The US is seeking to seize $US1 billion of the allegedly embezzled assets that were transferred into the United States using shell companies.
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The U.S. has now joined several other countries, including Switzerland and Singapore, where similar investigations are ongoing into the workings of 1MDB fund.
The Singaporean authorities have uncovered serious lapses in anti-money laundering controls at UBS and Falcon banks, in relation to the unfolding 1MDB Malaysian sovereign wealth fund corruption investigation.
Both Najib and 1MDB have consistently dismissed allegations of wrongdoing as false political attacks by his opponents.
Here is a quick look at the latest developments and key personalities involved.
Others named in the complaints are Malaysian businessman Jho Low, who has been implicated in alleged mismanagement at 1MDB, Emirati businessman Khadem Abdulla Al-Qubaisi and Abu Dhabi-based financier Mohammed Ahmed Badawy Al-Husseiny.
More than US$3.5 billion was misappropriated from the fund, and about US$1 billion was laundered through the US banking system, the US Justice Department said Wednesday.
– Hundreds of millions were used, mainly by Riza and Low, to purchase a Beverly Hills Mansion, penthouse flats in NY, and a high-end London townhouse.
– The US Justice Department alleges that Low used the funds to make luxury purchases of penthouses in NY, a mansion in Beverly Hills and expensive art. The Justice Department says the funds that were laundered into the US were used for various assets, including real estate and hotel properties, a jet aircraft, fancy artwork and the production of the Oscar-nominated movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. Editors of state-run media say they continue to be told what stories can or can’t run.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak speaks at the opening of a conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, January 25, 2016.
Red Granite said neither the company or Mr Aziz had done anything wrong and that “none of the funding it received was in any way illegitimate”. Riza is the founder of Red Granite Pictures, which produced the Oscar-nominated “The Wolf of Wall Street”.
He has always denied any wrongdoing.
Media reports in July past year said US$681 million linked to 1MDB had been found in Najib’s personal accounts. He calls them “personal donations” from the Saudi royal family.
– An anti-corruption agency later corroborated his statement. The US filing also accused Low of illegally shifting hundreds of millions of dollars into the United States for corrupt activities benefitting Najib’s family.
A source familiar with the investigation confirmed that “Malaysian Official 1” was Najib.
In May, they said they were closing down the operations of Swiss private bank BSI in Singapore for serious breaches of anti-money laundering rules, the first such action in 32 years.
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Regarding the role played by DBS, Standard Chartered and UBS, the Singapore authorities said they had found “control failings” at all three banks and, in some cases, “weaknesses in the processes for accepting clients and monitoring transactions”. “There was also undue delay in detecting and reporting suspicious transactions”, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) aid in a statement. But the violations stemmed from specific processes and actions by individual officers, not pervasive problems at the banks, according to the regulator.
