The Malaysian Insight

THE Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has not received any information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on its agent’s declaration that possible witnesses in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd suit in the United States are too afraid to talk.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low said this in a written parliamentary reply to Subang MP Sivararasa Rasiah, who asked whether the MACC had opened a new investigation paper regarding FBI special agent Robert Heuchling’s federal court filing in Los Angeles. 

“The MACC has not received any information from the FBI in regards to the claimed written declaration by FBI agent Heuchling,” he said in a parliamentary reply dated November 16. 

In September, the FBI, in its filing, said several individuals in “certain foreign countries” were concerned for their safety, while others said it was too dangerous to cooperate with the criminal probe into 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

Reuters reported that the declaration was made by Heuchling. 

The filing said witnesses who had come forward to provide information told the FBI they were worried about putting “the safety and security of both themselves and their families at serious risk”.

The FBI also cited Malaysian news reports of local officials arrested over their purported role in the 1MDB investigation.

It cited the August 29 shooting of the driver of former Malaysian attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, who opened the initial probe into 1MDB, as a possible warning to the former prosecutor not to cooperate with the US.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has launched a criminal investigation into funds allegedly siphoned from 1MDB and has sought to delay civil suits filed in the past two years to forfeit more than US$1 billion (RM4.3 billion) in real estate and other assets.

In the civil cases, the department alleged that between 2009 and 2015, more than US$4.5 billion belonging to 1MDB was diverted by high-level officials of the state investor and their associates.

In June, the DoJ filed another suit to seize US$540 million in assets, including the US$165 million yacht Equanimity, owned by Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, and the rights to comedy movie Dumb and Dumber To, produced by Red Granite, a production house co-owned by Riza Aziz, Prime Minister Najib Razak’s stepson.

The US investigation is part of a global effort to track how much of the US$6 billion that 1MDB raised for development projects was embezzled or involved in money laundering. – November 20, 2017.