The Malta Connection: a corrupting island in a "corrupting sea"?

Amidst turbulent economic growth, the recent history of Malta has been punctuated by major corruption scandals and indices of large-scale money laundering. These developments are usually attributed to changing fiscal policies seen as disembodied from the spaces and flows where they are embedded. By calling into question this abstraction, this article aims to explore the extent to which the condition of insularity of the Republic of Malta has contributed to the rooting of organised crime in the country. In particular, it focuses on the Libyan oil smuggling schemes pivoted in Malta with a view to discussing the idea that the specific territoriality of the maritime space is a crucial enabling factor of illicit economies. It will argue that islands such as Malta—when looked at in terms of nodes of the connective maritime space—challenge the political and economic assumptions upon which the modern idea of sovereignty is usually predicated. The article is based on the data collected from interviews with Libyan, Tunisian, Maltese and Italian experts in security and organised crime.