Malaysian police yesterday raided the office of troubled state investment fund 1MDB, following a report that said investigators looking into the firm found nearly US$700 million had been transferred to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s bank account.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported last week that investigators probing 1MDB had traced money from the debt-laden fund to Najib’s personal account.
Najib has denied taking any money from 1MDB or any other entity for personal gain and is considering legal action.
Photo: Reuters
“We can confirm that a number of officials from the task force conducting an enquiry into 1MDB visited our offices today,” 1MDB said in a statement. “They were provided with a number of documents and materials to aid with the investigations currently taking place.”
A police spokeswoman confirmed the raid, but did not give any further details.
A task force investigating 1MDB on Tuesday said it had frozen a half-dozen bank accounts in relation to the allegations, suggesting that it was taking the report seriously, but did not specify whose accounts they were or name the banks.
The team, including Malaysia’s attorney-general, the central bank governor, the inspector-general of police and the head of the anti-corruption commission, also took possession of documents related to 17 accounts from two banks to help with investigations.
1MDB, a property-to-energy group whose advisory board is chaired by Najib, has debts of about US$11 billion.
Even before the Journal report, it was the subject of separate investigations by the central bank, auditor general, police and the parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.
The Journal report, citing documents from a government investigation, said there were five deposits into Najib’s account.
The two largest transactions, worth US$620 million and US$61 million respectively, were made in March 2013 during an election campaign, the paper said.
It said they came from a company registered in the British Virgin Islands via the Singapore branch of a Swiss private bank.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore yesterday said that it would provide assistance to Malaysia and share information where it was legally able to.
The financial furor surrounding 1MDB threatens to blow up into the nation’s biggest political crisis and has spooked financial markets.
The ringgit is trading at a 16-year low against the US dollar and has weakened past the old currency peg of 3.8 per dollar, fixed in September 1998 during the Asian financial crisis and scrapped in 2005.
The benchmark stock index dropped to its lowest in a week. 1MDB bonds also took a hit following the raid. The 4.4 percent 2023 bonds were trading down 2 points at US$0.82 on the dollar.
Najib’s law firm, Hafarizam Wan & Aisha Mubarak, yesterday said in a statement that it had been instructed to consider action against the Journal.
“Once our client has obtained all necessary facts and the position of WSJ is ascertained, we have strict instructions to immediately exhaust legal avenues and remedies,” it said.
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