By Amphora Media
- Robert and Adrian Agius, known as the Maksar brothers, generated millions through property deals and private loan agreements.
- The Maksar brothers and their accomplice Jamie Vella are placed in a trafficking network with international organised crime groups.
- Loans, car deals, and real estate transactions masked the brothers’ operations.
- Ages Investments Ltd., whose sole shareholder is Denise Agius, Robert’s wife, handled over €2.5 million in property and loans.
- Deals continued even after the Agius brothers were charged with the murders of Daphne Caruana Galizia and Carmel Chircop.
- Maksars appear to have leveraged indirect streams to sidestep financial oversight, including:
- Property deals and private loans with Brian Cutajar, who helped settle debts linked to the Chircop murder.
- James Zammit and his Finance House issued a €1.3 million loan to Ages Investments.
- Businessman Hugo Chetcuti issued a private loan to the Maksar family and purchased a boat yard from them.
Two helmeted gunmen push through the doors of a Birkirkara bar. Shots are fired. Raymond Agius, a suspected contraband smuggler, is murdered, leaving behind a wife and two sons, Adrian and Robert Agius.
Over the next decade or so, the brothers, known by their family nickname Tal-Maksar, amassed a fortune through suspect property deals, private loans and various enterprises, with the assistance of family members and financial instruments.
Investigators have placed the Agius brothers, along with co-convicted Jamie Vella, within a sprawling international trafficking network of fuel, cigarettes, and drugs – with ties to organised crime groups in the UK, the Netherlands, Albania and Libya.
At one point, a document in the possession of investigators shows that the family claimed to hold almost €9 million in assets and an annual turnover of €1.7 million.
Robert Agius, a self-declared taxi driver from at least 2013 to 2018, had his assets frozen multiple times. First, from 2013 to 2018, over cigarette smuggling charges, and then from 2017 to 2020 over a 2012 heroin smuggling case. He was cleared in both cases.
Robert and his brother Adrian, at one point clients of Prime Minister Robert Abela, also had their assets frozen after being arrested for the murders of Daphne Caruana Galizia and Carmel Chircop in February 2021, when they were both listed as working in construction.
Robert has since been found guilty of supplying the bomb that murdered Caruana Galizia, and Adrian has been found guilty of the murder of Chircop. They have been sentenced to life in prison.
Each moment could have marked an end to the brothers’ illicit financial activities. However, their operations appear to have merely shifted course into the hands of Robert’s wife, Denise, who investigators suspect was a regular collaborator, and a company called Ages Investments Ltd., which was set up months after Robert’s assets were frozen in 2017.
Official records, public registry filings, and other documents analysed by OCCRP, Amphora Media, Times of Malta, and IrpiMedia have uncovered how Denise, an associate and accomplice, played a central role in acquiring, financing and selling off properties worth millions.
The documents further expose how the brothers and their family members employed private loans and property deals to finance their operations, and often used the same channels, including Brian Cutajar, James Zammit, and the murdered tycoon Hugo Chetcuti.
Neither of the brothers’ lawyers responded to the reporters’ questions. Hugo Chetcuti’s heirs could also not be reached for comment. Meanwhile, James Zammit replied to “categorically deny any involvement – not only to the fact that I never did any illicit trade with the said Maksar gang, but also with anyone.”
Maksar, Denise Agius, and Ages Investments: €2.5 Million in Real Estate Deals, a €1.3 Million Loan, High-Value Cars and a We Media ‘job’
Ages Investments Ltd. was registered in 2017, five months after Robert’s assets were frozen, with Denise listed as the sole shareholder. Denise and Robert, married in 2011, have a separation of assets.
From 2019, the company acted as a vehicle for several asset purchases and sales. Between 2021 and 2024, it sold €1.3 million in assets.
Police and intelligence records analysed by reporters indicate she has worked as a hairdresser, making 50 euros a day, and that before registering Ages Investment, she told a bank she was a bingo hall cashier or receptionist.
Denise Agius did not reply to requests for comment.
The company’s first significant activity was the purchase of a €470,000 villa in Baħrija, listed as the registered residence of Robert Agius, from James Zammit’s company. Zammit has been involved in several other transactions with Ages Investments & the Agius family.
Ages Investments would purchase €765,000 worth of assets between March and October 2020, with the aid of a €1.29 million loan through Finance House p.l.c. Zammit, who is managing director at Finance House, said that only €892,000 of the loan was utilised.
Some of the transactions happened while Robert Agius was subject to a freezing order, and ended around four months before both Agius brothers were charged in connection with the murders of Carmel Chircop and Daphne Caruana Galizia.
The brothers are believed to have had informants within the police force.
In a secret testimony to a public inquiry, ex-assistant police commissioner Ian Abdilla admitted that the Agius brothers “are well connected within the police to be honest. Well-connected within customs, and well-connected with politicians from both sides”.
The police spokesperson did not reply to reporters’ questions.
Over the period, Ages Investments acquired:
- A garage in Qawra (€30,000);
- Airspace to develop apartments in Rabat for €300,000;
- Airspace to develop a maisonette and apartment in Mosta for €185,000;
- The purchase of a penthouse in St Paul’s Bay for €250,000 from a company owned by Adrian Agius, Denise’s brother-in-law.
The €1.29 million loan James Zammit’s Finance House issued to Ages Investments Ltd financed several other deals, including:
- Payment on the remaining €270,000 balance on Zammit’s Baħrija property;
- Acquisition of a portion of land along Triq L-Imdina;
- Acquisition of a Mercedes GTR worth €190,000;
- Acquisition of the two sites in St Paul’s Bay, including Adrian’s apartment;
- And settling outstanding €330,000 debts.
The loan, of which Zammit says only €892,000 was utilised, was guaranteed on a property subject to the lifelong usufruct of Polly Agius, known as Paola or Pauline, who is the mother of Robert and Adrian Agius, and their co-shareholder in Ter-Nova Holdings, and numerous other companies with her sons.
Polly Agius could not be reached for comment via the family’s lawyers.
Zammit categorically denied any involvement or complicity with the brothers’ criminal activities, stressing that his companies had undergone a “meticulous” due diligence process and had been subject to audits.
He added that there were no freezing orders or criminal proceedings against Denise that would have been flagged by their AML specialist. Denise and Ages Investment were not subject to any freeze order.
“The time has now come to discuss a settlement plan with Ages Investments Ltd for the full outstanding amount plus interest and charges,” Zammit said.
Zammit also said that since some of the facility covered a debt which was secured by Pauline Agius, it meant that she had “ a direct interest in acting as guarantor”.
Ages Investment continued its activities beyond the brothers’ arrest and further asset freezes.
In 2021, Ages bought land in St Paul’s Bay and Ħaż-Żebbuġ worth a total of €460,000. Between 2021 and 2024, the company sold four properties for a total of €1.09 million, through separate projects in St Paul’s Bay, Mosta, and Rabat.
Investigators suspected Denise was representing Robert in the Żebbuġ deal.
Denise, Robert and Adrian acquired several high-value vehicles
Between 2010 and 2017, Denise acquired and transferred 14 cars, and as of December 2017, had four more registered in her name.
One of the car transfers involved Adelina Pop, the then-partner of George Degiorgio, who has pleaded guilty to murdering Daphne Caruana Galizia.
In 2017, Denise transferred her car, valued at €55,000, to Adelina – and raised suspicions among investigators. Pop did not reply to questions about the transfers.
Court sittings have revealed that seven vehicles, valued at approximately between €184,000 and €213,700, were found in Robert’s possession when he was arrested in 2021.
Sources have also described how Robert and Adrian controlled several high-value vehicles over the years.
Nine cars, including a Mercedes and a BMW, were acquired by Robert over one calendar year, with one car bought and sold on the same day.
The moving of assets by companies owned by the brothers or their family members highlights possible shortcomings in Malta’s enforcement of financial crime regulations, experts said.
Kathryn Westmore, who leads the financial crime policy work of the UK NGO Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the transactions should have attracted the scrutiny of banking compliance teams.
“If you are banking [Ages Investment] you need to ask what are the purposes of the loans and transactions, what is their commercial rationale. If you’re a bank that has that company as a client, you would hope that your [client] onboarding process would pick up the links to someone under an asset freeze, and then the transactions would merit further investigation; you need to check someone’s made sure they have a legitimate purpose,” she said.
Manfred Galdes, the former head of Malta’s Financial Intelligence Unit, said “freezing orders very often fail to identify the assets that might have already been transferred to third parties. If not preceded by a parallel financial investigation that traces the movement of assets, the effectiveness of the freezing order is extremely limited.”
Any failure to trace and target assets means that there would be “lots of gaps for people to transfer assets to companies,” he added.
Leaked transaction records also show that We Media, one of Malta’s most prominent media companies, which has produced shows like Xarabank, acted as a facilitator, sending €207,000 to Denise in 63 separate transfers between November 2016 and September 2021, registering her as a full-time employee.
This includes a €4,000 per month ‘salary’ she received between August 2019 and September 2021 as ‘wages’ and ‘consultancy fees,’ as well as €24,000 as a ‘loan advance’.
Robert Agius also received a €4,975 payment from WeMedia Ltd. for “camera equipment”. Information in the possession of investigators suggests that Agius received an additional €6,000 for this from another company where Mugliette is a nominal shareholder.
Neither We Media nor its owner Edmond Mugliette replied to requests for comment.
A Web of Different Money Flows: From Carmel Chircop to Brian Cutajar, James Zammit and Hugo Chetcuti
The story of the Agius empire does not begin—or end—with Ages Investments. Rather, it was the latest vehicle to generate and move funds throughout the years.
The murder of Carmel Chircop: More Supermarkets & the villa in Bahar ic-Caghaq
Documents seen by journalists lay out several transactions linked to the failed More Supermarket venture, of which Adrian Agius was a shareholder, and the €750,000 debt tied to the murder of Carmel Chircop.
Adrian and his partners in More Supermarkets, which included Ryan Schembri, who has since been charged with fraud, had taken out €2.8 million across four loans from Banif. In all the loans, property belonging to Agius, including a villa in Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, is listed as collateral.
In March 2014, Adrian received a further €750,000 loan from Chircop, with the same villa also listed as collateral.
Chircop was murdered a year and a half later on Adrian’s orders. The legal procurator told the court that Chircop was requesting to take over the villa at the time of his murder.
Self-confessed collaborator Vince Muscat, who said he participated in reconnaissance before the murder, told the court that Adrian Agius was especially keen to have Chircop killed and would pull him [Muscat] aside and tell him “Cens, come on let’s get it over and done with.”
According to court experts’ testimony, the constitution of debt, a formal contract recognising the amount owed by Adrian Agius and two bills of exchange, signed by Schembri, were found locked in the drawer in Chircop’s office.
The entire debt was waived in 2017, with his widow receiving a €165,000 payment with the help of Brian Cutajar, who purchased the property off Agius for €1.8 million in September 2017, a month before the murder of Caruana Galizia.
Data indicates that Adrian and Robert Agius regularly employed a constitution of debt, which is a formal, notarised document that acknowledges an existing debt between a debtor and a creditor.
Unlike traditional lending facilities, it does not involve the same level of bank paperwork or due diligence checks, making it vulnerable to misuse.
The loans are often repaid and cancelled quickly, sometimes even within months. Certain legal instruments in Malta, such as the constitution of debt, are not obliged to be done in the presence of lawyers or notaries, so there is no one to verify whether the debt is real.
The Brian Cutajar Connection: Million euro loans and payments
Brian Cutajar, part-owner of Regina Auto Dealer, is identified as participating in several Maksar deals and financing.
Over the course of more than a decade, he and his family provided loans and engaged in property deals that enabled the Maksar network to accumulate substantial wealth.
According to documents, the families bought and sold property together since at least 2005. However, they would later use private loans and property transfers to shuffle equity and funds.
Between 2010 and 2012, Brian Cutajar and his wife, Roseanne, issued five private loans to Ter-Nova Properties Limited, totalling almost €1.29 million.
Some of the loans were paid back in full within a year or so, while the entire debt was settled by 2017, official property records show. Ter-Nova Properties Limited is owned by both Agius brothers and their mother via a holding company.
A Maltese court had also once rejected a warrant of prohibitory injunction that Cutajar, through Regina Auto Dealer, filed against the family over a “manu brevi loan” of €500,000 he claimed to have provided. That loan, unlike a constitution of debt, would not require filing and signing by a notary.
The case did not burn bridges between the two families. In 2017, the same year the Agius family settled their debt with the Cutajars, Brian Cutajar purchased the Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq villa for €1.8 million, and settled the €165,000 debt that Agius had eventually settled with Chircop’s widow, according to court testimonies.
James Zammit: The €1.29 million loan and other deals
The financial relationship between the Agius family and James Zammit dates back over a decade and extends beyond the 2019 property purchase and the €1.29 million loan in 2020.
Transactions between the Agius brothers and Zammit date back to 2014, when Zammit provided around €335,000 worth of loans through separate companies.
In 2014, Zammit lent Adrian Agius €108,000, with an apartment in St. Paul’s Bay serving as collateral. Agius would sell the apartment one month later for €140,000 – and repay Zammit the same year.
Two months later, a separate firm controlled by Zammit lent Agius a further €230,000, with the Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq villa again being used as collateral. On the same day, Adrian Agius sold a 1,000 sqm piece of land in Naxxar, known as ta’ Xmajna, to Zammit’s company for the cut price of €20,000.
Zammit stated that the transaction involved a promise of sale he signed to acquire Agius’ Massiabelle Villa in Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq. He said that he had paid a €230,000 deposit and would pay the remaining €1.1 million within a year. He said that the deal fell through once he discovered significant loans on the property from Banif Bank and Carmel Chircop.
Eventually, Zammit agreed to acquire the ta’ Xmajna land and several cars as settlement of the amount due.
Several transactions around the murder of Chircop in 2015 have raised investigators’ eyebrows.
In September 2015, BNF issued a €250,000 bank draft to Oyster Trust in the name of Pauline Agius, reportedly intended to settle a banking facility related to More Supermarkets. Instead, the cheque was deposited into James Zammit’s account.
The bank declined to comment on client transactions. Still, it reiterated that it “has always acted within its legal rights and in full compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory banking requirements.”
A few days after the deposit, Zammit withdrew €150,000 in “cash to be kept at home” – and in October, he transferred a further €128,000 to an account belonging to his company.
Zammit confirmed the transaction but said that one of his licensed business activities included cashing cheques issued by the Government. He said it involved withdrawing sizable cash amounts, especially during particular periods of the month, to offer this service.
The Malta Financial Services Authority declined to comment on the specifics, but said, “Should any issues or potential breaches arise during such examinations, appropriate regulatory and enforcement action is taken in accordance with our mandate.”
Investigators also flagged several payments Finance House plc issued for the legal services of Keith Borg understood by investigators to be on behalf of Robert Agius and/or Denise Agius in May 2022.
Zammit categorically denied that he had ever paid for any legal services for anyone other than for “myself, my companies, my wife and/or children. The payment here mentioned was for a personal matter.”
The police did not reply regarding the status of the investigation.
Hugo Chetcuti & the Vella Farm
One significant transaction within the Agius’ portfolio that raised eyebrows was a series of payments from Hugo Chetcuti, a businessman murdered in July 2018, or his company, All Round Entertainment Ltd.
On 8th May 2014, Chetcuti handed the Agius brothers an €800,000 brevi-manu loan, with a farm in Magħtab, known as ‘Vella Farm’, listed as collateral. It was repaid with interest of 6% by the start of 2017.
A few months later, on 10th October 2014, the Agius brothers sold the farm to Hugo Chetcuti’s company for €700,000. The brothers had acquired the property in 2008, months after the death of their father.
That means Chetcuti transferred some €1.5 million to the Agius brothers over those few months. The deals happened while Robert was subject to the freezing order.
Chetcuti had various interests around the island, from nightclubs and strip clubs to restaurants. While his killer has been convicted, the motive was never established. His heirs and All Round Entertainment did not reply to reporters’ questions.
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