“No one should rush to judgment before allegations are proven in court”, he said in response to the United States Justice Department action with regard to 1MDB, the Government-investment fund.
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The US Attorney General Loretta Lynch says that the “Malaysian people were defrauded on a monumental scale”. Aziz, a collector of rare movie paraphernalia, allegedly used at least $50 million of the money in question to buy real estate in both New York City and Los Angeles.
The complaint, filed in Los Angeles, alleges a complex money laundering scheme that the Justice Department said was meant to enrich top-level officials of 1MDB.
The alleged offences were committed over a four-year period and involved multiple individuals, including Malaysian officials and their associates, who conspired to fraudulently divert billions of dollars from 1MDB, the lawsuits said.
“When corrupt officials bring their ill-gotten gains to the United States, they also bring their corrupt practices and disregard for the rule of law”, said FBI Deputy Director Andrew G. McCabe during today’s press conference in Washington, D.C. The stolen funds were allegedly laundered into the United States and used by the co-conspirators to acquire and invest in various assets.
This is the largest kleptocracy case the US government has ever pursued.
The Justice Department says the forfeiture demand is the largest single action it’s taken under its Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, which seeks to recover foreign bribery proceeds and embezzled funds. The Justice Department sought court action to seize roughly $1 billion of that money, the amount it said was laundered through American banks and therefore subject to US jurisdiction.
My remarks will focus on the allegations in the complaint involving two bond offerings in 2012 through which 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad) raised money that was siphoned off by the corrupt officials and their associates.
Red Granite Pictures, which produced The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was named on Wednesday in a federal complaint that alleges the studio was implicated in a money laundering scheme by an investment and development company called 1MDB.
A movie about guys using inappropriately acquired funds for lavish parties and private jets may have had more inspiration than just the 2008 Wall Street financial crisis.
The lawsuits, which were filed in Los Angeles, didn’t name Razak; however, they did name a number of other high-profile figures, including Riza Aziz, Razak’s step-son, as a “relevant individual” in the case.
The US$1 billion that prosecutors say was laundered in the US is but a portion of the billions that worldwide investigators suspect were siphoned off by high-level officials at the fund and their associates.
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A source familiar with the investigation confirmed that “Malaysian Official 1” is Najib. Stronger laws and more effective frameworks for worldwide cooperation are needed to close these gaps and overcome the challenges faced by law enforcement when we investigate global corruption, money laundering and other cross-border crimes.
