Muscat Business Associate Facing Charges In Cyprus Over ‘Golden Passports’ Programme

A business associate of former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has been charged in Cyprus for alleged corruption in connection to the country’s ‘golden passports’ programme, Times of Malta has reported.

Jing Wang, whose Maltese company hired Muscat as a consultant for passport and visa schemes, has been named in a corruption case along with former Cypriot minister Marios Demetriades.

Cypriot prosecutors allege that Wang’s company JWPegasus received a €2.5 million payment after Demetriades agreed to help speed up the citizenship application of a Chinese national.

Wang and a relative of Demetriades are suspected of having presented “fake invoices” to a Cypriot bank to justify a €3.6 million payment to JWPegasus.

Wang has denied wrongdoing, pledged to fight the charges in court, and warned that he has been under attack by business competitors.

The alleged offences pre-date Muscat’s time as a consultant for JWP Malta, a Maltese company owned by Wang.

Muscat was engaged in 2020 to “oversee the monitoring and developments in residency and citizenship programme worldwide” and to assist in “engagement with the relevant authorities”.

According to the Times, a payment provider flagged the transactions to Muscat as “suspicious”, raising concerns about the vague nature of his contract and the “relevance” of the former Prime Minister’s skills to the consultancy job.

Wang owns Delsk, a global investment company, which in Malta focuses on selling ‘golden visas’ to wealthy Chinese citizens through local agents called Destination Europe, which offers residency in Malta and visa-free EU travel.

All residency applications submitted by Destination Europe are now on hold while the situation is investigated, according to a spokesperson for Malta’s residency regulator.

Cover photo: Jing Wang with the Irish ambassador to China, Photo: Embassy of Ireland in China