FORMER prime minister Najib Razak was among 16 people who shared the funds stolen from 1MDB, pocketing US$756 million (RM3.16 billion) of the money raised from the sovereign wealth funds’ bond offerings, an FBI agent told a US court yesterday in a Bloomberg report.

Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, the alleged mastermind of the scheme to defraud 1MDB, took the lion’s share of the money amounting to US$1.42 billion, Eric Van Dorn, the investigator who traced the funds, told the jury in the trial of ex-Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng.

The prosecution witness said Khadem al-Qubaisi, a former managing director of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned International Petroleum Investment Co, which guaranteed the 1MDB transactions, received US$472.8 million.

In total, US$6.5 billion was stolen, Van Dorn told the Brooklyn Federal Court in New York.

Van Dorn said the stolen money went to least 16 recipients, including accused Ng, who got US$35.1 million, who another former Goldman Sachs banker Tim Leissner, who has pleaded guilty to charges and turned star witness,  igot US$73.4 million.

Ng is the only Goldman Sachs banker to go on trial over the 1MDB affair. He is charged with conspiring to steal and launder billions of ringgit belonging to 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

In Malaysia, Najib has been convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to 12 years in prison on linked to the funds of SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1MDB. The appellate court has upheld the conviction and another appeal is pending in the Federal Court. – March 10, 2022.