John Walter Christmas

The closure of the Malta operations of Argentarius Group, which now operates in the Cayman Islands as iMaps Capital, coincided with preliminary legal action against it by the Bank of Valletta regarding an alleged investment fraud that resulted in losses of at least €79 million, OffshoreAlert can reveal.

Former Malta Finance Minister Tonio Fenech has been banned from accepting any new appointments with regulated entities by the Malta Financial Services Authority for failing to adequately supervise a company of which he is a director and whose investors were allegedly swindled out of up to €247 million. Fellow Malta nationals Ian Zammit and Joseph Xuereb were similarly penalized.

Argentarius Group, which operates investment platforms in Malta, Gibraltar and the Cayman Islands on which several suspect schemes have been trying to raise funds, has been kicked off the Gibraltar Stock Exchange.