Keith Schembri said yesterday that his company in the British Virgin Islands “held various investments”.
The Panama Papers show that, in 2014, Mr Schembri’s BVI company held cash assets amounting to $725,091.
Keith Schembri said his BVI company was not part of his Kasco businesses.Contacted by the Times of Malta, Mr Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, said the BVI company held the investments on his behalf and did not carry out “a specific trade”. He said the company “as such” did not form part of the loss-making Kasco group of companies.
“All monies retained under the BVI company were held in Malta and all taxes thereon have been paid,” Mr Schembri said.
Leaked e-mails show Mr Schembri, Malcom Scerri, a director in two Kasco companies, and Adrian Hillman held companies in the BVI
When asked why the money was placed in an offshore jurisdiction, Mr Schembri did not reply.
Leaked e-mails show that Mr Schembri, Malcom Scerri, a director in two of the Kasco companies, and former Allied Group managing director Adrian Hillman held companies in the BVI. All three used nominee directors for their companies, which hid their ownership.
The companies were set up in 2011. A 2013 e-mail from Nexia BT partner Karl Cini indicated that further plans were afoot.
“As for the information required, please note that all these three companies will be holding companies, they will hold shares in a Cyprus company (to start with) and all the bookkeeping and accounting records will be kept at our office,” the e-mail read.
Accounts sent by Nexia BT to Mossack Fonseca, the Panama firm at the centre of a massive data leak, showed that Mr Scerri held $1.1 million in 2014 through his BVI company while Mr Hillman held $647,420.
The currency of the accounts was not indicated but it is being assumed that they are dollar figures as this is the officially currency of the BVI.
The funds injected into all three men’s companies were in US dollars, euros and sterling.
Contacted, Mr Hillman said the matter was the subject of an inquiry by Allied Newspapers Limited and hence, he would not be commenting until the probe was finalised. Asked where the $647,420 had come from, Mr Hillman said he had already made his comment.
Nexia BT managing partner Brian Tonna held $216,782 through a BVI company in 2014.
E-mails between Mossack Fonseca and Nexia BT show that Mr Tonna’s BVI company acted as a referral agent on behalf of BT International for the sale of Maltese citizenship through the government’s individual investor programme.
Mr Tonna has a 100 per cent shareholding in BT International.
The BVI company would take a 30 to 50 per cent referral fee for successful citizenship applications, a contract in one of the e-mail correspondence shows.
Another BVI company, which Nexia BT said in e-mails to Mossack Fonseca was owned by Mr Tonna, showed “investments” of $306,349 in its 2014 accounts and made a profit of $36,671.
The Panama Papers have been made available to the Times of Malta through an investigative partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.