Mr Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz also used more than $100 million in suspect funds to finance the 2013 Martin Scorsese financial crime caper The Wolf of Wall Street, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, according to the justice department.
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The money was used to pay for luxury properties in NY and California, a $35 million jet, art by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet and helped finance the Hollywood film, The Wolf of Wall Street, according to the justice department complaints.
On Wednesday the US Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture suit to recover US$1 billion that it said were misappropriated from 1MDB.
Authorities in neighbouring Singapore also announced on Thursday that they seized assets worth $240m in their own investigation of 1MDB-related fund for possible money laundering.
Several paintings including works by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet were ordered seized by US officials, which Swiss authorities carried out carried out the same day, according to the Swiss prosecutor. On Wednesday the office confirmed that it is cooperating with the United States Department of Justice (DoJ).
The targeted U.S. assets also include royalties from the 2013 financial crime caper “The Wolf of Wall Street” starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
The complaint does not name Najib, but it does cite “Malaysian Official 1”, described as a high-ranking government official who oversaw the fund and is a close relative of Riza.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) yesterday said it was working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate alleged money laundering linked to 1MDB, noting that the cooperation between the two bodies existed long before the DOJ’s lawsuit.
He said the Malaysian government “should be conspicuous about making clear that they’re committed to transparency and good governance, and the kind of rules that will encourage people who are considering investing in Malaysia’s fast-growing economy to have confidence that they can do so fairly”.
The lawsuits also named Najib’s friend, Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, and Abu Dhabi government officials Khadem al-Qubaisi and Mohamed Ahmed Badawy Al-Husseiny.
“We had no visibility into whether some of those funds may have been subsequently diverted to other purposes”, said Michael DuVally, a company representative.
“Parliamentary opposition leader Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said he should go on leave “so as not to create the perception of abuse of power” or hinder this “very important” investigation”. When asked whether this civil suit would affect Malaysia’s ties with the USA, he said it was a separate issue altogether, as this was relating to an individual and not the overall position of the two countries’ policies.
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”.
The scandal surrounding Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund 1MDB has roped in three major banks, with Singapore’s investigations alleging failures and weaknesses at DBS Bank (DBSDY), Standard Chartered (SCBFF) and UBS (UBS).
But opposition lawmaker Tony Pua said Malaysia has become a laughing stock with the US move as the government had insisted that no money was missing from the fund.
Caldwell said this lawsuit should send a sign to corrupt officials everywhere that “the United States is not a safe haven for their stolen money”.
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Riza and Los Angeles-based Red Granite Pictures were little known in Hollywood before putting up the bulk of the cash for “The Wolf of Wall Street”.
