10 years after the Panama Papers, we need convictions for high level corruption

10 years after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published the Panama Papers, we need convictions for high-level corruption.

11.5 Million documents from Mossack Fonseca in Panama were leaked to Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier at Süddeutsche Zeitung, and shared with ICIJ. Among many stories, ICIJ’s 2016 Panama Papers exposé revealed a corruption and money laundering scheme implicating top government officials in Malta.

At the time, Konrad Mizzi was Malta’s Minister for Energy and Health and Keith Schembri was Chief of Staff to Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Both held secret companies in Panama and trusts in New Zealand set up by Brian Tonna and Karl Cini of Nexia BT, Malta agents for the notorious Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca.

When Daphne exposed Mizzi and Schembri, Joseph Muscat defended them. He continued to defend both Mizzi and Schembri even after the Panama Papers were published, proving the existence of their asset-concealing structures. Muscat later told the Public Inquiry into Daphne’s assassination:

“I felt it necessary that Keith Schembri remained within the government machinery, and even Konrad Mizzi, because they were doers.”

Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar didn’t act on Daphne’s revelations. He said there was no reasonable suspicion of crime.

Peter Grech was Malta’s Attorney General and State Attorney. When the Panama Papers were published, he advised the police it would be “highly intrusive” to seize the servers from Tonna’s and Cini’s firm, Nexia BT. He also advised the Accountancy Board to not act against the firm.

The result? There were no sanctions, police action, prosecutions, or convictions.

Malta’s first prosecutions only began nine years after the Panama Papers were published. In February 2025, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri, Karl Cini, Brian Tonna, and their associates Yorgen Fenech, Paul Apap Bologna, and Mario Pullicino, were arraigned on charges linked to the Electrogas power station project.

Four companies are also charged in the same case: Nexia BT, Tonna’s BTI Management Ltd, Fenech’s New Energy Supply Limited, and Pullicino’s OEGP Limited.

In separate proceedings, offshore vehicles are also criminally charged: Fenech’s Wings Developments (formerly 17 Black) and Wings Investments, Apap Bologna’s Kittiwake, and Pullicino’s EN 3 Projects.

All have pleaded not guilty to all charges. The cases are ongoing.

A full decade after the Panama Papers, Malta has recorded zero convictions for high level corruption.