Updated 4.11pm with PN statement

An agent for the floating storage tanker fuelling the Electrogas power station features in a money-laundering and corruption probe linked to 17 Black and ex-government officials Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi.

Local investigators are in possession of information identifying Mario Pullicino as the owner of EN3 Projects, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company that conducted potentially suspicious activity with 17 Black’s sister company, Wings Investments.

17 Black and Wings Investments are two parallel UAE companies owned by murder suspect and former Electrogas director Yorgen Fenech. The probe also features yet another UAE company called Kittiwake, owned by Fenech’s Electrogas partner Paul Apap Bologna.

17 Black, Kittiwake and EN3 projects were all set up in the UAE within the space of a few months of each other between April and July 2015.

Local investigators have been handed detailed information by the UAE on Pullicino, Fenech and Apap Bologna’s movements in and out of the Middle Eastern country between 2013 and 2020.

The movements of Schembri and Mizzi in and out of the UAE have similarly been tracked and documented. One of Mizzi’s trips in August 2015 coincided with attempts to open a UAE account for his once-secret Panama company.

17 Black was listed as one of the main planned sources of funds for both Mizzi’s and Schembri’s companies.

Plans to open accounts for Mizzi and Schembri’s Panama companies ground to a halt when slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia dropped hints about what they were up to, ahead of the 2016 Panama Papers global expose.

Fenech has since been accused of orchestrating Caruana Galizia’s assassination, a charge he denies.

Although no transactions took place between 17 Black and the Panama companies, investigators are understood to be mulling charges against Mizzi and Schembri for setting up secretive money-laundering structures while in government.

Apart from plans to receive funds from 17 Black, a leaked e-mail linked the Panama structures to another company called Macbridge.

An investigation by Times of Malta, Reuters and OCCRP in 2021 linked Macbridge to the mother-in-law of a Chinese negotiator who helped broker a partial buyout of Enemalta by China state-owned company Shanghai Electric.

A public inquiry into Caruana Galizia’s murder lambasted the police over its failure to properly investigate the Panama scandal when details first begun to emerge in 2016.

At the time, former FIAU director Manfred Galdes had urged investigators to seize the computers of Nexia BT, the financial advisers who set up the offshore structures for Mizzi and Schembri.  The police had instead used legal advice by then Attorney General Peter Grech as an excuse not to act. Grech had advised that a seizure of Nexia BT’s servers would be a “drastic” and “highly intrusive” move, that could be counter-productive.

A magisterial inquiry into 17 Black and the Panama scandal was only triggered in 2018 and is now entering its fifth year.

Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà last week declined to testify about Electrogas before the Public Accounts Committee, saying it would not be prudent to testify about ongoing police probes.

The UAE was last year greylisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Transparency International describes the country as a secretive jurisdiction and tax haven that is an attractive destination for illicit funds.

Company used for 'legitimate business'

When contacted, Pullicino confirmed his ownership of EN3 Projects, arguing that the company was used for “legitimate business”.

Pullicino is the local agent for the LNG Mediterrana, a floating storage unit chartered by Electrogas from Malaysian company Bumi Armada to store and feed liquefied natural gas to the power plant.

Investigators have traced financial flows of over $2 million (€1.8 million) from Pullicino’s Maltese company to EN3 Projects. The Malta company, Orion Engineering, was in turn in receipt of funds from Bumi Armada.

EN3 Projects was also found to have wired $300,000 (€275,000) to Wings Investments.

Pullicino said EN3 Projects was established to carry out business development and project management in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.

“The business you refer to was one of many ventures. My companies have been carrying out business in this area of the world for the past 28 years.”

Pullicino said EN3 Projects acted as a “service provider” to Wings Investments for an LNG terminal project in Bangladesh.

Questioned about the setting up in quick succession of EN3 Projects, 17 Black and Kittiwake, Pullicino said the latter two companies do not belong to him, and he has “no idea” when they were established.   “My companies have never been involved in any money laundering and always conducted legitimate business”.

Pullicino found himself at the centre of a political storm in 2017 when an FIAU report leaked on the eve of the general election detailed how Orion Engineering had sent funds directly to 17 Black.

The report led to accusations that the funds wired to 17 Black by Pullicino were part of a bribery scheme linked to Mizzi and Schembri.  In response, Pullicino had denied having paid any “commissions” to Mizzi and Schembri.

PN: Further confirmation that the new power station is a monument to corruption

In a reaction on Monday, the Nationalist Party said the new details revealed by Times of Malta reinforced the view that the new Delimara power station and the adjoining floating gas storage facility were a monument to corruption.

The information gathered by the authorities of the United Arab Emirates  served to continue to complete the picture about transactions from the company owned by the tanker's agent and Azerbaijan to Yorgen Fenech's own secret company.

One of the reasons why there was a law of the jungle in this country was the sense of impunity which was continuing to prevail, 10 years on. 

The news that every would have expected was for Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa to remember that his duty was to arraign those involved so that justice could be done, the PN said.  

The party said it would continue to raise questions on the power station scandal at the meetings of the Public Accounts Committee and it would not allow the Robert Abela government to try to make the people forget about it.