Malaysian police yesterday said the cash stashed in bags at an apartment linked to former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak and seized in a money laundering investigation amounted to 114 million ringgit (US$28.6 million).
Police on Friday last week seized 284 boxes of expensive designer handbags and 72 pieces of luggage stuffed with cash, jewelry and watches from an unoccupied apartment at a high-end Kuala Lumpur condominium.
Allegations of corruption at the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) state investment fund that Najib set up led to his shocking defeat and the end of his coalition’s 60-year unbroken rule in elections on May 9. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Najib’s United Malays National Organization, which is the main party in the former ruling coalition, said in a statement that the cash seized by police was donations to the party, partly for the recent elections.
Najib has stepped down as party president after the election loss and has not yet transferred the money to the new leadership, the statement said, calling for the money to be returned to the party once the investigation is completed.
Royal Malaysian Police Commercial Crime Investigations Director Amar Singh said 35 of the 72 pieces of luggage contained cash in 26 denominations, largely the Malaysian and Singapore currencies, amounting to 114 million ringgit.
Police are still assessing the value of jewelry and watches in the other 37 items of luggage, Singh said.
He declined to identify the owner of the unoccupied apartment, saying that the investigation is ongoing.
In total, police raided 12 locations as part of the probe into a criminal breach of trust involving the 1MDB fund, Singh said.
Police also seized 500,000 ringgit in cash and an unidentified amount of foreign currencies, as well as more handbags and valuables, from Najib’s family home, he said.
Police also separately took 150 handbags and valuables from an apartment occupied by Najib’s daughter, he added.
Najib and his wife have been barred from leaving the country. Najib was this week grilled for more than 10 hours over two days by anti-graft officials.
The country’s new anti-graft chief has said investigations into 1MDB were suppressed by intimidation during Najib’s rule and that Najib could face criminal charges “very soon.”
New Malaysian Minister of Finance Lim Guan Eng (林冠英) has said Najib’s administration had conducted an “exercise of deception” over 1MDB and misrepresented the country’s financial situation to parliament.
Government debt had ballooned to more than 1 trillion ringgit and that the Malaysian Ministry of Finance had bailed out 1MDB by paying nearly 7 billion ringgit to service its debts since April last year, contrary to 1MDB’s claim that the money was from a rationalization exercise, he said.
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