A car dealer was jailed for six years for defrauding a long list of people by using a dead man’s chequebook for a spending spree.
Glen Borg, 40, from Tarxien, used forged cheques to buy thousands of euros worth of goods, including cigarettes and alcohol, equipment and tools.
Mr Borg formed part of a gang that defrauded firms after obtaining Bank of Valletta and HSBC Bank chequebooks belonging to Saviour Grima, who died in 2009.
The gang ordered products in bulk, claiming that they were for ship handling firm Salvo Grima & Sons, Police Inspector Jonathan Ferris told Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech.
The case started being investigated in August 2012, when the police started receiving reports of alleged fraud.
He defrauded a long list of people, buying thousands of euros worth of cigarettes, alcohol, equipment and tools
Keith Camilleri, 34, of Qormi, who at the time was unemployed, was eventually charged with 15 counts of fraud, falsification and relapsing. In April 2010, he was jailed for 18 months, having pleaded guilty.
Further investigations led the police to Mr Borg, who used cheques to purchase close to €10,000 in cigarettes, power generators, alcohol and tools.
The fraud surfaced when one of the victims tried cashing a cheque and was informed by the bank that the “drawer [was] deceased”.
The court heard that Mr Borg purchased cigarettes, Hitachi jiggers and grinders and other JCB power tools as well as generators and chasers.
He told one of his victims the generators were due to be sent to Libya. When the police raided his apartment, they found power tools still packed in the original boxes.
The car the accused was using was captured by a CCTV camera. Police investigations led them to a woman who had reported that her car’s rear registration plate had been stolen and it resulted that this was being used on Mr Borg’s Chevrolet.
The magistrate noted that Mr Borg did not answer any of the questions during interrogation. If he was a car dealer, why did he have to collect such goods as cigarettes, power generators, chasers and grinders, she asked. She said the court was “morally convinced” Mr Borg was aware of the fraud he was committing.
Mr Borg had been accused of forging the dead man’s signature but he was cleared after a court-appointed calligraphy expert excluded the possibility that it could have been him who forged the signature.
He was, however, found guilty of committing a crime during the operative period of a suspended sentence and of relapsing.
He was jailed for four years and had a two-year suspended jail term converted into an effective jail term.