ABU DHABI/KUALA LUMPUR | BY STANLEY CARVALHO AND PRAVEEN MENON
Reuters
April 11, 2016
The mystery over who controlled a British Virgin Islands-registered company that received $3.5 billion from Malaysia’s scandal-tainted state fund 1MDB deepened on Monday when a company in the Middle East with an almost identical name said the BVI firm did not belong to it.
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC), and its subsidiary Aabar Investments PJS said in a joint statement the BVI firm with an almost identical name, Aabar Investments PJS Ltd, “was not an entity within either corporate group.”
They had neither received any payments from the BVI company, which was wound up last June, nor assumed any liabilities on its behalf, the statement said.
A Malaysian parliamentary committee investigating 1MDB said in a report released on Thursday that the Malaysian sovereign fund sent a total of $3.5 billion to “Aabar BVI”.
What happened to the money after it went to the British Virgin Islands could not be determined, the report said. Continue reading “Mystery deepens over $3.5 billion Malaysia’s 1MDB sent to BVI entity”