Updated 6.30pm with Marigold Foundation reply below.

A charity chaired by then prime minister Joseph Muscat’s wife received an endorsement from Henley & Partners as the go-to place for passport buyers’ donations, leaked documents show.

As rich individuals sought ways to get their hands on a Maltese passport without spending too much time on the island, Henley & Partners’ local financial controller said the company’s employees should encourage their clients to donate to the Marigold Foundation. The government gave Henley & Partners a concession to sell Maltese passports in 2013. Charity donations by passport buyers were used as evidence that they had built up a genuine connection with Malta, in a bid to quell fears by the European Commission that the scheme was merely transactional.

The financial controller said donations to Marigold would be a “great way” to establish genuine links with Malta, as it is a charity that “truly caters for all in need”.

Charity organisations in Malta have long felt that they are being crowded out by the Marigold Foundation, which reportedly received some €500,000 in donations from government entities between 2015 and 2020.

The Henley & Partners pitch for the Marigold Foundation came on the back of a meeting the financial controller had with Michelle Muscat over potential “collaboration”.

“The hard work and dedication of the whole team, including Mrs Muscat, is extremely inspirational. They work closely with all of the local charities and not only offer financial assistance but also have a hands-on approach for various projects,” the internal 2016 e-mail reads.

Donation would be given to the Marigold Foundation as a benevolent investment in the country

“We will be sharing more information soon which can be shared with your clients.”

Due to limitations in the Passport Papers data, it is unclear how successful the pitch was in term of actual donations to Marigold by passport buyers.

One letter of intent by a passport buyer, dated a month after the September 2016 pitch, said a €5,000 donation would be given to the Marigold Foundation as a “benevolent investment in the country”.

A €5,000 to €10,000 charity donations was worth 30 points towards the passport buyer’s genuine links score. A donation of over €10,000 was worth even more, earning the passport buyer 50 points.

To pass the genuine links test, passport buyers were expected to reach a score of 220 points or higher.  The document show charity donations were a favoured way to boost those scores, particularly for rich individuals who did not want to spend a lot of time in Malta.

Another charity that received an endorsement from a Henley & Partners official was the Malta Community Chest fund, chaired by the president.

In an internal bulletin, the official told Henley employees that when discussing and “organising genuine links made to Malta” with clients, they should bear in mind the Community Chest Fund, as the charity supports a great cause.

“As well as directing the donations made to such a worthy cause, this will also count towards the genuine links a client makes to Malta and will help in the smooth progression of the final process through to having the government issue the letter of invitation for your client to visit Malta, take the oath of allegiance and collect their passports.”

Replying to questions by the Passports Papers investigation, a representative of MCCF said donations from passport buyers amounted to 2.6 per cent of total donations between 2019 to date.

In the early days of the scheme in 2014, another e-mail shows Identity Malta sent out a list of five “approved charitable causes”. 

Strangely, top of the list was the government’s own good causes fund, which does not normally accept donations from individuals.

Heritage Malta, the government heritage organisation, was also included on the list, alongside the Community Chest Fund, Puttinu Cares and Dar tal-Providenza.

Marigold Foundation: €50,500 from 11 citizenship applicants

The Marigold Foundation did not initially respond to a request for comment about how many donations it has received from passport buyers over the years but issued a reply on Sunday afternoon, saying it is not privy to the correspondence being quoted.

"The Foundation has, to date, received donations amounting to €50,500 from 11 donors who said they were applicants in the citizenship programme. The donations varied between €1,500 and €8,000," it said. 

The foundation said its accounts are fully audited and duly filed according to regulations.

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