Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family has urged Europol to initiate a joint investigation team into potential links between corruption, murder and the sabotaging of police investigations to justice that could span across a number of countries.

The assassinated Maltese journalist’s family appealed to the EU’s law enforcement agency after Latvian bank ABLV Bank was raided by 300 police officers, in what Latvian media outlets have described as one of the largest law enforcement searches in the country’s history.

Latvia’s police said they are investigating alleged large-scale money laundering and related crimes and that more than one person has been detained.

In 2018, journalists from the Daphne Project named ABLV as the bank which wired €1.1 million to 17 Black, a Dubai company owned by Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech which was named as the target client for the Panama companies of former Minister Konrad Mizzi and former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri.

The bank is believed to have been used by Azeri national Rufat Baratzada to send payments to Yorgen Fenech’s 17 Black account at Noor Bank in Dubai via a correspondent’s bank in the USA.

The United States had accused ABLV of enabling transactions linked to North Korea’s weapons program, and of facilitating illegal activities in Azerbaijan, Russia and Ukraine.

Fenech has since been charged with conspiring to assassinate Caruana Galizia, while the bank has been forced to close down.

“At the time of her assassination, Daphne Caruana Galizia was investigating 17 Black Ltd, a shell company in the Ajman Free Zone owned by Fenech, and Electrogas, the energy consortium in which Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR, Siemens, and a group of Maltese nationals including Fenech are shareholders,” the late journalist’s family wrote.

“Payments to Fenech’s secretly held 17 Black Ltd account at Noor Bank in Dubai were made from an account at ABLV Bank registered in the name of an Azerbaijani frontman, Rufat Baratzada. The payments into Fenech’s 17 Black Ltd account coincide with the signing of key deals between Malta’s government, SOCAR, and Electrogas.”

“We urge Europol and authorities in Latvia to preserve all evidence from ABLV Bank and to initiate a Europol Joint Investigation Team that will pull together evidence from Malta, Latvia, the “Panama Papers”, and other sources, and bring all those involved in corruption, murder and sabotage of investigations to justice.”

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