Inside the suspected Algerian visa scandal
As an Air Malta flight to Algiers revs up its engines, the crew give each other a knowing glance. It will be another easy flight.
Of the over 100 passengers booked on the flight, only eight have actually turned up.
Air Malta’s former general sales agent for Algeria, Alex Fezouine, who was on that flight in 2015, says it was all too common to have 90 per cent no-show rates for these return flights.
He suspects that a racket operating right next door to Malta’s consulate in Algiers was selling Algerians false documentation and facilitating the process for them to obtain a Schengen visa to visit the island and then jet off to mainland Europe, never to return to Algeria.
“[Schengen] visa sellers have taken over the consulate [in Algiers] and the airline and started only sending illegal immigrants to Europe, through Malta of course,” Mr Fezouine wrote in an April 2015 e-mail to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
Algerians applying for a Schengen visa needed to show proof of a local hotel booking and return flight from the island when applying for visas at Malta’s consulate in Algiers.
READ: Visa vetting at Malta's Algiers consulate was 'less than optimal', NAO finds
At the time of the...