The following is a statement issued after Malaysian Roger Ng was found guilty of charges related to financial embezzlement in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) case by a court in Brooklyn, New York yesterday.
Ng, 49, the only Goldman Sachs banker to go to trial over the global 1MDB scandal, was convicted of all three counts in the case, including conspiring to violate United States anti-bribery laws and conspiring to launder money. He faces as many as 30 years in prison.
A short time ago, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted former Goldman Sachs managing director Roger Ng of participating in a bribery and money laundering scheme related to a Malaysian investment development fund known as 1MDB.
The scheme was massive in its scale – the defendant and his co-conspirators embezzled billions of dollars from the fund. It was brazen in its execution – Ng obtained lucrative business for his employer by bribing a dozen government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi. And it was obscene in its greed.
Today’s verdict is a victory for not only the rule of law, but also for the people of Malaysia for whom the fund was supposed to help, by raising money for projects to develop their country’s economy. The defendant and his cronies saw 1MDB not as an entity to do good for the people of Malaysia, but as a piggy bank to enrich themselves with piles of money siphoned off from the fund.
Between 2012 and 2013, the defendant, Roger Ng, received more than US$35 million (RM148 million) in kickbacks for his role in the scheme to steal and launder billions of dollars from 1MDB, including funds raised by the company in 2012 and 2013 through three bond transactions, and to use that money for bribes. Ng also conspired to circumvent Goldman Sachs’ internal accounting controls to ensure that the investment bank would approve the three bond deals that were critical to the scheme. Ng conspired with others to launder the proceeds through the United States financial system by purchasing, among other things, luxury real estate in New York City, valuable artwork, jewellery, and funding Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street.
In another film made about Wall Street, not related to the criminal scheme in this case, a character infamously suggested that greed is good. But greed is not good, particularly when it leads to corruption and abuse, circumvention of corporate policies and controls, and the violation of federal law. With today’s verdict, a powerful message has been delivered to those who commit financial crimes motivated by greed. You will be caught, prosecuted and convicted, like Ng, and face a long prison sentence.
This case was a team effort by prosecutors from my office, Alixandra Smith, Drew Rolle and Dylan Stern, along with trial attorneys Brent Wible and Jennifer Ambuehl from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, FBI special agents Sean Fern, Ryan Collins and Jarrett Brown, FBI forensic accountant Eric Van Dorn, FBI supervisory special agent Robert Heuchling, and special agent Marty Sullivan from the Eastern District of New York (EDNY). They were assisted by EDNY paralegal Daniel Youkilis and criminal division paralegals Robert Dwyer and Lianis Marrero Mendez. Their work was outstanding.
And finally, I commend the jury for their attention to the evidence, their dedicated service over the past seven weeks, during a pandemic, and their commitment to do justice. – The Vibes, April 9, 2022
Breon Peace is the current United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, under the US Justice Department (DoJ). He leads an office that is responsible for all federal criminal and civil cases in a district comprising more than 8 million people in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, and in Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island.
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