PRIME Minister Najib Razak has made an appearance in the latest episode of BBC’s “House of Saud: A Family at War”, a documentary series on the conflicted Saudi royal family. 

“The Malaysian people are angry. They believe they have been robbed,” began the hour-long episode, which aired on Tuesday and which may be viewed online in the UK on the BBC website. 

The second episode of the series traces the beginnings of the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal, to a deal the seventh son of the Saudi King, Prince Turki Abdullah sealed in late 2009 to receive US$1 billion (RM4 billion) in investments via PetroSaudi International.

Najib, his wife Rosmah Mansor and their children are shown in a picture with Prince Turki and Penang businessman Low Teck Jho, better known as Jho Low,on board the luxury yacht Tatoosh, where a plot was allegedly hatched to siphon money from the sovereign wealth fund. 

Sarawak Report’s editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown is depicted in an interview telling the BBC that some US$700 million had disappeared from the fund. 

Leaked documents showed that US$681 million was transferred to Najib’s personal bank account in March 2013, just before the 13th general election, Rewcastle said. 

Prince Turki allegedly received US$77 million in commissions for his part in the scheme, according the leaked e-mails, the documentary said. These are the leaked emails that PetroSaudi has said were tampered with.

Also interviewed was DAP lawmaker Tony Pua, who said he had been tracking the scandal for eight years. 

“We’re not talking about a million or two million. We’re talking about billions of dollars and yet the Malaysian government acted as if nothing happened. Absolutely nothing happened,” said the Petaling Jaya Utara MP in an interview in a coffee-shop. 

“We were promised a tasty bowl of noodles full of meat vegetables and dumplings and the people would get to enjoy the feast,” Pua said, using a plate of wan-tan noodles to make his point. 

“I was suspicious. We knew they’re going to siphon off the meat and and give it to themselves.

“But what actually took place, what really took place, was that not only did they take the meat, they took the dumplings, the whole bowl of noodles and the only thing they left for us to taste was the spicy chilli.” 

Pua recounted the events after July 2015, when the Wall Street Journal broke the news alleging US$681 million of 1MDB’s money had been transferred into Najib’s account. 

“Nobody believed it when it happened. Why would the prime minister be so stupid as to transfer that big an amount of money into his personal bank account? When I met people on the street, they said, ‘Nah that’s false news’. But later on, we discovered it was true,” Pua said. 

The documentary said stolen funds were used to buy, among others, a hotel in Beverly Hills, a Monet painting and a US$33 million private jet. 

“The cash had even been invested in a Hollywood movie. A film that just happened to be about rampant corruption and fraud,” the documentary narrator said, referring to the Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio

Prince Turki was recently detained during a crackdown on corruption initiated by the new Saudi crown prince, 32-year old Mohammed Salman. Hundreds have been arrested, including members of the royal family.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has also launched a criminal investigation into funds allegedly siphoned from 1MDB after filing to seize over US$1 billion in real estate and other assets allegedly paid for with stolen money. 

The DoJ said between 2009 and 2015, more than US$4.5 billion belonging to 1MDB was diverted by high-level officials of the state investor and their associates.

The DoJ said the main beneficiary of the assets it was seeking to recover was “Malaysian Official 1 (MO1)” whose identity has since been confirmed as Najib by Minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan Najib. 

The prime minister has denied any wrongdoing. Najib said that the money in his bank account was gift from a Saudi Prince and which had mostly been returned. He was cleared of wrongdoing by the Attorney-General Mohd Apandi Ali in January 2016.  – January 19, 2018.