In Malaysia, Datuk Seri Najib was investigated after it became known that US$681 million had been transferred to a personal bank account apparently started for that objective.
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Prosecutors said the money was used to buy artwork, including paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, luxury properties in NY and London and gambling debts in Las Vegas.
The Justice Department says “Malaysian Official 1” repeatedly conspired with Low to receive millions in illicit payments, and its description of the official strongly suggests that it refers Najib.
The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department said this in response to the United States Department of Justice action with regard to 1MDB, the government investment fund. But it was unknown what assets will be seized. The complaints also allege that the co-conspirators misappropriated more than $1.3 billion in funds raised through two bond offerings in 2012 and $1.2 billion following another bond offering in 2013.
The fund is owned by the Malaysian government, but none of the lawsuits named Prime Minister Najib Razak, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
“According to the allegations in the complaints, this is a case where life imitated art”, said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. In a statement released yesterday, the company says, “To Red Granite’s knowledge, none of the funding it received four years ago was in any way illegitimate and there is nothing in today’s civil lawsuit claiming that Red Granite knew otherwise”.
“However, this re-opens it from, certainly, across the Pacific, where the USA now will go forward to try and investigate how these assets were bought”, Rahman said.
They also said they were cooperating with the authorities.
It was started by the Malaysian government in 2009 to invest in projects worldwide and use the profits made for the benefit of the people back home.
Instead, officials at the fund diverted more than $3.5bn over the next four years through a web of shell companies and bank accounts in Singapore, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the U.S., according to the justice department complaint.
The funds were used to pay for luxury real estate in the U.S. and Europe; gambling expenses in Las Vegas casinos; a London interior designer; more than $200m artwork by artists, including Van Gogh and Monet; and for the production of films, including the 2013 Oscar-nominated movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”.
These figures include Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz, Jho Low, other officials, and an individual the United States filing calls “Malaysian Official 1” – a thinly-veiled apparent reference to Najib himself. The new Attorney-General, Mr Mohamed Apandi Ali, soon found Mr Najib innocent of any crime.
A spokesman for the production firm said: “There has never been anything inappropriate about any of Red Granite Pictures’ or Riza Aziz’s business activities”.
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Assets totaling S$240 million have been seized by the Singapore authorities as part of investigations into transactions linked to scandal-hit Malaysian state fund 1MDB, the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC), Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a joint statement on Thursday (July 21).
