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Comment by KnuthIsGod | Hacker News Reader

Malta is an important component of Russia's money laundering Laundromat system.

"Malta’s corruption is not just in the heart of government, it’s the entire body"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/03/malta-...

This article gives a distorted view of my country. We have a largely normal government with normal levels of corruption. You can compare Malta to a municipality in a big country. I have lived in many north western European countries and at the municipal level I personally witnessed the same levels of corruption, that in my native Malta would be considered the biggest scandal of the year. It's all a matter of framing, propaganda and geopolitics.

> in many north western European countries and at the municipal level I personally witnessed the same levels of corruption, that in my native Malta would be considered the biggest scandal of the year.

Could you give examples of a few of these to illustrate the kind of thing we're talking about? It currently feels a bit hand wavy from both sides.

Most corruption that I have been witness to, both in Malta and abroad falls into two categories: nepotism and procurement/tenders. Both of these are extremely common to the point that most don't even consider them corruption. For context, I work in academia, so I am sort of by proxy employed with local/federal governments and am therefore privy to how procurement deals are made. There is nothing that happens in Malta that doesn't also happen in Germany or in any other country I have worked in. If anything in Malta someone is always going to cry foul, whereas if you're witnessing corruption at the municipal or state level in Germany, it mostly flies under the radar.

Yeah, just casually murdering journalists is totally normal.

Your username and comment history suggests it might not be wise to take your word as objective truth.

I understand what you mean by "corruption," but could you give examples? Of something ignored in Northern Europe that would be a scandal in Malta?

Well the business model of Malta is being a tax evasion haven and access port for oligarchs.

That’s quite a difference to most other European countries, although not all.

It's also the ideal country to have your gambling company incorporated.

?? London, Paris, Berlin ??

That’s quite a difference to most other European countries

The difference being that you personally are not prejudiced against them for no other reason than your ignorance and arrogance.

Respectfully, in the best case you don't really know what you are talking about. These three cities certainly cannot be categorised as tax havens in any sense of the word, and the local legislation is objectively different - as evident to anyone comparing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_money_in_London

https://trap.org.ua/en/publications/parisian-quarters-monten...

https://www.icij.org/news/2024/10/french-authorities-seize-7...

https://fakti.bg/en/imoti/927878-the-luxury-properties-of-th...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_money_in_Malta

Do you think blowing up journalists is "normal levels of corruption"?

I feel like this year is re-defining "normal levels of corruption."

You didn’t even mention the Knights of Malta yet. They claim to care for the poor, but Prince Bernhard also within a year of signing up ordered naked girls for an evening which caused his secretary, J. Thomassen, in march 1950 to quit. Other Knights of Malta were other Dutch royals, 3 FBI directors, and the father of JFK.

This article is more than 6 years old

Yup, and their Transparency International score has been getting worse since, with only a small improvement this year.

Malta is also where a lot of the fraudolent call centers are based

I think “route through” might be more appropriate

Based is appropriate, some months ago a couple of ex employees were interviewed and they were working on malta offering crypto scams. They had precise instructions on which nationalities they were forbidden to scam.

Corruption is like cancer.

What does that have to do with ChatGPT?

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