CLARE Rewcastle-Brown, editor of famed whistleblower site Sarawak Report, is standing by her report on money-laundering schemes involving the Employees’ Provident Fund.

Rewcastle-Brown today defended her recent expose that alleged the former Barisan Nasional government had carried out a large-scale embezzlement of funds from agencies such as EPF.

“I’m certainly standing by the accusations that there were concerted attempts linked to people within EPF, and to the Prime Minister’s Office, to get money out of that fund and many others,” Rewcastle-Brown said in an interview this morning with the BFM radio station.

“I have cross-referenced the documents I have, and spoken to people across the world who confirmed that they would be engaged in these activities, linked to Integrated Medical Cities,” she said, referring to a purported investment project she said did not exist.

Rewcastle-Brown said she hoped the scandal would be looked into by graft-busters under the new government, as she was certain there were attempts to get money out of all the named funds for use during the last election.

“Those attempts were definitely connected to the Prime Minister’s Office and to the prime minister himself.

“I think this should be looked at. I hope it’s part of the overview, and it was a matter of such importance that I absolutely thought that it had to be aired.

“That’s why I went with that story,” she said.

In February this year, Sarawak Report released details of a trove of documents, obtained from sources by an Australian-based blogger, which pointed to an alleged multi-billion ringgit money-laundering exercise, involving cash from public funds controlled by the Finance Ministry.

EPF was named as one of the funds targeted in a series of schemes, including the RM47 billion Integrated Medical Cities investment project.

“From a period starting in 2015, bonds owned by EPF were allegedly proffered as collateral to raise money for this supposed medical project to a financial firm based in Luxembourg and the United States, named Limage Holdings S.A,” said the article.

It said EPF transferred public bonds worth RM10.6 billion to Limage Holdings SA, which was supposedly owned by Hungarian Gyorgy Matrai.

EPF has denied the allegations, saying it never had dealings with Limage Holdings, Limage Southwest Holdings, the individual known as “Mr Matrai”, nor any party stated by Sarawak Report.

It also said no funds or bonds of any kind were transferred to the companies, parties, or persons mentioned. It said such schemes would not pass EPF’s “strong and robust governance framework”.

However, EPF has said it is aware of two letters in 2015 and 2016 related to the mentioned companies and persons, and police reports have been lodged against what the agency claims are fake documents.

Sarawak Report had also implicated the involvement of the RHB banking group.

Citing sources, the site claimed US$1.6 billion (RM6.4 billion) had been transferred from EPF into a Kuala Lumpur RHB dollar account of a little-known entity called TJJR Diversified (M) Sdn Bhd in January, which was owned by a woman supposedly coordinating a hospital project supported by EPF and the Health Ministry.

RHB had also denied the allegation, calling it baseless and untrue. – May 21, 2018.