BANK Negara Malaysia had extracted data from a AmBank officer’s phone as part of a court-ordered investigation into Low Taek Jhow’s activities, the high court heard today. 

In a raid on AmBank’s Raja Chulan branch on July 6, 2015, investigators charged with probing possible fraud at SRC International had confiscated a BlackBerry belonging to relationship manager Joanna Yu. 

Bank Negara analyst Shuzairizman Shuib, 40, told the court that he obtained 46 contacts from the phone two days after the raid. 

“We used forensic methods to extract the data from the SIM card and the memory card,” said Shuzairizman, who works with the central bank’s digital forensics division, adding that the data included pictures, emails and text messages. 

From the BlackBerry Messenger application, he said, “On the left side, I saw the name Jho Low.”

The witness says he was not instructed to specifically look out for dealings with Jho Low and the others, only that the investigation was into former prime minister Najib Razak.

Yu was one of the three AmBank staff who liaised with holders of bank accounts linked to Najib and 1Malaysia Development Bhd, as well as its former subsidiary SRC International. 

The other two relationship managers are Krystle Yap and Daniel Lee. 

He wrote a report after the data was extracted and burnt onto a DVD. 

Shuzairizman said he passed the DVD and BlackBerry to Bank Negara investigating officer Ahmad Farhan Sharifuddin, who later handed the device to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

It was Farhan who informed Shuzairizman of the court order sometime in April or May, 2015. 

The BlackBerry contained other communications evidence related to the SRC International investigation, said Shuzairizman.

Also seized from Yu was a thumb drive that did not reveal any further communications. 

Bank Negara also confiscated a Samsung Galaxy phone from Yap and a thumb drive belonging to Lee.

Farhan previously testified that he met with Yu during a July 6, 2015 raid by BNM at AmBank’s office at Level 24 of the AmBank Group building at Jalan Raja Chulan in Kuala Lumpur.

He said he also took Yu’s statement about one or two months before the raid in relation to banking transactions linked to 1MDB. 

Prosecutors have told the court that Yu will be a witness. 

Last month, former SRC International chairman Ismee Ismail told the court that many top executives in the company were close associates of Low. 

Ismee agreed with the defence’s suggestion that Low knew or were close with former SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, SRC International director Jerome Lee and 1MDB finance director Terrance Geh.  

Najib’s lawyers had maintained that the former prime minister was misled by bankers in charge of government-linked accounts.

The defence contends that these bankers cooperated with individuals, such as Low, to acquire funds from SRC International, possibly with the assistance of senior executives.

Lead defence counsel Muhammmad Shafee Abdullah had gone on record to say that Najib’s bank accounts were manipulated without his authorisation by “outsiders like Jho Low and others, and some people (at) the bank”.

Shafee has also said the defence were particularly interested in the communications between Yu and Low, saying it would help prove their case. 

Low, a fugitive believed to be residing in China, has been indicted in the United States and is wanted in Malaysia in connection with the 1MDB case for allegedly conspiring to siphon up to US$4.5 billion. – July 11, 2019.