A few days ago, The Times reported that Eva Jung, an investigative journalist, helped expose a complex $2.9 billion money-laundering scheme known as the Azerbaijani laundromat. Basically, she said the methods and procedures exposed looked similar to the set-up at the Pilatus Bank in Malta.

What happened was that Azerbaijan’s ruling class utilised a slush fund to pay off sympathetic politicians and journalists in Europe. According to Jung’s yet unverified assertion, this scheme looked similar to the Pilatus Bank case, where a Dubai-based fund, controlled by the ruling Azeri Aliyev family, allegedly sent funds to Panama companies owned by Maltese politicians through the Pilatus Bank.

What is clear is that the Malta-Azerbaijan connection, which hit the limelight when the Joseph Muscat-Konrad Mizzi-Keith Schembri trio were caught secretly meeting the Azeri President in Baku, has long been activated.

The Civic Solidarity Platform, a coalition of 50 human rights NGOs from Europe, Eurasia and the US, published a report earlier this year stating that “Malta is one of the key locations where corrupt Azerbaijani officials kept their money in offshore banks, along with Britain, the Czech Republic, Dubai, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States”. 

It also highlights the fact that Speaker Anġlu Farrugia has been to Azerbaijan various times, always praising the ruling regime there, despite the fact that others were flagging its irregular behaviour.

Another aficionado of the country seems to have been former Labour MP Joe Debono Grech. 

The Malta-Azerbaijan connection, which hit the limelight when the Joseph Muscat-Konrad Mizzi-Keith Schembri trio were caught secretly meeting the Azeri President in Baku, has long been activated

For six years he served as co-rapporteur for the Council of Europe on Azerbaijan and visited the country over 30 times. He has been severely criticised internationally for his generous praising of the regime there.  

In April this year, Daphne Caruana Galizia, quoting a whistleblower, wrote that the sister of the Pilatus Bank owner, Negarin Sadr, transferred $400,000 to the bank account of Michelle Buttigieg, Malta Tourism Authority’s representative in New York as well as Michelle Muscat’s Buttardi jewellery business partner. This assertion has not been independently verified. Who knows if things are clearer now that the Russian whistleblower has shared her experiences with the EP Pana committee?

We are still anxiously awaiting the result of the magistrate’s investigation into the Pilatus Bank workings to understand whether and to what extent the Pilatus Bank and the people behind it ever oiled the palms of Maltese politicians or their connections. 

What seems however confirmed is the other Azeri banking connection with Malta, revealed by the recent Paradise Papers, and which very few seem to be talking about.

In fact, these recent “paradisiac” leaks reveal that a single €10 million deposit was placed into a Nemea Bank account by an Azerbaijani woman through a Maltese-registered company.

The Malta-based Nemea Bank’s licence has since been withdrawn by the MFSA, leaving Maltese depositors in the lurch.

We also know for certain that after the secret visit to Baku of the Maltese political trio, the Azeri billionaire Manuchehr Ahadpir Khangah, a frontman for Azeri Minister for Emergency Situations Kamaladdin Heydarov, set up various companies in Malta through Brian Tonna’s Nexia BT and that the Azeri State company Socar landed a plum contract linked to Malta’s energy needs.

The more Muscat, Konrad and Co. try to prevent us all from getting to know about the FIAU investigative reports concerning Pilatus and Azerbaijan, the more it becomes clear to one and all that the Azeri-Malta connection certainly deserves being put under even closer scrutiny.

Arnold Cassola is former secretary general of the European Green Party and AD chairman.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.