Undocumented Boxer Charged After 16 Years in Malta: ‘He’s Maltese in Every Way But on Paper’
**Boxer Charged Over Fake Certificates Living ‘Irregularly’ in Malta Since 2008**
Valletta – A 35-year-old professional boxer from Cameroon, who has been living “irregularly” in Malta since 2008, was arraigned on Tuesday after allegedly presenting forged residence certificates to regularise his stay. The case, heard before Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech, has reignited debate on Malta’s long-standing underground economy of false documents and the human stories trapped behind them.
The accused, named in court as Jean-Pierre N., arrived in Malta 16 years ago on a tourist visa that expired within weeks. According to police testimony, he never left. Instead, he built a life in the shadows: fighting on local boxing cards in Paola and Marsa gyms, coaching children in St. Paul’s Bay, and most recently, working as a security guard at a Paceville nightclub. Investigators told the court that in 2022 he paid €2,500 to an unidentified “fixer” in Ħamrun for two counterfeit certificates – one claiming he had been legally resident since 2009, the other a forged police conduct sheet from his supposed hometown of Douala. The forgery was spotted when he submitted the paperwork for a work permit renewal last December.
“These are not victimless crimes,” prosecuting inspector Roderick Attard told journalists outside the law courts. “Every falsified file pushes deserving asylum applicants further back in the queue.” The boxer’s defence lawyer, however, painted a different picture: a man who speaks fluent Maltese, pays rent to an elderly Sliema widow, and whose 12-year-old daughter – born in Malta and attending a state school in Naxxar – has never set foot in Cameroon. “He is Maltese in every way but on paper,” lawyer Francesca Fenech argued, requesting bail. The court released the accused against a €5,000 deposit and a personal guarantee of €10,000, ordering him to sign the police register daily and surrender his passport – although he has never held a valid one.
For many in Malta’s migrant communities, the story feels achingly familiar. Since the early 2000s, the island’s booming construction and hospitality sectors have quietly relied on thousands of undocumented workers who arrive on short visas and overstay. “We all know someone who bought papers,” says Mustapha, a 42-year-old Ghanaian chef who has been undocumented since 2010 and asked that his surname not be used. “Without the forged stamp, you cannot open a bank account, you cannot rent legally, you live in fear of the nightly police swoops in Paceville.” NGOs estimate that between 3,000 and 5,000 people currently live in Malta without valid documents, many of them sub-Saharan Africans who entered through the airport rather than by boat.
The boxing fraternity, famously tight-knit on the island, is reeling. “JP trains the kids for free every Saturday,” says Marco “The Spartan” Sciberras, a local light-middleweight champion. “He cornered me in my second pro fight. Now half the gym is asking: if he goes, who teaches our juniors discipline?” Promoter Jesmond Dalli has already cancelled next month’s “Fight Night Valletta” card, fearing that other fighters on the bill may also lack proper papers. “We can’t risk police turning the weigh-in into a raid,” Dalli sighs.
Beyond the sport, the case exposes Malta’s ambiguous relationship with integration. In 2021, the government announced a “regularisation pathway” allowing undocumented migrants who could prove five years’ residence and stable employment to apply for a one-year permit. Only 1,200 applications were approved; critics say the bureaucracy – including impossible-to-obtain foreign birth certificates – doomed the scheme. Jean-Pierre’s lawyer told the court he tried twice, but could not produce a Cameroonian passport that expired in 2009. “The state tells us to come forward, then slams the door,” comments Karl Falzon from the Malta Refugee Council.
Meanwhile, the Ħamrun fixer remains at large. Police sources admit the forger is “probably Maltese” and may have supplied scores of similar packages. Until such networks are dismantled, stories like Jean-Pierre’s will continue to surface – tales of people who have planted roots, raised children, paid taxes deducted at source, yet still hover in a legal twilight.
As the boxer left court clutching his daughter’s hand, whispering “nista’ nieħu l-gelat?” (“can I have ice-cream?”) in perfect Maltese, onlookers were left with an uncomfortable question: after sixteen years, where does Malta end and the undocumented begin? The court will decide on the forgery charges in October, but the community verdict is already split between the letter of the law and the spirit of a nation that has always prided itself on giving people a second chance.
