THREE former senior managers at Telekom Malaysia (USA) Inc have been charged with misappropriating over US$20 million (RM79.5 million) from the company, the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said.
According to reports, Mohd Hafiz Lockman, Mohd Yuzaimi Yusof, and Khanh Thuong Nguyen, who were senior executives at the US subsidiary of TM, were accused of using false statements and forged records to siphon funds from the company and deceive counterparties, suppliers, auditors and supervisors in the United States on various occasions between July 2020 and February 2026.
Lockman was arrested at San Francisco International Airport, while Yusof and Nguyen surrendered to authorities in late April, and the charges include wire‑fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle, Jr., said the trio is alleged to have conducted a deliberate and calculated embezzlement scheme, falsifying corporate records for their own financial benefit.
The DOJ said it declined to file charges against TM itself after the company self-reported the criminal conduct and pledged to cooperate with authorities.
The trio allegedly impersonated a goods supplier for TM USA to capture payments from TM.
The defendants were accused of diverting millions of dollars from TM into bank accounts they controlled, according to the US indictment.
On one occasion, TM was asked to approve a sale of eight terabytes of capacity to a US multinational for $54 million, when in fact only six terabytes were purchased.
The defendants then allegedly sold the excess capacity to other companies, diverting funds from the illicit sales through a sham entity, the DOJ said.
Besides that, it said they had allegedly carried out a payroll fraud scheme by impersonating former employees and interns of the US subsidiary and diverting their salaries into bank accounts they controlled.
TM conducted an internal investigation into the US subsidiary and the defendants, uncovered the fraud, and voluntarily reported it to US prosecutors. – May 30, 2026
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