Financial investigators in Malta are sifting through transactional records, internal emails and other data at Pilatus Bank for evidence of money laundering and other illicit activity, a senior regulator told European lawmakers Tuesday. Last month, the Malta Financial Services Authority froze the private lender’s assets and placed it under the control of former U.S. regulator Lawrence Connell after U.S. authorities in New York arrested and charged the bank’s ex-chairman, Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad, with laundering money and evading sanctions against Iran. Anton Bartolo, the MFSA’s head of enforcement, told EU lawmakers at a parliamentary meeting in Brussels that regulatory investigators...
The only serving EU minister named in records leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca failed Tuesday to clear himself from allegations of money laundering during a grilling by a panel of European lawmakers in Malta.
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