KUALA LUMPUR – US prosecutors have now taken aim at the wife of former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng in his ongoing corruption trial, arguing she was among those who allegedly laundered US$35.1 million of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) funds.
In a move to counter Ng’s defence team, prosecutors are applying for the court to allow statements Lim Hwee Bin made to UBS Group AG bankers as evidence, even labelling her as an uncharged “co-conspirator”.
US district judge Margo Brodie has not ruled on the prosecution’s application yet.
“Lim participated, at a minimum, in a conspiracy to launder criminal proceeds,” prosecutors said in a March 16 letter to the court, reported Bloomberg.
They claimed that her statements to UBS bankers “are powerful evidence of both the fact that the defendant and his wife controlled the Silken Waters/Victoria Square bank account and that they sought to conceal their control – an essential element of the charged money laundering conspiracy”.
She was alleged to have opened on May 21, 2012 a bank account at UBS and a shell company on the same day the 1MDB bond deal was sealed.
Ng’s former boss and prosecution witness Tim Leissner earlier testified that he directed US$35.1 million to be deposited into the account as kickbacks to Ng.
Bloomberg also reported that Lim is currently in the US, arriving from Malaysia but her lawyer has declined to comment on the prosecution’s claims.
So far, prosecutors claimed Lim opened the account under her mother’s name, Tan Kim Chin, and set up a “fake email address”. They contended that the phone number given to the bank was Lim’s and she had deleted another email account she used for bank correspondence.
However, Ng’s defence counsel Marc Agnifilo said the prosecution had failed to establish that Lim knew at the time that the money coming from Leissner’s then wife Judy Chan was illegal.
“Without that knowledge, Hwee Bin Lim could not have been part of a conspiracy to commit money laundering. Her statements to the financial institutions are therefore inadmissible hearsay and not co-conspirator statements.”
Agnifilo also continued to attack Leissner’s credibility, dismissing the former banker’s “cover story”.
Earlier in the trial, he had said the funds transacted between Lim and Chan were for a separate business deal.
Leissner early this month testified that after the FBI served him with a subpoena in February, 2016, he had concocted a “cover story” with Ng and their wives to justify the US$35 million.
Leissner said the group’s call to come up with an alibi followed a meeting with a “feng shui master”, reported Reuters.
Ng is accused of conspiring to bribe officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi for 1MDB bond deals.
Prosecutors assert that the purported mastermind of the scheme, fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, paid Leissner more than US$60 million in kickbacks while Ng got US$35 million.
So far, Goldman Sach in 2020 paid nearly US$3 billion in fines and its Malaysian unit pleaded guilty in US court.
Low in 2018 was charged in the US and Malaysia, but remains a fugitive.
Leissner also pleaded guilty in 2018 to a count of conspiracy to violate US anti-bribery laws and to conspiring to launder money.
Ng is the only former Goldman banker to go on trial for his involvement in the 1MDB scandal. – The Vibes, March 19, 2022
