Alessio Emmanuel Vella (born 5 June 1953), or Maltese Falcon, is a Maltese businessman, former boxer and the former National President of the

Rebels Motorcycle Club The Rebels Motorcycle Club is an outlaw motorcycle club. At its peak in Australia, it had around 70 chapters and over 1,000 members and associates nationwide, making it the largest club in the country. It was founded by Clint Jacks in Brisbane, ...

in Australia. Despite having lived in Australia since the 1960s, he is not a citizen of the country. This caused

visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

problems when he tried to return to Australia after having gone to Japan with his son Adam (also a boxer) for a boxing match in 2007. The

New South Wales Police Force The New South Wales Police Force (NSW Police Force; previously the New South Wales Police Service and New South Wales Police) is the primary law enforcement agency of the state of New South Wales, Australia. Divided into Police Area Commands (P ...

tried to bar Vella from re-entering Australia then, but he was eventually allowed to return. In 2014 Vella visited his friends and family in Malta, and while he was there, his residency visa was cancelled by the Australian

Minister for Immigration and Border Protection The Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs is a ministerial post of the Australian Government and is currently held by Andrew Giles, pending the swearing in of the full Albanese ministry on 1 June 2022, following the ...

. Vella tried to appeal in the

High Court of Australia The High Court of Australia is Australia's apex court. It exercises Original jurisdiction, original and appellate jurisdiction on matters specified within Constitution of Australia, Australia's Constitution. The High Court was established fol ...

in October 2015, but was not permitted to.

Private life

Vella was born into a strict

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

family in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

and was one of eleven children. His parents lived in a small villa near Buskett. He began work at the age of eight, carrying buckets of water on a building site for 30 cents a day, and is functionally illiterate. He and his family then moved to Australia in the 1960s and established a strawberry farm near

Horsley Park, New South Wales Horsley Park is a suburb of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Horsley Park is located 39 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Fairfield. Horsley Park is part of the G ...

. In his 20s, he sometimes worked two or three jobs at a time; as a

bouncer A bouncer (also known as a doorman or door supervisor) is a type of security guard, employed at venues such as bars, nightclubs, cabaret clubs, stripclubs, casinos, hotels, billiard halls, restaurants, sporting events, schools, concerts, or m ...

labourer A laborer (or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor types in the construction industry workforce. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries e ...

and

bricklayer A bricklayer, which is related to but different from a mason, is a craftsman and tradesman who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The terms also refer to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of masonry. ...

. He also joined the Rebels Motorcycle Club while pursuing a promising career as a

boxer Boxer most commonly refers to: * Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing *Boxer (dog), a breed of dog Boxer or boxers may also refer to: Animal kingdom * Boxer crab * Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans * Boxer snipe ee ...

; he eventually became the Maltese light-heavyweight champion. After a serious road accident, he received in compensation and used this money to set up a business importing and selling motorcycles.

Legal issues

In 1990, police found a $15,000 stash of

marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...

while searching his home, which they believed to be a

methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamph ...

factory. He was sentenced to 18-months of two-nights-a-week prison, and two-days-a-week community service. He has also been arrested, but not convicted, of a number of other crimes including stabbing two men and assaulting a woman. He was freed on appeal after being given six months in jail for the latter. On 28 May 2008, Vella won a court case against the

ANZ Bank ANZ may refer to: People * Anz (musician), a British DJ and electronic musician Banks * ANZ (bank), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, the fourth-largest bank in Australia ** ANZ Bank New Zealand, the largest bank in New Zealand ...

. He sued them for $2.7 million after his former business partner, Tony Caradonna, re-mortgaged three properties, including the Rebels' clubhouse, for $2.4 million by falsifying Vella's signature. He also claimed $300,000 was fraudulently withdrawn from their joint bank account. On 16 June 2014, Immigration Minister

Scott Morrison Scott John Morrison (; born 13 May 1968) is an Australian politician. He served as the 30th prime minister of Australia and as Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia from 2018 to 2022, and is currently the member of parliament (MP) for t ...

cancelled Vella's residency visa on character grounds while Vella was visiting Malta. Vella attempted to challenge the action in the

, but on 16 October 2015 the court refused his application for

leave to appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vella, Alex 1954 births Living people Maltese emigrants to Australia 20th-century Maltese businesspeople Maltese Roman Catholics Maltese prisoners and detainees Gang members Boxers from Sydney Australian male boxers