M. Bakri Musa
June 27, 2017

America is a Rorschach Test to most foreigners. What they view as America reveals more of themselves than of America; likewise, how they react to events in America.

One visitor to Washington, DC, would see only the homeless under the bridges, potholes on the streets, and “adult” stores at very corner; others, The Smithsonian, Georgetown University, and the National Institutes of Health. The contrasting observations reflect volumes on the observers.

Consider the Malaysian responses to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuits relating to alleged illicit siphoning of funds from 1MDB. I am not referring to the kopi-o babbling in the echo chamber of UMNO-paid “cyber-troopers” that pollutes the social media. They are pet parrots; babbling whatever is coached to them. With a different master offering more leftovers they could be made to change their tune.

What interests me instead are the responses of ministers and commentators. Their utterances expose their appalling ignorance of the American justice system. They also reveal much of themselves, as per Rorschach’s insight.

One minister, eager to be seen as his master’s favorite lapdog, asserted that DOJ is being influenced by the Malaysian opposition. On cue, the other hounds and bitches piled on. A hitherto severe critic of the establishment pontificated that a former champion college debater together with Mahathir and Daim Zainuddin were involved.

Heady stuff for a young man! Though flattered, Syed Saddiq went ahead and filed a police report against that blogger! Mahathir described best those who believed such canards: “Bodoh luar biasa!” (Extraordinarily stupid!)

Those characters must also believe that the American judicial system is like Malaysia’s, where prosecutors could be influenced or paid off a la one Shafee Abdullah. Sarawak Report alleged that he was paid RM9.5 million from Najib’s slush fund before being appointed special prosecutor in Anwar Ibrahim’s case. Shafee has not denied that. Read the rest of this entry »

With American actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr handing over their multi-million US dollar gifts from Jho Low to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), all eyes are now on the “wife of MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1”.

Representatives of Leonardo Di Caprio announced two weeks ago that the American actor had turned over an Oscar won by Marlon Brando to US investigators probing money laundering by 1MDB as well as initiated the return of other, unidentified items that the actor said he accepted as gifts for a charity auction and which originated from the international 1MDB money-laundering scam. Read the rest of this entry »

BRADLEY HOPE
The Australian
June 27, 2017

Miranda Kerr had been keeping the jewellery in a Los Angeles safe deposit box.

Australian model Miranda Kerr has handed over $US8.1 million ($A10.7m) worth of jewellery to the US Justice Department a week after lawsuits said it was purchased for her by Malaysian financier Jho Low with allegedly misappropriated funds, according to her spokesman.

Ms Kerr transferred the gifts on Friday to government agents from her safe-deposit box in Los Angeles, the spokesman said.

“From the start of the inquiry, Miranda Kerr co-operated fully and pledged to turn over the gifts of jewellery to the government,” he said. “Ms Kerr will continue to assist with the inquiry in any way she can.”

Ms Kerr isn’t a defendant in the lawsuits.

The Justice Department declined to comment. Read the rest of this entry »

by Oliver Ward, edited by Francesca Ross
ASEAN TODAY
JUNE 26, 2017

Najib’s government is yet again on thin ice over 1MDB. It is long past time for the truth.

Najib is on thin ice. The Malaysian prime minister declared the “major challenges” of 1MDB were behind him earlier this year, yet the undying scandal has again reared its head.

The latest revelation from the tangled web of corruption is US$540 million (MYR2.3 billion) of assets the Americans say were funnelled out of the 1MBD project. The money was used to buy a 22-carat pink diamond necklace. The necklace was worth US$27 million. Read the rest of this entry »

finews.com
26 June 2017 | Written by Katharina Bart

Singapore’s financial regulator has closed the door on a two-year investigation over 1MDB. But Swiss banks – and bankers – are by no means off the hook. finews.com looks at who is sweating more than usual this summer.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, head Ravi Menon called BSI «the worst case of control lapses and gross misconduct» he had ever seen in Singapore finance. Six people were referred to Singapore’s prosecutor.

Two years after beginning to probe how banks in the city-state catered to 1MDB’s financial machinations, MAS has shut the investigation, levying nearly S$30 million in fines against UBS, Credit Suisse, DBS, Standard Chartered, UOB, Coutts & Co as well as Falcon Private Bank and Banca della Svizzera Italiana. Read the rest of this entry »

Ministers of the sixth Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, say the darndest things but Najib’s Cabinet has made the darndest decision last Wednesdy, when the Ministers glued their eyes and minds to a quarter of a century ago to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into Bank Negara foreign exchanges losses scandal but were totally blind to the present and future – in particular the multi-billion dollar 1MDB world money-laundering scandal which had catapulted Malaysia to international infamy and ignominy of a global kleptocracy.

The chairman of the Special Task Force (STF) into Bank Negara’s forex losses in early nineties, Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan, said that the STS’ recommendation for a RCI into the Bank Negara’s forex losses a quarter of a century was to bring closure to the issue.

The question Malaysians want answer is why the former Chief Secretary to the Government and the STS members were totally unconcerned about bringing a closure to the 1MDB scandal, considering the shame and humiliation it has brought to Malaysians and the nation? Read the rest of this entry »

Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia Youth Wing Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman has frightened the UMNO propaganda bigwigs with his call to Malaysians to keep alive the controversial issue of US$ 27.3 million jewellery bought for the wife of Malaysian Offical 1 (MO1) during the entire Hari Raya celebration.

US Department of Justice (DOJ) had drawn the ire of the Barisan Nasioanl Strategic Communications Director, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan who publicly asked why it had implicated Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor as “wife of MO1” for committing a wrongdoing when it did not intend to seize the 28 jewellery items, including the pink diamond necklace, from Rosmah.

Just as Abdul Rahman had no problem publicly admitting in an interview with BBB in September last year that “MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1” (“MO1”) was none other than the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and even saying “only an idiot does not know who that person was”, he had no qualms in publicly admitting that the “wife of MO1” was none other than Rosmah herself.

At least, on the matter of “MO1” and “wife of MO1”, Abdul Rahman was being forthright and truthful unlike his other Ministerial colleagues, including Defence Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, who moved heavens and earth to deny knowing or suspecting the identity of these two personalities in the DOJ suits. Read the rest of this entry »

FMT Reporters | June 24, 2017

1MDB probe was one of the toughest moments during her 16-year tenure as governor of central bank, says Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

PETALING JAYA: Bank Negara Malaysia was powerless to take further action than just some fines to “relevant bodies and financial institutions” over breach of regulations in relation to the 1MDB case.

This was the admission by former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, who added that the handling of the 1MDB case was one of her toughest moments in office, Sin Chew Daily reported.

“Although outsiders had very high expectations from Bank Negara, nevertheless, it did not have the power to prosecute.

“Bank Negara has the most comprehensive laws, including the Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009 and Financial Services Act 2013 to preserve the integrity, stability and healthy functioning of the financial system.

“So, we could issue letters of administrative compound to relevant bodies and financial institutions breaching Bank Negara’s regulations in the 1MDB case. I would say the fines were probably the highest in history,” she told the Chinese vernacular daily, explaining how the whole matter was settled with the fine being paid. Read the rest of this entry »

Is the Barisan Nasional strategic communications director and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan trying to help or hurt the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, especially on the international 1MDB money-laundering scandal, which has landed the country with the appellation of a “global kleptocracy”?

Or is Abdul Rahman so obtuse or dense that he cannot understand that his way of helping Najib is in fact a most potent way to hurt him, furnishing a life testimony of the saying “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”.

Five days after the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its third kleptocratic actions to forfeit a total of US$1.7 billion of 1MDB-linked assets out of US$4.5 billion 1MDB money-laundering, Abdul Rahman held a media conference to ask why the US DOJ implicated Najib’s wife, Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor when it had no plans to seize the 28 jewellery items, which included a pink diamond necklace valued at US$27.3 million?

Abdul Rahman said the insinuation of impropriety of the “wife of MO1”, implying that she had committed a wrongdoing, was unfair targeting of the Prime Minister’s wife – becoming the first person in Malaysia, in government or outside, to publicly to identify the “wife of MO1” as Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor – just as Abdul Rahman was the first person to publicly admit at a BBC interview last September that “MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL 1” (“MO1”) was none other than the Prime Minister, Najib himself. Read the rest of this entry »

The latest news in the unending 1MDB international money-laundering scandal which has catapulted Malaysia into the dubious stratosphere of a “global kleptocracy” is that another bank, the Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild, has become the latest financial institution to be punished for regulatory lapses in relations to money laundering and the 1MDB scandal.

The Luxembourg Financial Sector Supervisory Commission (CSSF) fined the local arm of Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild EUR8.985 million (RM43 million) for failing to take proper safeguards against money laundering in the handling of funds linked to scandal-hit Malaysian investment fund 1MDB.

Luxembourg is the latest country and Rothschild the latest Swiss bank to be swept up in the 1MDB case, which has triggered money-laundering investigations in at least six countries including Switzerland, Singapore and the United States. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, when asked how the US Department of Justice (DOJ)’s updated kleptocratic suits to forfeit US$1.7 billion of 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, UK and Switzerland, would affect Barisan Nasional in the next general election, the Defence Minister, Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein replied that “the people would decide”.

I cannot agree more with Hishammuddin, now that all avenues under the institutional system of checks-and-balance in a parliamentary democracy to prevent abuses of power and uphold the principles of good governance and public integrity, are closed with the total breakdown of such checks-and-balances.

The Cabinet meeting yesterday was the last straw. Imagine at this stage and time when Malaysians are being shamed and humiliated as Malaysia is regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy, the Cabinet can still embark on a frolic into the past and set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the Bank Negara forex losses scandal a quarter of a century ago but has neither the time nor interest to set up a RCI into the biggest financial scandal in the nation’s history – the 1MDB scandal!

Parliament is another lost cause unless the 14th General Election can usher in a new government with a new Parliament, where what happened at the end of 2015 would not recur – my six-month suspension from Parliament, not because I had stolen, robbed, murdered or guilty of corruption, but because I had wanted the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to answer two simple questions about the 1MDB global financial scandal – Where the RM2.6 billion and more in his personal banking accounts came from and where the money had gone to. Read the rest of this entry »