Category: Financial Scandals

Events in the first ten days of the new year have given both hope and dejection about the future of Malaysia.

Standing head and shoulders above all other events in the first 10 days is undoubtedly Penang footballer Mohd Faiz Subri’s clinching of the Fifa Puskas Award for the most beautiful goal of 2016, putting his name on the same list as past winners such as famed football stars Christiano Ronaldo and Neymar.

The 29-year-old Penang striker has indeed brought joy to millions of Malaysians thousands of kilometres away when Mohd Faiz was handed the award for his spellbinding free kick at a glittering ceremony in Zurich yesterday.

Mohd Faiz created history as the first Asian to be bestowed the gong named after Ferenc Puskas, the Hungarian football legend who enjoyed huge success with Real Madrid during the 1950s and 60s as well as his national team.

Last year Harith Iskander won the Funniest Person in the World competition in Finland while Malaysia won two gold medals in the Rio Paralympics, one by Mohamad Ridzuan Mohamad Puzi in men’s 100m T36 and the other by Ziyad Zolkefli in the men’s F20 shot putt.

On the dark side, Malaysia ascended the world chart to become a “global kleptocracy”.

Mohd Faiz’s success is an inspiration to all Malaysians to regain confidence in themselves and the nation to aim to be among the best in the world – not to be mediocre or worse, heading towards a failed and a rogue state.

Let Mohd Faiz, Harith Iskander, Mohd Ridzuan and Ziyad Zolkein be exemplars of world-beaters for Malaysians. Continue reading “Let Mohd Faiz, Harith Iskander, Mohd Ridzuan and Ziyad Zolkein be exemplars of world-beaters for Malaysians”

Leslie Lopez Regional Correspondent In Kuala Lumpur
Straits Times
JAN 7, 2017

The Malaysian government is laying the groundwork to shut down 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state investment firm mired in a scandal that has become the most serious blight on Prime Minister Najib Razak’s administration at home and abroad.

Under a plan spearheaded by a high-level government unit called the Budiman committee, the assets of the state development fund will be transferred in the coming months to two companies owned by the Finance Ministry.

These valuable assets are two massive plots of land in Kuala Lumpur and one on Penang island. Continue reading “Malaysian government prepares to wind up 1MDB amid scandal”

Banyan
Economist
Jan 7th 2017

The opposition has a chance to strike

A ROUND of applause, ladies and gentlemen. Any typical leader of a typical democracy, when found with nearly $700m of ill-explained money from an unnamed foreign donor in his accounts, would experience a swift and fatal fall. Yet, nearly two years after news first broke that Najib Razak’s bank balance had been thus plumped up, his high-wire act continues.

You could even argue that the Malaysian prime minister, who denies any wrongdoing, is at the top of his game. Mr Najib appears to command the unstinting loyalty of the party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which leads the coalition that has ruled the country since independence in 1957. He has undermined a fractious opposition, not least by peeling an Islamist party away from it. And as investigations proceed in several other countries into the alleged bilking of colossal sums from 1MDB, an indebted state investment-fund whose advisory board Mr Najib once chaired, the prime minister himself remains untouched. Staying in power helps stave off any risk he might face of international prosecution. A general election is due by late August 2018, but perhaps Mr Najib will call a snap poll in the next few months to give himself several more years’ rule. Continue reading “Najib Razak appears secure, but looks can deceive”

by Andrea Tan and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen
Bloomberg
January 6, 2017

He was the leader of one of the largest mass defections in private banking history, with more than 100 staff following him from RBS Coutts Bank Ltd. in the thick of the global credit crisis to create a financial phenomenon in Singapore at a little-known Swiss bank.

Hanspeter Brunner, together with former deputy Raj Sriram and chief operating officer Gary Tucker, were the kernel of a plan by BSI SA, founded in 1873 in Lugano, to build up a $10 billion wealth-management business serving the burgeoning ranks of Asia’s millionaires.

Brunner, a veteran Swiss private banker who has spent more than two decades in Asia, offered his Coutts colleagues an extraordinary lifeboat.

Then-parent Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc was being bailed out by the U.K. government, while all around the financial industry was culling tens of thousands of jobs.

Brunner knew every banker, analyst, back-office worker and client at Coutts, according to people familiar with the move. When he went to BSI, even the pantry lady followed, three of the people said. This wasn’t just a chance for BSI to grab a few star talents in the cutthroat world of private banking in Asia, this was a wholesale exodus. Brunner’s lawyer Ng Lip Chih of NLC Law Asia LLC declined to comment.

The mass move to BSI Bank Ltd., the Singapore unit, forged a sense of camaraderie among the defectors and cemented a bond with Brunner, who managed to negotiate pay increases of as much as 40 percent, according to the people, who didn’t want to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. BSI’s payroll swelled from 30 employees to 200 within a year, according to a company report.

They little knew that Brunner was bringing them from one crash to another. In May, Singapore’s financial watchdog ordered the bank to shut its operations in the city-state, blasting BSI as the nation’s worst case of banking misconduct. Continue reading “The Charismatic Banker Who Led Singapore’s BSI Into the Abyss”

DAP calls for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into FELDA, to listen to grievances of FELDA settlers particularly on FELDA’s Eagle High Plantations (EHP) acquisition, Felda Global Ventures (FGV) and to make recommendations to Save Felda and to ensure that FELDA does not become as great a national embarrassment and shame as the international 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal.

I am sure former Law Minister, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, who is with us today, is fit and qualified to be a member of this Royal Commission to Save FELDA, and I am also prepared to serve on the RCI to Save Felda.

A fit and proper Chairman of the Royal Commission of Inquiry to Save FELDA would be Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, the CIMB Chairperson, the son of Tun Razak who set up FELDA and the brother of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

PKR MP for Pandan, Rafizi Rami would be most suitable to be engaged to head an investigation team by the RCI to Save FELDA. Continue reading “Call for Royal Commission of Inquiry to Save FELDA, to listen to grievances of Felda settlers particularly on Felda’s EHP acquisition and Felda Global Ventures (FGV) and to make recommendations”

By YANTOULTRA NGUI, CELINE FERNANDEZ and PATRICK BARTA
Wall Street Journal
Dec. 30, 2016

Government uses assortment of laws to silence critics of its handling of global scandal over state fund

KUALA LUMPUR—Graphic designer Fahmi Reza is facing up to two years in prison. His problem? He painted red clown lips on a picture of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and sent it around.

Mr. Najib pledged a new era of civic freedom when he came to power seven years ago in a country known for penalizing political foes. Instead, his government has become increasingly intolerant of critics as it tries to limit fallout from a sprawling corruption scandal related to a state economic-development fund.

International investigators believe associates of the prime minister siphoned billions of dollars from the fund, known as 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB. The U.S. Justice Department has moved to seize $1 billion of assets prosecutors say were purchased with money misappropriated from the fund.

Mr. Najib and 1MDB have denied wrongdoing and promised to cooperate with lawful investigations. The Malaysian attorney general early in 2016 cleared Mr. Najib of wrongdoing.

While pledging to investigate 1MDB fully, Mr. Najib’s government recently has silenced critics under an assortment of laws, arresting dozens. It has barred some from traveling abroad. The government also shut down a probe related to 1MDB by Malaysia’s anticorruption agency, which, according to a person familiar with the matter, had called for criminal charges against Mr. Najib. Continue reading “Malaysian Leader Najib Razak Promised Openness, but Dissent Over 1MDB Stifled”

The message I have taken to Tenom, Keningau and Pensiangan in the past three days is to call on the people of the Sabah Interior to join the urban voters to create a “political earthquake” in the 14th General Election expected next year through the ballot box to peacefully and democratically start the process of political change in Sabah and Malaysia in order to save Sabah and to save Malaysia for our children and children’s children.

My three-day visit to Tenom, Keningau and Pensiangan with National DAPSY leader and Perak DAP State Assemblyman for Canning, Wong Kah Woh, in the company of the Sabah DAP Chairman and MP for Sandakan, Steven Wong, Sabah DAP Adviser and MP for Kota Kinabalu, Jimmy Wong and the Sabah DAP Deputy Chairman and Sabah State Assemblyman for Kepayang Dr. Edwin Bosi, has been an eye-opener for me.

I see the greatest contrasts in Sabah – its great wealth and rich natural resources on the one hand and the abject poverty and shocking socio-economic backwardness of the people, mired in a world-class system of corruption and kleptocracy!

Sabah’s own Watergate scandal has only sharpened and highlighted this immoral and unacceptable contrast in Sabah. Continue reading “DAP Sabah to create a “political earthquake” in Sabah in 14th General Election through the ballot box to peacefully and democratically start the process of political change in Sabah and Malaysia”

By Luke Hunt
The Diplomat
December 30, 2016

Private banker jailed for 30 months.

The legal ramifications following the scandal linked to the 1MDB fund continues to resonate with a court in Singapore convicting a private banker of trying to obstruct investigations into the indebted fund founded by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Yeo Jiawei, 34, a former wealth planner at Swiss private bank BSI where he was known for his taste of the good life, was convicted of four charges related to obstructing, preventing or perverting the course of justice in regards to 1MDB or 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

He was sentenced to 30 months behind bars.

According to police, Yeo earned $18 million from the affair and had asked three witnesses to lie to authorities, get rid of a laptop and urged them not to travel to Singapore. Continue reading “Malaysia’s 1MDB Scandal Claims Another Scalp”

By RACHEL LOUISE ENSIGN and SERENA NG
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Dec. 26, 2016

Hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly siphoned from Malaysian state fund 1MDB passed through firms’ pooled accounts in U.S., prosecutors say

Tens of billions of dollars every year move through opaque law-firm bank accounts that create a gap in U.S. money-laundering defenses, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

These accounts were used by suspects in a multibillion-dollar scandal involving a Malaysian state investment fund known as 1MDB, according to a Justice Department description of events. They also played a part in a Florida Ponzi scheme, in a case related to an official of Equatorial Guinea and in a dozen other U.S. money-laundering cases over the past decade, case records show.

Law firms lump together client money they are holding for short periods, such as while real-estate sales are pending, into pooled bank accounts, and the law firms face no requirement to disclose whose cash is in the accounts. Banks say they generally see only a law firm’s name.

Money often stays in the accounts for only a few days or weeks. At the request of law firms’ clients, funds can be sent from the accounts to other parties, with scant transparency.

While banks and other firms that move money across borders face heavy pressure to alert regulators to suspicious activity, U.S. law firms protect the confidentiality of their pooled accounts in the name of attorney-client privilege. Continue reading “Law Firms’ Accounts Pose Money-Laundering Risk”

Poor MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai. He does not know he is making a fool of himself claiming that Christmas messages should be meaningless “sweet nothings” –a reflection of his political naivette and the political party he represents.

Is Liow aware what is topmost in the minds of Malaysian Christians this Christmas?

Pay attention to the Sabah Council of Churches which prayed this Christmas for truth to prevail in Malaysia, especially among those in power.

Council president Rev Jerry Dusing said truth must be established on the issues concerning 1MDB and the “hudud bill”.

He said: “What is the truth of 1MDB? As Malaysians are left in the dark, we find ourselves frustratingly waiting for foreign nations to expose the truth about this mystery”.

Dusing also asked for the truth about PAS President, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965, which UMNO Ministers have announced will be taken over by the government although there is pin-drop silence from MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the Sabah and Sarawak component parties of Barisan Nasional.

Is there consensus by all the 14 Barisan Nasional parties for the BN government take-over of Hadi’s private member’s bill motion, or is UMNO hegemony so fully established in Barisan Nasional that what UMNO wants, UMNO gets?

The Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Julian Leow Beng Kim, who is also president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malaysia, fully endorsed Dusing and the Sabah Council of Churches in their concerns for the truth to prevail. Continue reading “Poor Liow Tiong Lai, he does not know he is making a fool of himself claiming that Christmas messages should be meaningless “sweet nothings” – a reflection of his political naivette and the political party he represents”

We are now in the last week of the year 2016.

Its time for reflection and introspection – not so much as to what went right but what went wrong in our nation as 2016 is an even worse annus horribilis for Malaysia than 2015.

A year ago, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in his 2016 New Year message, told Malaysians that his RM50 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion donation twin mega scandals had been resolved and were no more issues.

Najib could not be more wrong as Malaysia’s international repute and standing suffered an even worse battering this year with the ferocious pounding of the twin mega scandals in the international marketplace of opinion, to the extent that Malaysians felt embarrassed in admitting that they were Malaysians when abroad.

Malaysia was cited for the third “worst corruption scandal of 2015” by international website foreignpolicy.com in the last week of last year, but we went on to accumulate more dishonours this year – like TIME magazine’s ranking in March as second worst example of global corruption, Economist’s ranking in May as second in its index of crony capitalism and in July, the US Department of Justice (DOJ)’s largest kleptocratic lawsuits to forfeit US$1 billion of 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland from US3.5 billion international 1MDB kleptocratic embezzlement and money-laundering scandal.

These were not the only woes for the country for this year – as the country is going through th worst crisis of confidence as evidenced by the worst plummeting in the value of the Malaysian ringgit and the worst racial and religious polarisation in the nation’s history.

What went wrong and how can we put the country right again, so that Malaysians can hold their heads high, whether at home or abroad? Continue reading “Cabinet should devote its last meeting of the year on 28th Dec to review how Malaysian nation-building took a wrong turn when Ministers strayed away from Rukunegara principles and objectives, resulting in the 1MDB scandal, Malaysia becoming a global kleptocracy and Najib’s very “ethnic nationalistic” speech as UMNO President”

This is the final tranche of five questions for the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak as he had admitted he is unable to answer the 35 questions directed at him in the past seven days.

This means however that Salleh is unable to reinstate his right to ask questions and to demand answers from others – having doubly forfeited such right when firstly, as Minister responsible for the portfolio of information, he failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings; and secondly, failing to acquit himself when given a second chance to redeem himself when I put 35 questions to him.

Out of the 34 questions I have put to Salleh, 14 were about the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal and Malaysia’s international infamy and ignominy of having ascended to the exclusive club of “global kleptocracy”; three questions about Malaysia’s second international infamy and ignominy for being excluded from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015, regarded as the world’s school report, for data and sample bungling; four questions on the perfidy in UMNO and Barisan Nasional over Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355); three questions about the abuses of power and repression against critics and the civil society and seven questions about UMNO’s exploitation of the extremist politics of race, religion, “Big Lies” and hatred to hang on to power in the forthcoming 14th General Election.

It speaks volumes that Salleh is unable to answer any of these important national questions. Continue reading “Final tranche of questions for Salleh after the Communications and Multimedia Minister admitted he is unable to answer the 35 questions directed at him”

Straits Times Singapore
DEC 23, 2016

1MDB is the scandal that keeps on taking.

Having crippled institutional and political trust in Malaysia, brought down senior figures across the Middle East and triggered intensive investigations from Switzerland to the US, it has now given Singapore’s private banking industry its greatest test in a generation.

On Oct 11, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) threw Falcon Bank out of the country – the second bank to be closed down over 1MDB connections, after BSI in May. It fined DBS $1 million and UBS $1.3 million for breaches of anti-money-laundering requirements and control lapses. Standard Chartered Singapore was fined $5.2 million and Coutts Singapore $2.4 million.

Insiders say that the level of scrutiny private banks in Singapore receive from MAS, already high, is escalating, and that this is far more relevant than the fines. Continue reading “1MDB a big test for Singapore’s private banking”

My seventh tranche of questions for the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak to help him reinstate his right to ask questions and demand answers from others, after forfeiting such right when as Minister responsible for the portfolio of information, he failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings, are as follows:

Question 31:

Does Salleh agree that the Special Affairs Department (Jasa) statement today insisting that that ex-BSI banker Yeo Jiawei’s conviction in Singapore does not implicate 1MDB president Arul Kanda Kandasamy and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in the 1MDB investigations is an open contradiction of the welcome voiced by the Finance Minister II Datuk Johari Abdul Gani that it was “good news” for Yeo’s conviction on witness-tampering charges in relation to Singapore’s investigations into the 1MDB money trail.

Can Salleh as the de facto Information Minister explain why the Barisan Nasional is developing a Janus-faced personality on international trials on 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal, on the one hand “welcoming” Yeo’s conviction and on the other, disclaiming that Yeo’s conviction has anything to do with the 1MDB scandal.

Can Salleh explain BN Government’s Janus-faced attitude, why the “welcome” statement by Johari and the dismissive statement by JASA? Continue reading “Seventh tranche of questions for Salleh from BN government’s Janus-faced attitude to Yeo’s conviction to Felda acquisition of PT Eagle High Plantations”

My sixth tranche of questions for the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak to help him reinstate his right to ask questions and demand answers from others, after forfeiting such right when as Minister responsible for the portfolio of information, he failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings, are as follows:

Question 26:

Yesterday, the Finance Minister II Datuk Johari Abdul Gani yesterday said it was “good news” for the conviction of the third former BSI Singapore banker Yeo Jiawei on witness-tampering charges in relation to Singapore’s investigations into the 1MDB money trail, which has resulted in Yeo’s 30 month prison sentence.

Yeo is to stand trial next year for another seven charges including money-laundering, cheating and forgery in the illicit movement of S$23.9 million (US$16.54 or RM74 million) of 1MDB-linked funds.

Is Johari’s “welcome” statement an indication that the Malaysian Government has woken up from its charade and realised that the Malaysian government cannot continue to pretend that the global 1MDB kleptocratic scandal is no problem at all in Malaysia when criminal investigations and prosecutions connected with 1MDB are taking place in some 10 countries?

If so, what is the government’s next step to restore national and international confidence in the Malaysian government by coming to grips with the international 1MBD money-laundering scandal? Continue reading “Sixth tranche of questions for Salleh from 1MDB to Rukunegara, Vision 2020 and former Court of Appeal Judge N.H.Chan”

By NATHANIEL POPPER and MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN
New York Times
DEC. 22, 2016

Even as Goldman Sachs is gaining a more prominent profile in the administration of Donald J. Trump, the Wall Street investment firm is undergoing scrutiny in an investigation in a sprawling international money laundering and embezzlement scheme.

Prosecutors have said that billions of dollars that Goldman raised for a Malaysian government investment fund — known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB — were channeled into a web of personal bank accounts and was ultimately used to buy paintings, luxury real estate and investment stakes in movies like “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Investigators are now questioning what Goldman knew about the final use of the money.

Goldman has said it believed the money was being used to buy legitimate assets for the investment fund, which was run in part by the Malaysian government and its embattled prime minister, Najib Razak. Continue reading “1MDB Case Hangs Over Goldman Sachs as Investigators Dig for Answers”

In a week’s time, 2016 is ending as an even worse annus horribilis for Malaysia than 2015.

Malaysians were shocked when at the end of last year, Malaysia was named among the world’s six “worst corruption scandals of 2015” by the international website, foreignpolicy.com, which is published daily online by the Slate Group, a division of Washington Post Company.

Malaysia was in the dishonourable third place, as the first two “worst corruption scandals of 2015” went to corruption in the world’s soccer industry involving FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) and Nigeria. The fourth to sixth places went to Honduras and Guatemala, Ghanian judges and the UN General Assembly.

The infamous plaque of dishonour for Malaysia cited as follows:

“When U.S. President Barack Obama visited Malaysia in November, he had the pleasure of arriving in the middle of an awkward corruption scandal. Four months earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that some $700 million of state funds had ended up in Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank account — which was not where they were supposed to go. That tied Razak directly to a probe into the 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a government-owned development company that was supposed to turn Kuala Lumpur into a thriving financial hub. Najib has disparaged the Journal’s reports as inaccurate, claiming instead that the money in his account came from personal donations. But the reports came after the fund had already fallen behind on its payment schedule. Obama claims he raised the question of corruption in a private meeting with Najib, but publicly said only that the government should aim to be ‘more accountable, more open, more transparent, to root out corruption’.”

Continue reading “2016 is ending as an even worse annus horribilis for Malaysia than 2015”

By JUSTIN BAER, TOM WRIGHT and KEN BROWN
Wall Street Journal
Dec. 22, 2016

Bank courted state fund now at heart of global embezzlement probes, and investigators want to know if it should have reported suspicious activity

On a yacht moored at Saint-Tropez, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak talked business with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince. Included in the horseshoe of chairs set up for the July 2013 gathering was a partner from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The bank earned its place through years of cultivating Mr. Najib and a state investment fund he founded. Goldman had raised $6.5 billion for the fund and earned nearly $600 million in fees, making the Malaysian client among its most lucrative.

Mr. Najib lavished praise on Goldman, said people familiar with the meeting. “Do you see any other bankers on this boat?” one recalls him saying.

Today Mr. Najib and the state fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB, are at the center of what investigators consider one of the largest financial frauds in history. Investigators have said 1MDB was used by the prime minister as a political slush fund and by associates of his to buy more than $1 billion of real estate, art and other luxuries from London to Beverly Hills, Calif. Continue reading “Goldman Sachs Ties to Scandal-Plagued 1MDB Run Deep”

I must thank the Minister for Tourism and Culture, Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz for his being so solicitous over my welfare, suggesting that I should be caring my grandchildren in my twilight years.

But Nazri cannot be more wrong, for we should not just think of our grandchildren, but also about the grandchildren of all Malaysians.

In fact, I call on all Malaysians, regardless of age, to transcend race, religion or region, to be solicitous of the national welfare and should involve themselves in ensuring that the country is a better place of our grandchildren and their children.

I put Nazri’s suggestion on my Facebook yesterday, asking whether I should listen to his advice.

The overwhelming majority, almost unanimous, view was in the negative, and some of the comments are as follows: Continue reading “Don’t just think of our grandkids, but think of the grandkids of all Malaysians”

The following is the fourth tranche of my five questions for the Minister for Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak to help him reinstate his right to ask questions and demand answers from others, after forfeiting such right when as Minister responsible for the portfolio of information, he failed to answer numerous questions about government scandals and failings:

Question 16:

Is the former Prime Minister, Tun Musa Hitam, right when he said at a forum yesterday that only the political bankrupts would use the politics of race and religion as gambling chits in the political arena, and one of the most egregious examples of such reckless exploitation of the politics of race and religion is none other than the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in his UMNO Presidential Speech on Nov. 30? Continue reading “Fourth tranche of five questions for Salleh from Musa Hitam, 1MDB, Islamic State to Hadi’s private member’s bill”