Corruption web: State employee with secret BVI company set up by Brian Tonna works for Parliamentary Secretary Roderick Galdes

State employee Mary Ellen Mercieca, who was revealed last night – in the publication of names and companies found in the Panama Papers – as the ultimate beneficial owner of a secret company in the British Virgin Islands, is the right-hand woman to George Carbone, a former Director General at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries who is now a consultant to the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries, Roderick Galdes, in the Environment Ministry (formerly Leo Brincat, now Jose Herrera).

George Carbone’s son, Matthew Carbone, is deputy head of government communications, reporting directly to Kurt Farrugia.

Ms Mercieca’s no longer secret company in the British Virgin Islands, called Comerco Services Ltd, was set up for her on 9 October 2013 by Brian Tonna of Nexia BT, who a desk in the Office of the Prime Minister, as does Matthew Carbone.

Ms Mercieca’s husband of no more than three years, Charlie Andrew Cordina, owes hundreds of thousands of euros to a large number of creditors, including the government of Malta. He has been faced with garnishee orders and warrants of seizure and holds no assets in his name. He recently bought – though not in his own name – the building at 20A St Lucia Street, Valletta and plans to develop a guesthouse or boutique hotel there. Cordina has a long track record of violations of the law in the restaurant, café and bar business in Victoria and Marsalforn, Gozo.

Cordina shows up nowhere in the records for Comerco Services Ltd, but the company name is a conflation of the first half of their surnames, Cordina and Mercieca. The obvious explanation here is that the British Virgin Islands company was set up in the name of his new wife to conceal his assets from his numerous creditors, from the Maltese government to which he owes a considerable sum, and from the estranged mothers of children he had before he remarried.

Left to right in this photograph: Charlie Andrew Cordina, who is being chased by numerous creditors, with George Carbone, a consultant to the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries, and Cordina’s wife Mary Ellen Mercieca, who works for Carbone at the Parliamentary Secretariat and who is the sole shareholder and beneficial owner of Comerco Services Ltd, set up for her in the British Virgin Islands by Brian Tonna, who has a desk at the Office of the Prime Minister.

Roderick Galdes, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries

George Carbone with deputy prime minister Louis Grech