The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

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fountainhall

The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

Post by fountainhall »

It's a corruption scandal that few know much about, yet it has been called the "largest kleptocracy in the world." The most some are aware of is it involves the financing of Leonardo Di Caprio's "Wolf of Wall Street" movie and a stash of designer handbags owned by the wife of Malaysia's former Prime Minster Najib Razak on a par with the collection of shoes owned by that other arch-thief Imelda Marcos. The world will soon know better.

Tomorrow Najib goes on trial for his role on what has been called the 1MDB saga. 1MDB was an investment vehicle set up in 2009 when the newly installed Najib and his cronies set up 1Malaysian Development Berhad allegedly to attract foreign investment in to the country.
Instead over the next five years, billions of dollars were either embezzled out of the country or laundered through subsidiary companies by those who ran it.

It is alleged about a quarter of the stolen funds ended up in Najib’s personal bank account, funding lavish credit card spending sprees by him and his wife, Rosmah Mansour. Even more extravagant was the spending by financier Jho Low, a friend of Najib’s stepson, Riza Aziz, who was an informal consultant on 1MDB. He allegedly siphoned billions from the fund, using it to buy vast amounts of prime Manhattan real estate, $8.1m worth of jewellery and a glass piano for Australian model Miranda Kerr, a Picasso painting and Oscar statuette for Leonardo Di Caprio, superyachts, and to throw ostentatious parties attended by the likes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Foxx. He even bankrolled Hollywood movie The Wolf of Wall Street.
It was a British journalist who first exposed the scandal on her website in 2015. She was quickly arrested. After the Attorney General had instigated an investigation, Najib fired him and all his officers involved in the 1MDB Inquiry. A new Inquiry set up by Najib unsurprisingly cleared Najib of all wrong-doing!

The Americans also took an initiative when it was discovered that Goldman Sachs was involved in the scandal. As a result, Goldmans is now facing its first ever criminal charges. These relate to a bond issue for 1MDB. The Singapore Monetary Authority has closed two Swiss banks and gave heavy fines to two of its largest banks - UBS and DBS.

Najib's wife has incurred the wrath of most Malaysia's and is now a pariah-like figure. During raids on the Najib home police seized a cache of luxury goods - including 1,400 necklaces, 567 designer handbags, 423 watches, 2,200 rings, 1,600 brooches and 14 tiaras - the biggest seizure of its kind in Malaysian history.

Naturally Najib proclaims his innocence, even though many hundreds of millions of US$ were found in his personal account. The next few weeks are going to be interesting!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... g-billions
fountainhall

Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

Post by fountainhall »

Trial postponed as a result of an Appeal. The fireworks display will take place later.
fountainhall

Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

Post by fountainhall »

Najib Razak's Trial

The trial of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Rajak has been underway for some weeks. As has been stated earliers, the trial involves the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysian Development Bhd. (1MDB) set up by Najib in 2009. Its aim was simple: to make Kuala Lumpur a world financial centre and to fund major infrastructure projects throughout the country. As has become obvious, at least part of the reason was to create a piggy bank into which Najib and his relatives could extract vast amounts of state cash. Several banks in Malaysia, Singapore and the USA were tapped to raise finds for 1MDB, including Goldman Sachs. Several banks have now been censured, two have ceased trading in Singapore and 17 former Goldman executives and a former CEO are now facing criminal charges initiated by The US Department of Justice and the Malaysian government. The Department has called the 1MDB scandal “fraud on an enormous scale.”

Readers will recall that in 2015 an unexplained amount of more than US$700 million was discovered in one of Najib’s bank accounts. Najib explained that these were donations from a Middle East country and intended to be transferred to the government to fight terrorism. After an investigation the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission confirmed that lie. Thereafter Najib sacked his Deputy, the Attorney General and disbanded the Anti-Corruption Commission. But every action got him deeper into trouble, When he lost the 2018 General Election to an unlikely coalition formed by his once mentor and Prime Minster for 20 years, Mahatir Mohamad, and Mahatir’s once former protégé whom he had turned on and jailed on trumped up sodomy charges, Anwar Ibrahim. Najib’s house of cards came tumbling down.

Najib was soon charged with six counts of criminal breach of trust involving government funds of $1.58 billion. This is in addition to 32 other money-laundering charges relating to 1MDB. If found guilty, he will spend the rest of his life in jail. In raids on his homes, Malaysian police seized 285 of the most expensive luxury handbags – mostly Hermes Birkin bags each costing between US$12,000 and $300,000 - and 72 bags of cash, jewellery including a $23 million pink diamond, luxury watches and other valuables belonging to Najib’s wife. The government has also frozen more than 400 bank accounts as part of the 1MDB probe. 1MDB’s latest reported deficit is $11 billion of which $4.5 billion is missing.

Now that the trial is underway, one other figure features prominently in this tale of greed on a massive scale. Born into a wealthy Penang Chinese-Malay family, Low Taek Jho, most commonly referred to as Jho Low, is a graduate of the Wharton School in the USA. On his return to Malaysia, he set himself up an investment banker who soon became the steward of Jynwel Capital, the name given to the consolidated fortune of his family, as well as several other companies. He then cultivated relationships with some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. Some of its projects were successful, as with his takeover along with associates of New York’s Park Lane Hotel (formerly run by the notorious Leona Helmsley) for US$660. Others failed, like the proposed $2.2 billion bid to buy Reebok from Adidas.

Low’s connection to the disgraced former Prime Minster goes back to his time as a schoolboy at Harrow, one of England’s most prestigious public schools. He became friends with Riza Aziz who was studying at London School of Economics and later worked with HSBC. Aziz is Najib Rajak’s stepson. Low cultivated the relationship, aware not only that Najib was very senior in the government but that he was earmarked for the Premiership. After all, his father and uncle had been the country’s second and third Prime Ministers.

As the 1MDB scandal unfolded, Riza Aziz became known as the founder of Red Granite Pictures which produced Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie The Wolf of Wall Street, at the same time showering the star with expensive gifts, including a $3.2 million Picasso painting, a Diane Arbus photograph worth $750,000 and the Oscar that had been awarded to Marlon Brando for his performance in On The Waterfront. (DiCaprio has since turned all the gifts over to the US Department of Justice). The US Department of Justice found that Red Granite Pictures misappropriated over $100 million of 1MDB funds and later paid over $60 million to settle the claims.

One mistake Riza made was to return to Malaysia. On July 4 this year he was arrested on his arrival charged with five counts of money-laundering from Good Star Ltd., a company linked to his friend Jho Low. If found guilty, he faces up to 25 years in jail. Jho Low has been more astute. He faces mounting charges in Malaysia but has gone to ground. Even with an Interpol warrant out for his arrest, he cannot be found. He is thought to be living somewhere in China.

It is clear that Low was Najib’s fixer. Indeed, more than one Report claims that Low masterminded the entire 1MDB affair. In court last month, one means by which Najib stole from 1MDB was revealed. Najib’s main bank was AmBank. Its customer relationship manager was Joanna Yu Ging Ping.
In BlackBerry Messenger chats between Yu and Low . . . Low served as interlocutor for Najib, asking Yu which account “OP” should use to issue a 10 million ringgit (US$2.4 million) cheque or asking her to tell the bank manager that “OP” would close his accounts when they were flagged after being overdrawn by huge amounts.
“OP” was Low’s shorthand for Najib, referring to the character in the Transformers franchise named Optimus Prime. That illustrates more than a hint of cynicism for Optimus Prime is the leader of the good Autobots! With Najib’s accounts often in the red, Yu was asked by lawyers why she went to great lengths to ensure Najib’s checks did not bounce.
“it was the prime minister’s accounts. It would have been an embarrassment if his cheques bounced.”
Yu even confirmed that she sometimes used her own money to “top up” Najib’s overdrawn accounts, adding that the money would usually be repaid the following day.

Najib was not the only one with a code name. The court heard that Jho Low referred to himself as “FL”, short for “fei lou” or “fat boy” in Cantonese.

Before the election forced Najib out of office, he made one last effort to wipe out 1MDB’s debts virtually at a stroke. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Najib arranged a meeting with China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). This was attended by Low representing Najib. Amhari Efendi Nazaruddin, a former aide to Najib, attended as a witness.
The US$20 billion East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), a major part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, was among the projects offered to SASAC, Amhari said. The Trans-Sabah gas pipeline, a Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok high-speed rail and the development of offshore financial hub Labuan were also tabled at the meeting, he said.
Amhari also told the court that his talking points for the meeting were prepared by Jho Low. Amhari added he believed “Najib had knowledge of and had given the mandate to Jho Low to plan and manage efforts to bail out 1MDB . . . from its losses and debts.”

The new government claims that the cost of these projects was grossly inflated merely to cover 1MDB’s shortfall. The pipeline project was quickly cancelled and the cost of the East Coast rail project reduced to $11 billion. The high-speed rail between KL and Singapore was killed.

Amhari also informed the court that Low convinced him and another of Najib’s former aides to open bank accounts with BSI Bank in Singapore and Kasikorn Bank in Bangkok that were meant to be “standby accounts” for Najib’s political funds for the upcoming General Election. Neither aide was permitted withdrawal rights to the accounts.

The trial continues.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/25/former- ... arges.html
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... er-1224799
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeas ... as-optimus
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeas ... -boss-will
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Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

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fountainhall wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:55 pm a piggy bank into which Najib and his relatives could extract vast amounts of state cash.
If he is found guilty, to me the just punishment would not include any prison time. None.

If he gets what he deserves, I'd like to see them confiscate all his money and any access he might have to hidden money anywhere in the world, and confiscate everything he owns. Then, instead of putting him in jail, set him free on the streets where he can live out what's left of his life as a beggar. When his next meal comes out of a dumpster behind a restaurant, that's when justice will have been served. Maybe he can even invite Trump to join him for dinner . . .
fountainhall

Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

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I tend to agree with you - and expect he would not last long on the streets as lynch mobs descend on his carcass.

However, we ought not to forget the example of another kleptocrat-par-excellence. Imelda Marcos raped and robbed The Philippines in a staggering way. I remember when she was waxing lyrical about how she was loved because she brought beauty to the people of her country! That also included starting up a glitzy, supposedly star-studded international film festival. Manila already had a Film Festival to showcase Filipino films which continues to this day. But Imelda wanted one on a grand scale that would capture the world stage as Cannes did. This required the construction of a large Film Festival Palace very close to her Philippine Plaza Hotel - known to many as gay central!

The first Festival was scheduled to take part from 18-29 January 1982. Construction was behind schedule and so work had to take place round the clock. Overnight in the early hours of 17 November 1981 the fourth floor collapsed and 169 workers fell, most to their deaths being buried in quick-drying cement below. Immediately there was a news blackout and neither rescuers, doctors nor ambulances were permitted access to the site for many hours. No attempt was made to recover bodies. When the Festival finally took place amidst the ghosts of those poor workers, the only stars who attended were Ben Kingsley who starred in the opening movie Gandhi and Imelda's permanently bronzed buddy, the failing actor George Hamilton.

Image

Full details of the tragedy were only released after Ferdinand Marcos was ousted in February 1986. Then, of course, Imelda's 3,000 pairs of shoes and other evidence of her lavish plunder of the Filipino Treasury came to light. As the power behind the Marcos throne, she was a wily, scheming individual. She knew how to hide most of what she stole. She also knew how to stay out of jail. In November last year - 32 years late - she was found guilty of having funnelled about $200 million to Switzerland in the 1970s - a fraction of what it is believed she stole. She was also sentenced to serve more than 40 years in jail. However, at age 86 and now a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, she is untouchable. Although her term ends next year, she has registered to take her daughter's seat in the Ilocos Norte Province where the name Marcos is still revered. She'll never see the inside of a jail.
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Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

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Should be Ceausescu'd.
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Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

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Captain Kirk wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 1:43 am Should be Ceausescu'd.
I disagree. That's too quick and easy.
gera

Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

Post by gera »

fountainhall wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:55 pm Najib Razak's Trial

and 17 former Goldman executives and a former CEO are now facing criminal charges initiated by The US Department of Justice and the Malaysian government.
I do not believe this is correct. The criminal charges against former Goldman executives were initiated by Malaysian government (and have nothing to
do with US Department of Justice). Actually Goldman is blamed for very high (according to Mohatir) fees they charged for placing Malaysian bonds.
Goldman offered to reimburse it but it was not enough for well-known antisemite ( and Putin admirer) Mohatir who believes that Jews have to pay for the whole fiasco anyway..
fountainhall

Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

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gera wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:02 pm I do not believe this is correct. The criminal charges against former Goldman executives were initiated by Malaysian government (and have nothing to
do with US Department of Justice).
You are not correct - but then I also erred in not stressing that the 17 mentioned were charged in Malaysia. More charges against Goldman executives are likely to follow.
Two former Goldman Sachs bankers and Malaysian financier Jho Low have been hit with US criminal charges in connection with one of the world's biggest financial scandals.

The Department of Justice alleges the men participated in a scheme that stole billions of dollars from Malaysia's development fund, 1MDB.

One former Goldman banker [Tim Leissner] pleaded guilty, the department said.

The other banker has been arrested [Roger Ng], while Mr Low remains at large.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46062576
The Justice Department indictment alleges that Messrs. Leissner and Ng sought to cover up their activities by repeatedly assuring Goldman executives Mr. Low wasn’t involved in their work with 1MDB, even as Mr. Low kept turning up at meetings.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/goldman-sa ... 1541779363
American prosecutors are continuing to investigate other bankers and Goldman itself, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/busi ... -fund.html
gera

Re: The Biggest Kleptocracy in the World

Post by gera »

I am correct. Mahatir tries to extort about 7 billion dollar from Goldman Sachs which exceeds total amount of sales of Malaysian bonds. Totally ridiculuous and not going to happen.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/17581 ... ian-people
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