The bank account from which OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri is suspected to have been paid €100,000 in kickbacks received two more “suspicious” transfers totalling €583,000 shortly after those first transactions, The Sunday Times of Malta can reveal.
The account, at Pilatus Bank, was in the name of Willerby Trade Inc, a shell company in the British Virgin Islands. But it really belonged to audit firm Nexia BT’s boss, Brian Tonna, Mr Schembri’s auditor and a consultant to the Office of the Prime Minister.
The payment of €100,000 was made in two tranches of €50,000 each into Mr Schembri’s own account at the same bank. This raised suspicions with the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit that they were kickbacks paid to Mr Schembri from commissions made by Mr Tonna on the sale of Maltese citizenship to three Russians under the Individual Inves-tor Programme (IIP).
Shortly after those two payments were made in 2015, Mr Tonna’s account received further transfers amounting to €583,617.72 later that year and in early 2016.
In its investigations, the FIAU had already established that the Willerby account was only used for proceeds and transactions to Mr Schembri’s account from the IIP scheme.
However, the FIAU’s investigators did not detect any further payments to Mr Schembri, after the account was abruptly shut down a few days after the Panama Papers’ release revealed that Mr Tonna was the ultimate beneficiary owner of Willerby.
The information gathered by FIAU officials was passed on to the police and the Attorney General for further investigation more than a year ago.
They reported that the suspicious funds transferred to Mr Schembri “were followed by two other transfers into the [Pilatus] account originating from an account held with Bank of Valletta plc [BOV] in the name of BT International Limited, also owned by Tonna. The new funds referred to invoices issued by Willerby Trade Inc.”
It was noted this was a BVI shell company with no commercial activity and no employees. It was only through the Panama Papers that it was discovered Willerby Trade belonged to Mr Tonna.
“The inward transactions, which were effected in November 2015 and January 2016, respectively, had a total value of €583,617.72,” investigators wrote in their report to the police.
The account was closed a few days after the Panama leaks revealed Mr Tonna was the ultimate owner
The intelligence report said “the account pertaining to Willerby Trade Inc was closed on May 5, 2016, following a request for closure by the client that, according to Pilatus Bank officials, was made on April 19, 2016”.
The fact that Mr Tonna owned Willerby had been made public on April 3.
The Willerby account held a final balance of €609,830.62, which was then moved to a new account with Bank of Valletta opened for this purpose.
“Interestingly, even though the funds originated from Willerby Trade Inc, the [BOV] account was opened in the name of ‘Brian Tonna A/C Nexia BT Dividend’ rather than Willerby Trade Inc,” the investigators noted.
They also underlined the fact that Willerby was not a shareholder of Nexia BT, and thus no dividends were due to it. They asked the police to use their legal powers to establish the connections between BT International, Nexia BT and Willerby Trade and the claimed dividends.
The FIAU investigations were sparked by the €100,000 transfer.
Marking the transfer down as suspicious, Pilatus Bank officials immediately asked for explanations from both Mr Tonna and Mr Schembri.
The bank then instructed Mr Tonna to desist from making any other similar transactions, as to do so would have been outside the scope of the account as originally stated by Willerby.
The FIAU also noted that the bank had failed to file a suspicious transaction report to it as obliged to by banking law.
It is not known whether Pilatus Bank was fined for this omission.
According to the FIAU, the receipt of funds into Willerby’s account from applicants under the IIP for services provided by Nexia BT and BT International was not in line with the information provided to the bank when it carried out its customer due diligence before the account was first opened.
Mr Tonna and Mr Schembri failed to reply to questions from this newspaper.
Both have denied kickbacks from the passport scheme and explained the transaction away as repayment of a loan. This was after the FIAU concluded there was enough evidence to form a reasonable suspicion of money laundering or proceeds from crime and asked the police to investigate. The agency found no trace of such a loan.
The police have so far taken no action, but last week a magistrate opened an investigation to establish whether the two should be prosecuted. That development was a result of ‘documented evidence’ presented to the courts by PN leader Simon Busuttil.
IIP ‘kickbacks’ timeline
■ March 11, 2013 – New Labour government sworn in. Prime Minster Joseph Muscat chooses Kasco Group owner Keith Schembri as chief of staff.
■ March 19, 2013 – Willerby Trade Inc is established as a shell company in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. Its ultimate beneficiary owner is concealed behind directors nominated by Mossack Fonseca, from which the Panama Papers leaks would later originate.
■ May 23, 2013 – Mossack Fonseca & Co Malta Ltd is established and set up in the same offices as Brian Tonna’s Nexia BT.
■ January 3, 2014 – Iranian-born citizen of St Kitts and Nevis, Sayed Ali Sadr Hasheminejad – unknown in the banking world – obtains a licence from the Malta Financial Services Authority to open Pilatus Bank in Malta.
■ November 27, 2014 – Willerby Trade Inc opens an account at Pilatus Bank which aims to serve high-net-worth individuals. Shortly afterwards, Mr Schembri opens a personal account at the same bank.
■ Early 2015 – Three Russian nationals are granted Maltese citizenship. They pay €166,831,90 into Mr Tonna’s account at Pilatus Bank, even though Willerby Trade was not an IIP agent.
■ Few weeks later – Willerby Trade transfers, in two separate instalments of €50,000, a total of €100,000 to Mr Schembri’s Pilatus account.
■ November 2015 and January 2016 – A BOV account owned by Mr Tonna’s BT International transfers €583,617.72 to Willerby Trade’s account at Pilatus in two instalments against invoices connected to the sale of Maltese passports. At this time, the identity of Willerby’s owner is still unknown.
■ April 3, 2016 – The Panama Papers are published. Tonna is revealed as owner of Willerby.
■ April 19, 2016 – Tonna asks Pilatus Bank to close the Willerby account with immediate effect.
■ May 5, 2016 – Pilatus Bank closes the account. The balance held – €609,830.62 – is moved to a new account at BOV opened in the name of ‘Brian Tonna A/C Nexia BT dividend’ rather than Willerby.
ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com