Money laundering case against auctioneer linked to Hunter Biden is frozen pending UAE response

The money laundering case against a Maltese auctioneer linked to Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian troubles, remains in abeyance because the prosecution is still waiting for information from overseas.

The auctioneer Pierre Grech Cumbo Pillow and Jason Vella Tabone were charged in December 2020 and accused of laundering “millions of euro”. Charges were also filed against PGP Trading Limited, a company in which Vella was a director and Grech Cumbo Pillow a shareholder.

But sources close to the case told BusinessToday that rogatory letters sent to the

United Arab Emirates by the police more than three years ago have not yet been answered. As a consequence, Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech adjourned the case sine die.

Grech Cumbo Pillow and Vella Tabone denied the charges and pleaded not guilty. They were granted bail.

But Grech Cumbo Pillow was back in the international spotlight this week after being linked to attempts that were made in Malta to open a bank account for Hunter Biden, US President Joe Biden’s son, in 2016.

The account had to be opened at the now shuttered Satabank and was to be used for the transfer of millions of euros from Ukrainian company, Burisma, owned by Mykola Zolchevsky, to Hunter Biden.

Details of Biden’s involvement in suspicious transactions involving the Ukraine company had already emerged three years ago in the Grech Cumbo Pillow case.

In fact, the charges against Grech Cumbo Pillow emanated from a suspicious transaction report over the sale of a disassembled oil rig involving Burisma. But Grech Pillow’s defence lawyer insisted that the transaction was carried out with due diligence and bank approval.

However, this week’s revelations show emails from an executive at Burisma asking for source of wealth details from Biden for the opening of a Satabank account.

The email indicated Grech Cumbo Pillow’s auctions gallery in Attard as the address where the original documents should be sent.

Additionally, Grech Cumbo Pillow had rented his Ta’ Xbiex apartment in 2014 to Burisma owner Mykola Zolchevsky, to apply for a Maltese golden passport.

The allegation this week came from a longstanding FBI informant that Satabank – investigated over a slew of suspicious transactions that included organised criminality – was used to flout money laundering rules for a $10 million payment from Burisma to Hunter, using various offshore transactions.

The FBI revealed to the US Congress that an informant told them of an alleged $10 million money laundering and bribery scheme involving Hunter.

The House Oversight Committee said they were tipped off to the existence of a document detailing the scheme by the whistleblower. Initially rebuffed by the FBI when they demanded a copy, the Bureau relented when FBI director Christopher Wray risked being held in contempt of Congress. The 30 June, 2020 document is a write-up of claims by a longstanding informant who had been paid a total $200,000 by the FBI since 2010 for information.

The informant claimed Burisma owner Zlochevsky told them about his scheme to pay $5 million each to Hunter and his father Joe Biden, through a network of bank accounts, as a bribe to halt an investigation of Burisma by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, and to facilitate favourable treatment of the gas company.