Keith ‘Panama/BVI/Gibraltar/Cyprus’ Schembri and Crane Currency – what’s the deal there?

The government says that it has signed a deal with Crane Currency of Boston to set up production in Malta. But I am left with the lingering suspicion that this was a 100% private business deal in which Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, used his privileged government position to serve his business interests.

The Prime Minister was keen to point out that Schembri was instrumental in the negotiations, presumably hoping that this would encourage us to overlook the facts of Schembri’s embroilment in secret money-laundering operations, along with Konrad and Sai Mizzi, corrupt accountant Brian Tonna of Nexia BT, and the managing director of the publishers of the Times of Malta and The Sunday Times, Adrian Hillman, in Panama, the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus and Gibraltar.

But Schembri’s core business – apart from laundering the proceeds of God knows what through the filthy services of Mossack Fonseca and Brian Tonna – is brokering transactions on paper, printing supplies and printing equipment.

The Opposition has got to challenge the government on this matter and, knowing full well that it can only expect lies and prevarication, ask the questions all the same.

I find it incredibly strange that this deal was supposedly struck in just six months and that Crane Currency has already published, in the United States, the designs for its Malta plant.

A delighted Keith Schembri, owner of secret money-laundering companies in Panama, the British Virigin Islands, Gibraltar and Cyprus. looks (far right) as the Prime Minister shakes on the deal with a Crane Currency executive.