Efimova husband is arrested in Cyprus over corporate services accusation

Efimova, who raised over €15,000 in a crowdfunding campaign for her expenses to claim whistleblower status in Malta and pay an independent company to verify documents she says will name the owner of the secret Panama company Egrant, is also facing perjury charges in Malta.

Efimova is facing the charges for her testimony to a magisterial inquiry on claims that Michelle Muscat owned Egrant, one of three Panama companies set up by Nexia BT, which included the companies owned by Muscat’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and former minister Konrad Mizzi.

MORE • After Egrant, Pilatus and FIAU ‘whistleblowers’ accuse each other of lying: sacked FIAU officer says he ‘suffered because of her lies’

“The corrupt of Malta and Cyprus join forces once again. Unable to get to me, they decided to harm my husband, who has been arrested today under Cypriot warrant. Same ridiculous charges which Cyprus has tried to press on me three years ago and has been stopped by the Europe Council, are now pressed on my husband. How is it legal, I can’t even imagine,” she said.

Efimova had previously passed information to journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who claimed that Egrant Inc was owned by former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s wife, Michelle. But a magisterial inquiry has since decreed that Efimova’s testimony was contradictory and that her claims had not been proven. 

The Republic of Cyprus had also sent an official letter to the Council of Europe, saying that police are still investigating alleged criminal offences against Pilatus Bank whistleblower Maria Efimova committed back in 2014.

The Cyprus police are investigating alleged criminal offences against Efimova while she lived and worked in Cyprus, between February 2013 and June 2014, after a complaint was filed by her former employers, the Russian-owned Cypriot company IFD Fragrance Distribution on 13 June 2014. On 28 November 2017, the Limassol district court issued a European Arrest Warrant for the offences against Efimova. 

Efimova was also charged with misappropriating monies from Pilatus Bank after her dismissal from her post three months after being employed in 2016. In April 2017, Efimova became known as the whistleblower who claimed to have seen Muscat’s name on a declaration of trust attesting to the ownership of the Egrant offshore company. After the arrest of Pilatus Bank owner Ali Sadr Hasheminejad in the United States in February 2018, Efimova handed herself in to Greek police in Athens, where she fought an extradition request by Malta’s courts to face the criminal charges against her. The court refused the extradition on what was deemed a minor offence.