No. 3/BREAKING NOW: Konrad Mizzi and PM’s chief of staff Keith Schembri have exactly the same asset-concealing structures in blacklisted Panama

The prime minister’s personal assistant and chief of staff, businessman Keith Schembri of KASCO Ltd, and his Energy and Health Minister Konrad Mizzi, have set up exactly the same structure for concealing assets from the authorities in the European Union.

They each have a trust in New Zealand which holds a company in EU-blacklisted Panama. To be specific, Keith Schembri has a New Zealand trust which holds a Panamanian company, and Konrad Mizzi has another New Zealand trust which holds another Panamanian company. Schembri is the beneficiary of his trust, while Mizzi (as we have seen already) is the settlor and protector of his.

Both men set up their structures exactly concurrently, using the services of Brian Tonna at Nexia BT. Tonna has been Schembri’s accountant for two decades, and just before the last general election he set up another offshore company for him in the British Virgin Islands.

The agreements that made Schembri beneficiary of his trust, and Mizzi settlor and protector of his, were submitted together on the same date by Nexia BT.

Nexia BT started the process to set up the structures for both Mizzi and Schembri as early as 4 December 2014. Konrad Mizzi submitted a declaration, when the trust was set up, that the assets did NOT come from an inheritance.

On a timeline, it coincides squarely with the Azerbaijan fuel deal, when Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Kurt Farrugia went to Baku to ‘negotiate’ alone and unaccompanied by senior civil servants or career diplomats.

That’s all I will report for now.

Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Kurt Farrugia negotiating alone in Baku in December 2014