Muhyiddin’s comments come after the DoJ filed lawsuits, claiming that over USD3.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB.
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Its funds were to be invested in economic development projects.
Swiss authorities said on Thursday that, acting on a USA request, they had seized three valuable paintings, by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet, connected to the 1MDB inquiry.
To hedge-the lawsuit is dense-the suit alleges that roughly $3.5 billion was redirected from the strategic investment company meant to benefit the people of Malaysia to co-conspirators and their friends and family.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said a preliminary investigation of actions by DBS Bank (DBS), and the Singapore branches of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) and UBS AG (UBS), had found “lapses and weaknesses in anti-money laundering controls”.
“Egregious financial crime is highly sophisticated and intentionally created to evade systems and controls”, a DBS spokesperson said.
The Justice Department says billions of dollars raised in 1MDB bond offerings were stolen and diverted across the globe for a range of corrupt purposes.
Singapore prosecutors have also seized $177m (£134m) in assets linked to 1MDB, half of which belong to a Malaysian financier facing numerous fraud allegations.
Pressure mounted Thursday on Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, with lawmakers demanding he go on leave and be held accountable after US officials initiated action to seize more than $1 billion they say was stolen from a state investment fund by people close to the premier.
When the U.S. Justice Department announced the lawsuits, Najib was attending an open house dinner from where he posted pictures on his Twitter account, laughing and shaking hands with the guests. “Corruption in Malaysia is a huge problem”, the aide said.
The back-to-back announcements are the clearest and most damning steps yet taken in more than a year of Malaysian tumult over 1MDB, which was founded and overseen by Prime Minister Najib Razak. His spokesman said the government would “fully co-operate with any lawful investigation of Malaysian companies or citizens”.
USA prosecutors filed a complaint detailing an alleged scheme of global money-laundering and misappropriation stretching from 2009 to 2015. In 2009, the complaints allege that 1MDB officials and their associates embezzled approximately $1 billion that was meant to be invested to exploit energy concessions purportedly owned by a foreign partner. While Najib was not named, he was directly implicated in the complaints and must be accountable, Lim said.
He also called on the Conference of Rulers to assert itself in this matter.
According to comScore, the movie made $392 million.
The fund allegedly has links with Red Granite Pictures, the producer of “The Wolf of Wall Street”, although Red Granite denies any wrongdoing.
Then there’s Khadem Abdullah al-Qubaisi of the United Arab Emirates.
Some of the misappropriated 1MDB funds “are directly traceable to a $700 million wire transfer and $330 million wire transfer unlawfully diverted from 1MDB to the Good Star Account”, owned by Jho Low, one of the lawsuits said.
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Red Granite said on Wednesday that none of the funding it received to make the Oscar-nominated film, which took $400 million at the box office worldwide, was illegitimate and nothing the company or Riza did was wrong.
