Occupy Justice activists peg ‘mafia state’ laundry outside shuttered Pilatus bank

Activists from Occupy Justice mounted a ‘dirty laundry’ stunt outside the offices of the now-shuttered Pilatus Bank in Ta’ Xbiex. 

The bank yesterday had its banking licence removed formally after it went under controllership since the arrest in the United States of its chairman and owner Ali Sadr Hashminejad, for breaching US sanctions. 

On Monday the European Central Bank withdrew with immediate effect Pilatus Bank’s authorisation to act as a credit institution 

READ MORE: Pilatus Bank loses its banking license 

Illustrations which depicted 'crooks running away' were left hanging in front of the building

The activists pegged t-shirts to a washing line with the slogans “Liar, liar, your laundered pants are on fire”, “#TruthNeverDies”, “Daphne was right”, in front of Whitehall mansions. Shirts with ‘Mafia State’ written on them, and illustrations which depicted '’crooks running away’ were left hanging in front of the building. “It took two years for the Malta Financial Services Authority to finally wake up and smell the oozing stench of Pilatus Bank. Two whole years to shut it down and have its license revoked,” Occupy Justice said in a statement. 

A joint MFSA and FIAU transaction-by-transaction inquiry of the bank is currently ongoing. But previous reports by the late journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia that the bank had processed transactions for the prime minister’s family were disproved in the magisterial inquiry on the Egrant allegations. 

The group criticized Malta Financial Services Authority for taking two years to 'wake up' and realise what pilatus bank was up to

“Meanwhile, the person who pushed for Pilatus bank to be given a licence, and even has a bank account there, Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s own Chief of Staff, is still running the country alongside Joseph Muscat. No wonder Malta is being seen by the rest of the world as a dodgy country,” Occupy Justice said. 

Schembri is the subject of a magisterial inquiry on an accusation brought by former PN leader Simon Busuttil that his auditor Brian Tonna paid him a sum of money from a Pilatus bank account in the name of his offshore company. Busuttil alleges that the payment was a kickback from professional fees paid by a successful applicant for Maltese citizenship, to Tonna’s offshore company. Schembri and Tonna claim the payment was the repayment of a loan. 

The transaction was discovered shortly after a FIAU visit to the Pilatus Bank offices in early 2016, which prompted a request for a police investigation by the former FIAU director Manfred Galdes. 

Occupy Justice said in their statement that Caruana Galizia was assassinated while “uncovering shocking corruption stories”, of which these included Pilatus’s operations. “It is crystal clear that this bank was used as a racket base for the Prime Minister’s close friends. And we won’t rest until they all will be brought to justice,” they said.