Joseph Muscat said on Tuesday he cannot discuss “private projects abroad,” as links to alleged fraud in a failed buyout of Crystal Palace FC he was involved in emerged.

Times of Malta, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Shift News uncovered last month how the ex-prime minister represented a Swiss company involved in a potential buyout of the English premier league football club.

The owner of the Swiss company, Wasay Bhatti, hired Muscat as his consultant in January 2020, soon after he stepped down as prime minister.

Muscat's consultancy contract is the subject of a corruption probe linked to the Vitals/Steward hospitals privatisation deal.

Buyout's crypto links 

According to a Daily Mail article published this week, one of the other partners in the failed Crystal Palace bid was behind a start-up English crypto-currency firm facing fraud accusations.

Muscat said on Tuesday that he was only involved in the Crystal Palace bid “at the very end”.

“I was roped in to safeguard the position of one of the shareholders,”  Muscat said in reference to Bhatti. 

When asked about the apparent lack of due diligence Bhatti had carried out on his partners in the Crystal Palace bid, Muscat said he signed a non-disclosure agreement and cannot discuss private projects abroad.

Bhatti's partners were behind the London Football Exchange, a failed venture meant to offer football fans, traders and investors the opportunity to purchase and sell crypto-assets to acquire ownership interests in football clubs.

The Daily Mail reported that "promises" were made of a partnership between the club and LFE if the buyout deal went ahead. The Daily Mail also quoted a source as saying the club walked away from the deal after carrying out due diligence, and deciding the proposed buyers were not "suitable custodians" of the club. 

One of the people behind the LFE, Jim Aylward, reportedly uses a false name, having previously been convicted of fraud under his real name, James Abbass Biniaz.

The LFE itself faced fraud accusations in 2020 after a number of its early backers claimed they were duped out of some $3 million in investments.

An application for a freezing order against LFE was filed in January 2020 and upheld later that year by a London court.