Declarations of trust in Pilatus Bank safe: Egrant Inc shares held for Michelle Muscat

In the kitchen at the offices of Pilatus Bank in Ta’ Xbiex, there is a safe in which certain files are kept, and also particular documents marked for extreme secrecy. The safe used to be in the bank CEO’s office, but for some reason was moved to the kitchen.

In this safe, documents are held pertaining to Russian clients of the bank, and to Maltese PEPs, including John Dalli, consultant to Prime Minister Muscat, and Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, both of whom have accounts with the bank in their own personal names.

Dalli’s account is not used much, but the Prime Minister’s chief of staff uses his regularly and his statements show highly suspicious transactions involving people in Azerbaijan. This bank account is separate to the one held in the name of his once-secret Panama company, Tillgate Inc.

The safe in the kitchen at Pilatus Bank also contains the documents that answer the question which the whole of Malta has been asking this past year: who owns Egrant Inc, the third company Brian Tonna set up in Panama, for somebody so important that the name had to be given over Skype, rather than in an email as it was for Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri.

Those documents in the Pilatus Bank kitchen-safe are declarations of trust which show that shares in Egrant Inc are held by Mossack Fonseca nominees for “Mrs Michelle Muscat”.

The declarations of trust were provided to the bank by Brian Tonna, as a prerequisite for opening an account for Egrant Inc, for which the identity of the ultimate beneficial owner is required. Mrs Muscat’s name is also given on another document held in the bank’s safe: the account opening form for Egrant Inc.

These documents have been scanned and uploaded to the cloud, for security purposes, by third parties so that they cannot be destroyed by the bank.

Michelle Muscat with Leyla Aliyeva of Azerbaijan, in Malta in 2014.