I refer to the news item titled ‘European banking watchdog investigates FIAU over Pilatus’ (June 8), which said that the European banking watchdog was investigating the manner in which the government’s anti-money laundering agency had supervised Pilatus Bank.
In this context, the European Banking Authority should ask the director of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, Kenneth Farrugia, why were no inspectors sent to examine the contents of the luggage carried by former Pilatus Bank chairman Seyed Ali Sadr Hashemenijad (who was accompanied by bank risk manager Antoniella Gauci), on April 20, 2017. This was screened live on Net TV whose crew happened to be present at the time.
The European Banking Authority would also do well to remember that, on the following day (April 21), a Bombardier Challenger 850 (9H-ILZ), operated by VistaJet Malta, left Malta for Baku, Azerbaijan at 3.56 am. The FIAU was nowhere to be seen.