Former Electrogas stakeholder had €647m in ‘suspicious’ transfers – reports

Afren plc, a former minority stakeholder in the Electrogas power station, reportedly had €647m worth of transactions flagged as “suspicious” by a US bank in 2014, the Times of Malta reported on Monday morning.

Afren plc indirectly owned a 4.05% stake in Electrogas through its shares in Gasol plc, which was the lead partner in the project until it was struck off the consortium in July 2015.

Times of Malta reported that a total of 101 transactions by Afren Resources, worth $766,793,184.01 at the time (equivalent to €647m in 2020), were the subject of what is known as a suspicious activity report drawn up by Deustche Bank Trust Company in the Americas.

These transactions, which Electrogas was not a party to, took place over five months in 2014 and centre on Afren’s dealings in Nigeria, according to the report.

The report emerges from newly leaked documents, now known as the FinCEN Files, which includes more than 2,100 Suspicious Activity Reports filed by banks and other financial firms to the US Department of Treasury’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network.

The leak was first acquired by BuzzFeed News and was published on Sunday night by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

A SAR reflects concerns by watchdogs within banks but are not necessarily evidence of any criminal conduct or wrongdoing.

The SAR filed by Deutsche Bank flagged how the transactions Afren was involved in contained several large, rounded figures, a common red flag for banks monitoring suspicious activity, the report indicated.

Deutsche Bank said in its suspicious activity report that it was unable to confirm the exact purpose of many of the transactions. It flagged how six wire transfers totalling $237,138,496.11 (€200m) came from a single originator, Socar Trading, which owns a one-third stake in Electrogas.

A spokeswoman for Socar Trading told Times of Malta that the payment was for crude oil and that Socar was not notified that the transactions were deemed to be suspicious.

A spokesman for Electrogas meanwhile told the newspaper that Afren was never directly part of Electrogas, because its indirect minority shareholding came through Gasol.

It is the latest piece of negative news surrounding the Electrogas power station, which has been plagued by allegations of corrupt dealings in tandem with the government almost since it was built.

Electrogas shareholder and former director Yorgen Fenech currently stands accused of being complicit in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. He denies the charges.