Pilatus owner Ali Sadr Hasheminejad out on bail

A New York court has granted bail to Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, owner and chairman of the Maltese private bank Pilatus.

MaltaToday has been unable to determine under which conditions Hasheminejad, whom the US government dubbed a flight risk, was given bail.

A lawyer for the banker confirmed that his client had been granted bail.

The banker was arrested in March and charged on several counts of breaching sanctions on Iran as well as with bank fraud and money laundering, by processing the payments in US dollars from a Venezuela housing project to Iranian beneficiaries that included his family’s business group.

Lawyers for Hasheminejad presented an impressive bail package of conditions and bonds that total some $34 million, which include almost 40 bonds from family, friends and colleagues worth almost $14 million. They said Hasheminejad would accept having travel restricted to New York, parts of Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., surrendering his passports, and even being subjected to electronic monitoring.

“Even Bernie Madoff, who had his own private jet and personal yacht, and was charged with a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, was granted bail on a $10 million bond a nightly curfew, and travel restricted to the tristate area,” the lawyers said.

The bonds included “meaningful pledges” from close friends and relatives who have pledged property and retirement accounts to assure Hasheminejad will appear in court to answer for charges of having breached US sanctions against Iran.

The lawyers are arguing that such pledges carry an “extraordinary sting” for these people should Hasheminejad not appear in court.

The bail package was opposed by the US government’s district attorney Geoffrey Bearman, who accused him of having set up Pilatus bank in 2013 with “criminal proceeds” from the US dollar payments to Iranian beneficiaries.

Bearman told the judge that €8 million and 1 million Swiss francs from the payments made to the Hasheminejads on the Venezuelan housing construction project, were used to set up Pilatus Bank. The bank is now under controllership by the Maltese financial regulator after it froze its operations.

Bearman said Hasheminejad’s wealth, which includes a $12.9 million equity in Pilatus, was ultimately forfeitable “because it constitutes criminal proceeds directly linked to the Venezuela project”.

He also alleged that Hasheminejad’s $1.5 million Washington D.C. apartment was also forfeitable “because it was purchased with criminal proceeds linked to the Venezuelan project”; as were the California pistachio farms, with an alleged $5.7 million; and properties owned by the Hasheminejad family in the US were also forfeitable.

Hasheminejad arrest

Hasheminejad was arrested in Virginia as he returned to his Washington home, charged with bank fraud and breaching US sanctions against Iran. He is accused of having funnelled some $115 million through the United States on behalf of Iranian entities, including his family’s company Stratus, from a Venezuelan construction project to companies in Switzerland and Turkey.

On 18 March, Hasheminejad flew from Dublin to Washington DC, arriving for a one-day trip. He was arrested the next day at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport before boarding a flight to London, where Pilatus has another office.

The Maltese financial regulator has said it is carrying out a “transaction-by-transaction” review at Pilatus Bank together with the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit.

The extensive review is still ongoing, MFSA director-general Marianne Scicluna told MEPs in the TAX3 committee on financial crimes, tax evasion and tax avoidance that the MFSA and FIAU were already carrying out the comprehensive review before the US indictment of Ali Sadr Hasheminejad.

She said the purpose of the review is to “get to the bottom of allegations and concerns as to whether money laundering was carried out in the bank” and that it would provide a robust assessment of the bank’s actions.

The bank’s operations are already the subject of at least two magisterial inquiries, one triggered on an allegation by the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that it processed a $1 million payment on behalf of the Azerbaijani ruling family, to the wife of prime minister Joseph Muscat; the other on a complaint filed by the former PN leader Simon Busuttil on money paid by Nexia BT partner Brian Tonna to the PM’s chief of staff Keith Schembri shortly after receiving payment from Russian clients who had acquired Maltese citizenship under the IIP.