The Malta Financial Services Authority, together with the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, is currently in the process of a thorough investigation of every deposit and every transaction to determine whether any of the assets held in the bank were done so illegally,” an MFSA spokesperson has told The Malta Independent on Sunday.
The MFSA was asked for a reaction to a scathing press release issued by the bank on Friday evening, in which it said the “underlying motivation for this witch-hunt against Pilatus Bank stems from the fact that the bank was chaired by a successful Iranian businessman that the short-sighted and racist politicians of Malta are determined to see fail.”
While the MFSA would not go into the merits of the ‘racism’ charge, it reiterated that it had “acted decisively only when it had a legal basis to do so, following the indictment of Mr Ali Sadr [the bank’s 100 per cent owner) in the US.
“The bank remains solvent, its assets remain frozen and protected, and a responsible person has been appointed by the MFSA to manage the bank’s operations.”
The MFSA added that until the joint MFSA-FIAU is complete “it would not be appropriate to comment further”.
Pilatus Bank said on Friday that it was also “exploring avenues for legal redress in Malta and internationally” after the bank was “destroyed… without good cause and absent any basis in fact”.
Sadr was arrested in the United States in March on charges that he had participated in a scheme to evade US sanctions and funnel more than $115 million paid under a Venezuelan construction contract through the US financial system. He is currently facing 125 years in prison.