Husband and son arrested on money laundering probe, corruption
Construction machine Charles Polidano was arrested Friday morning and taken for questioning on money laundering and corruption suspects.
Polidano, known as The Cock, was arrested at his home and taken for questioning at the police’s Financial Crimes Investigation Department.
His son Gordon was also arrested.
Police sources told the Times of Malta that the construction magnate had been taken after a lengthy investigation into money laundering and corruption suspicions.
He is suspected of corrupting a senior official in a large entity through the sale of property.
Questions were sent to the Polidano Group.
Polidano, 62, is one of the richest men in the country.
Its Polidano Group is one of the leading construction firms, regularly involved in major national infrastructure projects.
Last month, Times of Malta reported that he had made a massive payment of € 20 million to the authorities to settle decades of unpaid taxes.
The agreement was reached after about two years of talks with the Inland Revenue Department.
In 2020, Polidano had collected € 30.4 million in unpaid taxes on its parent company Polidano Brothers Limited.
Since then, he is understood to have paid two smaller tax bills of € 6.3 million and € 1.2 million, coming from other companies he owns, which have also been pending. These were also being discussed with the authorities at the time.
Two years ago, Polidano was ordered to pay the amount or face the possibility of a court action.
What followed were some 24 months of full negotiations with the authorities.
The following year, in 2021, Polidano came close to negotiating an agreement with the government that would see his tax rights partially paid against the sale of a large plot of land he had made to the Authority. Government housing.
That agreement had been rejected.
Polidano was then blacklisted with the aim of preventing him from bidding for government contracts.
To be eligible to bid for government tenders, stakeholders are expected to be up to date with their payments to the tax authorities.
In March this year, Times of Malta reported how Infrastructure Malta had revoked two bids worth several million Euros due to its tax non-compliance.
Polidano had won tenders for construction works worth € 11.8 million to extend the landing of the Marsamxett ferry as well as a tender of € 19.7 million for the improvement of Lascaris Wharf. .
However, both contracts were revoked.
Sources said that, for years, Polidano and other industry players, would have evaded this requirement by regularly entering into tax refund plans, only to stop honoring them once they got another big government contract.
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