Googled Mr Buttigieg's name and they saw that he had a history of similar cases. 

The men said that once the cheque was not honoured, the company never got paid for the watch while Mr Scicluna Calleja had lost the €2,000. 

Inspector Xuereb said the police had also found a certificate supposedly issued by the Institute of Maltese Journalists saying that Mr Buttigieg was a journalist. When contacted, the institute confirmed that it was a fake. The same happened with some Matsec certificates the police found in his possession.

Mr Buttigieg told the police he had done these "just for fun". 

The case continues. 

At the end of the sitting, Magistrate Demicoli said there was enough prima facie evidence for Mr Buttigieg to be indicted. 

Mr Buttigieg later approached journalists in court wanting to react to the car scam story, insisting that he had only admitted to the charges because the magistrate warned him he could send him to jail for 35 years. 

Mr Buttigieg said only 42 of the 77 people he had defrauded had not been repaid. The remaining are between them owed some €40,000, that he was willing to pay. 

He said he was appealing the nine-year jail term, claiming that the first court had not considered the fraud cases as a continuous crime since the police had split the reports it had received into four cases. The fifth case regarding social benefits amounting to €1,200 had been settled.