‘Stupid Us’: How U.S. Retirees Lost Thousands to Fraud Linked to Ex-E.U. Official
But European investigators now believe that Mr. Dalli was linked to a separate fraud scheme — one
that reached from Malta to the Bahamas to South Carolina, and that bilked investors including Ms. Hayes of at least $1.5 million.
During a visit to the Bahamas, Ms. Corbin introduced Mr. Dalli to Michael D. Brady, a founder of a Tea Party branch in South Carolina, as her business partner and as a European commissioner, and
that "gave credibility to her and the whole investment scheme," Mr. Brady wrote in an email.
Even as that scandal unfolded, European Union investigators were looking into Mr. Dalli because he had taken three trips to the Bahamas in 2012 — including a round trip from Cyprus
and back in one weekend — before he was forced to resign.
Investigators say that Mr. Dalli and Ms. Corbin traveled together in 2011 and 2012 to a German health spa, and spent time together at a villa in the Bahamas, where he benefited from the use of an $8,000-a-month beachside villa
that was not declared to the European Commission, his employer at the time.
A former police chief in Malta, John Rizzo, said in a recent interview
that "there was enough evidence to substantiate a criminal case against John Dalli" but that he "cannot really explain" why Mr. Dalli was not charged in the tobacco case.