Four French-based banks and one investment fund that helped grant a loan to ElectroGas may be coming under increased scrutiny after France’s national financial prosecutor was asked to investigate them.

BNP Paribas, Natixis, Societe Generale, CIC and Rivage Investment were accused of money-laundering the proceeds of corruption as well as concealing illicit operations by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation and Sherpa, a French anti-financial crimes association in an official complaint.

Saying these organisations should have flagged information in the public domain linking the deal to corruption, the complaint says that they knowingly gave ElectroGas multi-millions loans even though Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was revealing corrupt practices that were part of the deal.

The ElectroGas consortium has denied these claims and being part of any corrupt deals.

Former ElectroGas director Yorgen Fenech is being accused of plotting the murder of Caruana Galizia, who was killed nearly three years ago in October 2017, nearly two months before the ElectroGas deal was completed.

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