[UPDATED] ‘Jho Low, Najib, Riza skimmed over RM10 bil from 1MDB’

KUALA LUMPUR – Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Eric Van Dorn has testified that wanted financier Jho Low apparently stole US$1.42 billion (RM5.97 billion) following three bond transactions that the Goldman Sachs Group Inc had arranged for the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. 

According to a report by Bloomberg, Van Dorn who testified yesterday at the trial of ex-Goldman banker Roger Ng at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, told the jury that former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak accrued US$756 million.

Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz, Van Dorn said, had also pocketed US$238 million from the proceeds.

Van Dorn, who serves as a forensic accountant for the US federal agency, also testified that 59,000 bank records were reviewed by him to determine where the money obtained from the three bond transactions went.

He also confirmed that Khadem al-Qubaisi, a former managing director of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) which guaranteed the 1MDB transactions, received US$472.8 million while another Abu Dhabi official who worked with the IPIC’s subsidiary received US$76.6 million.

Riza has since settled lawsuits brought about by the Justice Department twice following his role in the 1MDB scandal.

Under one of the lawsuits, he had agreed to settle US$60 million in 2017 after the Red Granite Inc production company followed the Justice Department’s claims that the Hollywood hit movie “The Wolf of WallStreet” had been financed using stolen 1MDB money.

In 2020, Riza also resolved a separate US government suit by agreeing to drop million dollar claims in US and UK real estate without admitting wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Van Dorn testified that Ng got US$35.1 million from two of the three bond transactions, while Leissner received US$73.4 million.

Ng, former head of investment banking in Malaysia for the global financial services company,  pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiring to launder money with Low as well as his former boss Tim Liessner and violating an anti-bribery law.

Leissner, who pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government, spent more than a week on the stand as the star prosecution witness against Ng while Low is not in custody and remains a fugitive.

Van Dorn’s testimony was the first time the US has detailed how those involved in the 1MDB deals were paid and how much they received. 

Najib has since been convicted in Malaysia and was sentenced to 12 years in prison pending appeal at the upper courts.

Low was indicted in the US alongside Ng in 2018. The accused mastermind behind the scheme has not been arrested by either US or Malaysian authorities. 

Meanwhile, Al-Qubaisi was sentenced in Abu Dhabi in 2019 to serve 15 years in prison and ordered along with the other IPIC executive, to repay US$336 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

According to Reuters, US prosecutors claim that Goldman earned US$600 million in payment from the deals, and that roughly US$4.5 billion of the funds raised were embezzled.

Since then, Goldman has paid a nearly US$3 billion fine and also arranged for its Malaysian subsidiary to plead guilty in a US court. – The Vibes, March 15, 2022