Police claim their investigation into the shuttered Pilatus Bank is still “ongoing”, with the bank’s top brass having so far avoided prosecution.

Former Pilatus chairman Ali Sadr was among those identified by a €7.5 million magisterial inquiry as being responsible for alleged money laundering at the bank.

The inquiry had recommended criminal prosecution of Sadr along with other foreign directors of the bank, none of whom reside in Malta any longer.

Although the bank itself and its former money-laundering officer, Claude-Ann Sant Fournier, were charged last September, none of the bank’s top brass has yet been extradited to Malta to face prosecution.

Sadr is suspected to have knowingly helped his bank’s clients transfer, convert and conceal the proceeds of crime, according to the inquiry findings.

The inquiry was concluded and handed to the state advocate in December 2020.

Pilatus Bank’s lax money-laundering controls have been on the radar ever since a 2016 inspection of the bank by the financial regulator and the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU).

E-mails show Sadr had complained to former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri about the authorities poking around the bank.

A year earlier, Schembri and former prime minister Joseph Muscat had travelled to Italy as guests for Sadr’s Florence wedding.

Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech was also on the list of invitees, along with Allied Newspapers Limited director Austin Bencini.

Bencini’s wife, Juanita, had helped the bank obtain its Maltese licence which was revoked in 2018 in response to Sadr’s arrest in the United States on money-laundering and sanctions-busting charges.

This US case against Sadr was eventually dropped due to a bungled prosecution.

Pilatus was fined a record €4.9 million by the FIAU last year for letting millions in suspect funds flow through Malta unchallenged.

Times of Malta exposed in January how the bank was used to send $10 million worth of potentially “suspicious” transactions to a mystery company found in the 17 Black money trail. 

Lazr International, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company contracted to run “logistics” for the 2015 Baku Games in Azerbaijan, used the Ta’ Xbiex-based bank to wire millions to a Seychelles company called Mayor Trans. 

During the same time period, Mayor Trans wired $1.4 million to murder suspect Fenech’s secret company 17 Black.