It has been seven years since the innocuous-looking Konrad Mizzi was first outed in the Panama Papers leak. The former minister has yet to face justice, despite his fingerprints being found on countless scandals since then. A look back at some main ones.

Wind in the sails 

Then serving as energy minister, Konrad Mizzi was the man behind the Montenegro wind farm deal, having “introduced” the project to Enemalta. 

The project was publicly pitched as the State-owned company’s first investment overseas, and a testament to a turnaround in its finances, engineered by the newly elected Labour government in 2013. 

Below the surface, however, lay a web of secretive companies and a money trail that led straight to Mizzi’s friend – Yorgen Fenech. 

A joint investigation by Times of Malta and Reuters revealed the machinations behind the project.  

Fenech made a secret €4.6 million profit off the deal, thanks to Enemalta paying €10.3 million for shares in the wind farm.

Those same shares had been bought by Fenech’s associate Turab Musayev for €2.9 million just weeks earlier, via an anonymously owned company in the Seychelles. 

Suspicions that Enemalta overpaid for the shares, and Mizzi’s role in engineering it, are the subject of an ongoing magisterial inquiry. 

The €4.6 million profit received by Fenech was paid into 17 Black, a company that would later become synonymous with the Panama Papers scandal – and journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination. 

Panned by Panama 

A single e-mail found in the Panama Papers neatly closed the circle between 17 Black and Mizzi’s secret Panama company Hearnville. 

The e-mail, authored by Mizzi’s now-defunct financial advisers Nexia BT, details plans by Hearnville to receive up to $1 million yearly from 17 Black. 

Mizzi, aided by ex-prime minister Joseph Muscat, survived the 2016 Panama Papers scandal largely unscathed. 

The police failed to launch an investigation and even pushed back at demands by ex-FIAU director Manfred Galdes to immediately seize evidence from Nexia BT. 

The police – together with then attorney general Peter Grech – decided carrying out a search of Nexia’s offices would be too “invasive”. 

Nexia BT’s e-mail also details plans for Hearnville to receive large amounts of money from another mystery company called Macbridge.

A Times of Malta and Reuters investigation revealed how Macbridge was linked to Chinese national Cheng Chen. Chen worked with Mizzi and his ministry on the Montenegro wind farm project, Shanghai Electric’s part-buyout of Enemalta, as well as the sale of Maltese visas to rich Chinese nationals. 

A magisterial inquiry into the Panama Papers, 17 Black and Macbridge has been ongoing since 2018. 

Vital signs 

As one of the prime minister’s super ministers, Mizzi was responsible not only for the country’s energy policy, but also for health policy. 

Mizzi signed off on the now notorious “fraudulent” hospitals deal with Vitals Global Healthcare, and “misled” cabinet about the details of a €100 million deal with the company’s successors, Steward Health Care. 

Control of the hospitals concession was centralised between then prime minister Joseph Muscat’s office and Mizzi, to the “detriment” of Health Minister Chris Fearne, a probe by the auditor general found. 

Mizzi refused to meet with the auditor general as it investigated the failed Vitals hospitals deal despite his “pivotal role” in the debacle.

Both Mizzi’s and Muscat’s homes have been searched in connection with a money-laundering and corruption probe into the hospitals’ contracts. 

A magistrate, rather than the police, has taken the lead in the hospitals probe, which was launched in 2019 following a request by rule-of-law NGO Repubblika. 

Faking it 

Mizzi was again in the headlines last week after Prime Minister Robert Abela pinned the blame for the Rosianne Cutajar fake job debacle on the former minister. 

Cutajar, who at the time was a Labour MP, was found to have been given a fake job as a consultant to the CEO of the Institute for Tourism Studies. 

Mizzi was handed the tourism portfolio after the 2017 election. 

A probe by the auditor general found Cutajar was hired by ITS upon the instructions of Mizzi’s ministry. 

Cutajar boasted about the cushy consultancy job in chats with Fenech. 

In those chats, Cutajar told Fenech “I’ve stopped giving a damn… I’ll become a consultant with Pierre of ITS and pocket another wage.”

She then followed that with: “I don’t care, everybody pigs out”.

The auditor general said Mizzi could not remember anything related to his involvement in the matter, thereby limiting his office’s efforts at determining the extent and nature of the ministry’s involvement. 

Concerns were also expressed about the fact that Mizzi and his then-chief of staff “offered limited cooperation” and failed to respond to crucial questions.