XAVIER Andre Justo, the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) whistleblower, has dismissed reports about Swiss authorities investigating him for economic espionage.

“It’s an administrative process,” he told news portal Free Malaysia Today.

He told the news portal that the investigation was “nothing important or interesting”.

Justo has recently taken residence in Malaysia and was finally paid US$2 million (RM8.2 billion) for the data that he took from 1MDB-linked firm PetroSaudi and passed to several parties, including the Sarawak Report website.

The Swiss Office of the Attorney-General confirmed the investigation against the Swiss national under the country’s Penal Code for suspicion of economic espionage, according to Swiss news portal swissinfo.ch.

Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga had authorised the prosecution of Justo in September last year.

Justo reiterated that he had not stolen any data, and the investigation was how the justice system worked.

“This is a non-event, just a PR attempt,” he told FMT.

Justo worked for PetroSaudi International (PSI) of Saudi Arabia and was convicted in Thailand of trying to blackmail his now ex-employer with confidential documents he stole from the company.

The documents revealed that billions of ringgit were siphoned from 1MDB under the guise of a deal with PetroSaudi.

He had also passed the data to The Edge Media Group with the promise of payment, but was never paid.

Last month, The Edge Media Group chairman gave Justo US$2 million for his role in exposing the 1MDB scandal.

“Without him, the wrongdoing involving 1MDB, as exposed by The Edge, would not have come to light,” said the media company’s chairman Tong Kooi Ong.

In 2015, Tong and Edge publisher Ho Kay Tat had admitted in the defunct The Malaysian Insider news portal that they misled Justo into giving them the data for US$2 million.

The Malaysian Insider was then owned by The Edge Media Group.

“Justo is obviously an angry man, and understandably so, as we did not pay him what he wanted.

“Yes, we misled him. But that was the only way to get hold of the evidence to expose how a small group of Malaysians and foreigners cheated the people of Malaysia of US$1.83 billion.

“His statement confirmed what we have said earlier, i.e. we never paid anyone,” they said in the article that carried both their bylines.

The two men dropped the bombshell after Singapore daily Straits Times reported in July 2015 their exclusive interview with Justo in a Bangkok jail, where he is currently awaiting to be charged with blackmail and extortion against PSI for the confidential data. – February 18, 2019.