TWO Goldman Sachs bankers received kickbacks for their role in helping to rob the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund and concealed the money via a scheme involving their wives, said one of the bankers, Tim Leissner, at the trial of the other, Roger Ng.

In a report on the corruption hearing, Reuters said Leissner, 52, admitted concocting a scheme with his subordinate, Ng to explain the money they had received from Malaysian intermediary Low Taek Jho.

Leissner, who is the prosecution star witness, said he was paid US$35 (RM315) million by Low, and transferred half of it to Ng, after the first 1MDB bond sale in 2012.

The two of them then discussed how to explain the payments to evade suspicion from the banks, Leissner said.

It was decided that the “cover story” would be that “his wife’s family had previously made an investment in my wife Judy’s business in China, and this was return of that investment,” Leissner testified at the trial in the Brooklyn federal court, referring to his former wife Judy Chan.

Ng’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, has denied the payment was a kickback, saying the men’s wives had a legitimate business together.

Agnifilo has said Ng’s wife, Hwee Bin Lim, will be called testify in her husband’s defence.

Ng, 49, is charged with conspiring with Leissner and Low, who has turned fugitive, to launder money embezzled from 1MDB, and violate US anti-bribery laws. Ng is the only former Goldman banker to go on trial over the affair. – February 25, 2022.