The identity of “Malaysian Official 1” should be obvious to all, based on information from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) civil suit to recover assets allegedly bought with “stolen money” from 1MDB, said former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin.
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The US complaints, filed in Los Angeles, allege a complex money-laundering scheme that the Justice Department says was meant to enrich top-level officials of the government-controlled fund.
Malaysia’s government should allow an independent commission investigate corruption claims outlined by the Justice Department, said Wan Azizah, who is the wife of jailed Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
The justice department says it wants to seize some $1.3bn of that money, which officials were able to trace through the United States financial system.
The civil lawsuits allege that a total of $3.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB, a fund Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak established in 2009 and whose advisory board he chaired. Riza Aziz, Najib’s stepson and founder of Red Granite Pictures, which produced the movie, was named in the lawsuit.
They said half the frozen Singapore assets were linked to Low Taek Jho, a Malaysian businessman close to Najib’s family.
The four banks said in separate statements on Thursday that they were cooperating with authorities.
“So, in terms of the government, we will provide full cooperation to all the global investigating bodies”, he told the media after attending Felda Group’s Aidilfitri open house here.
Asked for his comments, Najib said: “Allow the process to take its course but I want to say categorically that we are serious about good governance”.
His press secretary Tengku Sarifuddin said in a statement that 1MDB has faced multiple investigations in Malaysia and the attorney-general found no crimes were committed.
Malaysia has been gripped for more than a year by allegations that billions of dollars were looted from state investment fund 1MDB in an audacious campaign of fraud and money laundering.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the $US1 billion ($1.3 billion) in assets were “just a portion of the more than $US3 billion ($4.02 billion) that was stolen from 1MDB and laundered through American financial institutions in violation of United States law”.
The funds allegedly embezzled and laundered into the United States were purportedly used to buy luxury properties in New York, Los Angeles and London, paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, a US$35 million jet, as well as to pay for gambling debts in Las Vegas.
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 alleged.
Leslie Caldwell, US assistant attorney general, said at the news conference on Wednesday that neither 1MDB nor the Malaysia people saw “a penny of profit from that film”, or the other assets that were purchased with fund siphoned from 1MDB.
The Singaporean authorities have seized assets worth S$240 million (RM710 million) following investigations into various 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) related fund flows, allegedly involved in money laundering.
Although the DOJ filing did not name Najib, it referred repeatedly to “Malaysian Official 1”, a high- ranking government official who had control over 1MDB and had received US$681 million and is a close relative of Riza.
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“Najib has become accustomed to weathering global investigations”, Eurasia said in a note to clients.
