Two days after the arrest of the former Batu Kawan Umno vice-chief, who was scheduled to meet agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on 1Malaysia Development Bhd, the FBI has started investigations into allegations of money-laundering, The Wall Street Journal reports today.
The FBI’s probe was the latest international investigation centred on 1MDB, said the business daily in its online report.
On Tuesday, the Swiss attorney-general’s office said Malaysia had agreed to arrange for Swiss investigators to interview witnesses in their investigation of alleged corruption and money laundering related to 1MDB. The Swiss have also frozen millions of dollars.
The state investment fund, the brainchild of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, was set up in 2009 and has amassed debts of up to RM42 billion.
Datuk Khairuddin Abu Hassan was scheduled to meet FBI agents tomorrow, his lawyer Matthias Chang told The New York Times but was arrested in his Mont Kiara home on Friday evening.
He was held over offences related to activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy.
Khairuddin had also said he had been blacklisted from travelling overseas.
In July, the WSJ had published claims that RM2.6 billion was deposited into Najib’s bank accounts. In august, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said the money was from a Middle-Eastern donor and not 1MDB as alleged by some quarters.
In the past fortnight, WSJ had also published allegation from an Abu Dhabi state investment fund that more than US$2 billion repayments from 1MDB have gone “missing”.
WSJ said, however, the FBI’s New York office has clarified that no agent in the office had arranged to meet Khairuddin or had any previous contact with him.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has also frozen accounts linked to 1MDB and investigating allegations related to it. – September