THREE YEARS TOO LATE, MALTA'S REGULTOR FINES PILATUS BANK €4.9m; READ IT ALL HERE

Back in 2018, when details of Pilatus Bank's extensive money laundering activity emerged, Malta's Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit should have taken firm action against the bank, its directors, officers and ownership. Now, years too late, we see a fine that will never be collected, and a slap on the wrist upon a long-shuttered financial institution whose license was fast-tracked by Malta's Labour Government under suspicious circumstances that reeked of corruption. 

 Obviously, then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat ordered that no action was to be taken back in 2018, and instructed everyone (prosecutors, Attorney General, Justice Minister, Malta Police and MSS) to drag their heels until it became old news. Justice delayed is justice denied.

It gets worse; we note that the FIAU knew about Pilatus' money laundering in 2016, and this information was verified in 2017. If there wasn't an incestuous relationship between Muscat, Keith Schembri, and Konrad Mizzi, and Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad, Pilatus Bank owner and CEO, the bank would have been exposed years earlier. It is not known how many bribes were paid, and to whom, to secure Pilatus' banking license, but all three of these individuals are suspected of illicitly profiting from the license approval.

Here is the complete text of the FIAU Notice of Administrative Measure; you are advised to read all of it closely.