Criminal groups are smuggling Libyan fuel on board fishing vessels to Europe via Malta, the country’s top prosecutor said.

Al-Sadiq al-Sour told reporters on Wednesday smugglers used sea routes to move subsidised fuel from Zuwara and Zawiya to Malta, Italy, Turkey, Spain and Greece.

Hundreds of fuel stations were involved in the smuggling of their portions of subsidised diesel with smugglers making at least $100 million in the past three years.

Read: Fuel smuggled from Libya being brought to Malta - UN

In October, the Times of Malta carried a story saying that detailed information about the involvement of “a Maltese mafia” in the multimillion-euro smuggling of fuel from Libya was given to the police many years ago.

And in a new round of sanctions targeting oil smugglers in Libya aimed at blocking exploitation of natural resources that is driving instability, the US Treasury in February listed Darren Debono and three other Maltese.

Mr Debono, a former Maltese international footballer, was in October arrested in Lampedusa together with another Maltese for reportedly being involved in the transport of Libyan contraband fuel sold in Europe.