Once conduits for hundreds of millions of dollars looted from 1MDB, a group of offshore entities are being repurposed to try to track down the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund’s stolen money, Bloomberg News reported. Three British Virgin Islands-based companies linked to 1MDB on Tuesday filed for chapter 15 bankruptcy in Florida, utilizing the section of the U.S. code that allows foreign debtors to bring proceedings in the states. Their aim is to recover a portion of the $8.5 billion allegedly stolen from 1MDB, some of which may be in the U.S., the companies said.
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Malaysia
A U.S. jury began deliberations on Tuesday in the trial of a former Goldman Sachs banker accused of helping loot billions of dollars from Malaysia's 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, Reuters reported. Prosecutors say Roger Ng, Goldman's former top investment banker for Malaysia, helped his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle money from 1MDB, launder the proceeds and bribe officials to win business for Goldman. The Malaysian fund had been founded to pursue development projects in the Southeast Asian country. Ng has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to launder money and violating an anti-corruption law.
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A former Goldman Sachs banker should be convicted of helping loot billions of dollars from Malaysia's 1MDB sovereign wealth fund and causing "immeasurable" harm, a U.S. prosecutor told jurors in her closing argument on Monday, Reuters reported. Roger Ng, Goldman's former top investment banker for Malaysia, faces charges he helped his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars from the fund, launder the proceeds and bribe officials to win business for Goldman. Assistant U.S.
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Najib Razak has urged the government to protect Sapura Energy Bhd from bankruptcy by providing loans or instructing Petronas or Khazanah Nasional to take over ownership from Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB), Free Malaysia Today reported. The former prime minister was critical of PNB for failing to take action during the tenure of the previous Perikatan Nasional administration on Sapura’s problems and for stopping cash flow assistance. “PNB and the government need to think about the country’s strategic interests.
The long-haul subsidiary of Malaysian tycoons Tony Fernandes and Kamarudin Meranun’s Capital A has completed its debt restructuring, paving the way for the airline to reverse 33 billion ringgit ($7.9 billion) in provisions previously set aside for these liabilities, Forbes reported. “This is another significant step in rebuilding AirAsia X, post pandemic,” AirAsia X CEO Benyamin Ismail said in a statement on Wednesday.
Malaysia’s Airasia X said on Wednesday it had completed its debt restructuring and will write 33 billion ringgit ($7.86 billion) back to profits in the next quarter, Reuters reported. Under the airline’s restructuring proposal, it would pay just 0.5% of debt owed and end its existing contracts. It was approved by its creditors and the High Court of Malaya last year. The restructuring was proposed to avoid liquidation after the long-haul low-cost airline posted a record quarterly loss last September.
It seemed a facetious question, one intended to provoke the star witness: “Do you think you are good at lying?” But it is the crucial issue at the center of what is likely to be the only trial on U.S. soil in one of the largest international kleptocracy cases in history, the looting of billions of dollars from the people of Malaysia, the New York Times reported.
In a U.S. court, former Goldman Sachs partner Tim Leissner has admitted to taking $60 million in kickbacks, lying to the bank about his corrupt deals, and twice forging divorce documents to take on new wives, Reuters reported. Despite his history of deceit, Leissner is the key witness prosecutors are asking jurors to believe in the trial of Roger Ng, a former colleague of Leissner's at Goldman who is charged with helping loot Malaysia's 1MDB sovereign wealth fund during a scheme that lasted from 2009 to 2014.
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Malaysia will allow quarantine-free entry for fully vaccinated travelers from April 1, ending almost two years of stringent border controls introduced to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, Bloomberg News reported. “Citizens with valid travel documents can enter and leave the country as they did before the pandemic,” Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said at a briefing on Tuesday. Foreigners will no longer need to apply for MyTravelPass, which will be abolished next month, he said.
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A fugitive Malaysian financier said he won support from allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump for a possible settlement of a probe into the looting of funds from the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, a former Goldman Sachs banker testified on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Tim Leissner offered a glimpse of what he had heard from financier Jho Low about the attempted deal, on the sixth day of his testimony at the trial of Roger Ng, another former Goldman banker. Ng, 49, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to launder money and violate an anti-bribery law.
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