The fourth person arrested by the police last week on suspicion of money laundering was Nexia BT partner Manuel Castagna, sources have told The Malta Independent.

Castagna, who is Nexia BT’s partner responsible for audits and human resources and the firm's compliance principal, was arrested along with fellow partners Brian Tonna and Karl Cini, and the former Prime Minister’s long-time chief of staff Keith Schembri.

All four are on police bail while investigations continue.

The news, initially broken by Times of Malta on Monday morning, came after Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa said on Friday that four people had been arrested between Monday and Tuesday.

Tonna, Cini, Castagna, and Schembri were all arrested after their assets were frozen by a court order on Monday night after it resulted that there was reasonable suspicion of the crime of money laundering having taken place.

Pictured from left to right: Manuel Castagna, Brian Tonna, Keith Schembri, and Karl Cini

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That order came only days after it was revealed that a magisterial inquiry into claims that Schembri had taken €100,000 in kickbacks on passport sales from Tonna had been concluded. 

The conclusions of this inquiry, which was requested by then-Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil in 2017, are not publicly known.

Castagna is one of the partners at Nexia BT. He has been in the news in the past owing to being part of the board which decided on a request for proposals which eventually recommended Vitals Global Healthcare as a viable bidder for three state hospitals.