The Rosianne and Yorgen chat revelations have opened many overlooked links in Joseph Muscat’s extensive criminal network. One of these very interesting links is Darren Casha who in the chat is revealed to have been taking cocaine with Minister Konrad Mizzi during a party with friends. The revelation that a police deputy commissioner was present at Rosianne’s party last Saturday, just after her chats with Yorgen were published, may indicate that Rosianne’s circle of friends, including Darren Casha may enjoy widespread impunity for potential financial crimes. Despite not finding any publicly-listed available links between the two men, there are many things about Darren’s story which make his relationship with Konrad Mizzi quite bizarre, to say the least.
Why is Darren Casha so close to Konrad Mizzi to the extent that they were taking cocaine together when Konrad was Minister? What were they celebrating together and with gives them this trust in each other? Darren Casha remained close friends with Konrad even after he got kicked out of politics and was once seen picking him up from the airport. Darren was already under Daphne’s lens and you can find various articles about him on her website, but most interestingly, Daphne once pointed out that he was going through some financial troubles. After coming back from Indonesia where Darren allegedly escaped to flee his financial woes, Darren was spotted walking the Sliema promenade with Konrad Mizzi.
Darren who is a director of More Supermarkets, the bankrupt supermarket venture by Keith Schembri’s cousin, Ryan Schembri, says he lost a lot of money after he was fooled by Ryan. The story goes according to Darren, that he invested money in Ryan Schembri’s More Supermarkets venture and eventually bought back the company to recoup his investment. However, this kind of transaction is quite strange, because buying a supermarket chain for €90,000 doesn’t make any sense unless you are aware it is full of debts. This transaction may have been more like the recovery of the collateral against a loan but if it was a loan, from where did Darren Casha get the money to give a loan to Schembri? This is where it starts getting strange – the exact relationship and history between Ryan Schembri and Darren Casha. Other investors in the project have conflicting versions from Darren’s, even accusing him of personally pocketing the assets and the funds of the company himself without paying its creditors. Ryan Schembri has just been found guilty of defrauding investors with a €3.5 million constitution of debt.
There is one thing which is very clear when one goes through the business register of the companies Darren is related to. Darren’s father, Joseph, seems to be the actual owner of several of his companies, along with some other of Darren’s family members. Even MedAsia itself, the bar in Sliema for which Darren is popular is owned by his father according to business registry listings. Very recently Darren Casha was said to be involved in the Pebbles Hotel of Saint Julians, a hotel which was financed with a bond sale, yet even this project is owned by his father.
Darren says all his problems stem from Ryan’s fraud, but do they? Was Darren more involved with Ryan than he would like us to believe? And in any case, why would a government minister befriend a businessman who is embroiled in debts and financial problems?
The two trailing photos look first like nerds and second a bunch of mobsters. Bert and Ernie followed by a shot of a Goti family barbecue.