Egrant | Inquiry finds no evidence of Tillgate, Hearnville accounts at Pilatus Bank

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Egrant Inc belonged to the Prime Minister, his wife, or anyone in his family – or that it was set up for their benefit in any way.

Nor that Egrant even had a Pilatus Bank account, or that it had received a transfer from the ruling family of Azerbaijan, as was alleged by the late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s.

But what about his chief of staff, Keith Schembri, and Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi?

The companies Egrant Inc, Tillgate Inc, and Hearnville Inc were all bought by Brian Tonna of Nexia BT back in July of 2013, and the latter two were acquired by Schembri and Mizzi respectively in July 2015.

While it has been found that efforts were made to open up foreign bank accounts for Tillgate and Hearnville, no evidence was found to suggest that the same was done for Egrant.

The Magistrate’s report does not say much about Schembri due to separate ongoing magisterial inquiries, but it does confirm that he held two Pilatus Bank accounts and that one of his accounts received a transaction from an account owned by Brian Tonna’s company, Willerby Trading Inc.

But the report found no evidence that either one of Schembri’s Pilatus accounts was held in the name of Tillgate, nor were there any attempts to open such an account with the bank. According to the Forensic Accountants Harbinson Forensic, Pilatus records “do not show any bank accounts being opened, nor any discussion of the possibility of opening bank accounts at Pilatus for Egrant, Tillgate (UBO Keith Schembri) or Hearnville (UBO Konrad Mizzi).”

Caruana Galizia’s source, Maria Efimova, had said that there was a Pilatus account for Tillgate, and that Brian Tonna also held a personal account at the bank. But the Forensic Accountants found no such evidence.

“Keith Schembri as a client of Pilatus Bank had two personal accounts in his name,” the report read, adding that Schembri’s KYC forms were detailed and amounted to 78 pages. “It was not found that Schembri was using these accounts regularly, in fact there were only a few transactions spread across a period of time.”  Schembri’s bank statements did not show any transactions from any persons in Azerbaijan at all.

No evidence was found that Konrad Mizzi or any member of his family ever held an account at Pilatus.