Police mull prosecution over Nexia operations

The Maltese police are a step closer to prosecute alleged financial crimes committed under the aegis of Nexia BT, the audit company under which Joseph Muscat’s former chief of staff Keith Schembri and former minister Konrad Mizzi opened secret offshore companies in Panama.

MaltaToday has been told that former Nexia managing partner Brian Tonna will be posting police bail at the Floriana GHQ on Monday at 11am. Charges are expected to be prepared over financial operations carried out at Nexia BT before the audit firm was wound down in 2020.

Tonna played a central role in assisting Keith Schembri’s offshore business operations before and after Labour’s 2013 election victory. The Panama companies were later revealed to be connected to 17 Black, a company owned by Tumas magnate and Electrogas shareholder Yorgen Fenech. In September 2020, the Criminal Court granted police investigators access to all assets held in financial institutions in the name of Keith Schembri, as well his extended family, in a freezing order to aid money laundering investigations.

The subject persons included Keith Schembri and his wife Josette Schembri Vella, his parents; his new logistics company in Bulebel, Navis, as well as its directors Malcolm Scerri and his relatives; the Kasco group of companies owned by Schembri, with its various subsidiaries; GSV Co, and other related companies run by Kasco directors such as ThoughtZone Limited and Acumen Projects; Brian Tonna, his spouse and children, as well as all partners in the Nexia BT group, Manuel Castagna, Karl Cini; Nexia-related companies like Smartsites Limited, NBT Technology, Eximus Business Malta and Eximus Business Aviation Private; other subjects such as blockchain consultant Anton Dalli and a host of Nexia BT partners, employees and their families; the ofshore companies Willerby Trade (BVI), Holdforth (Cyprus), Malmos (Gibraltar), Colson Services (BVI), SPX Services (BVI); private Tonna-owned companies SOPNIF and AWNY Properties, and Zonqor Estates amongst others.

A host of magisterial inquiries were launched in the wake of revelations by assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that Tonna’s BT International, an accredited agent of the Individual Investor Programme, had handled the purchase of Maltese citizenship for a Russian family. Using his own Willerby Trade as an introducer, Tonna invoiced BT International for 50% of the fees. According to a leaked report by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU), Tonna transferred two €50,000 payments through Pilatus Bank to Schembri.Operation Green was the title of the police investigation into Schembri and Tonna.

Both men have denied any wrongdoing and said the €100,000 was the repayment of a personal loan given to Tonna by Schembri while the former underwent separation proceedings. The same FIAU report also raised suspicions of the loan document presented to the bank to justify the payments after finding no trace of the original loan payment by Schembri to Tonna.

Nexia BT was a corporate advisory firm that previously served as the Mossack Fonseca agents in the country, the Panamanian firm at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal. Through managing director Brian Tonna and partner Karl Cini, the firm set up the offshore structures of Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi.

According to one e-mail found in the Panama Papers, Schembri and Mizzi were set to receive payments of up to $2 million from 17 Black, the UAE company owned by Yorgen Fenech, who stands accused of conspiring to assassinate journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Nexia BT also played a role in selecting the operator for Malta’s new gas-fired power station, the Electrogas consortium of which Fenech formed part.

Apart from setting up two off-shore firms for Schembri, the firm played a central figure in the Egrant saga, a mysterious third offshore company which Tonna insisted belonged to him, and not, as alleged, to former prime minister Joseph Muscat. A magisterial inquiry in 2018 could not find sufficient proof as to whether the company could have been intended for Muscat.