INDONESIAN authorities today seized an RM1 billion yacht that the US Department of Justice has alleged was bought with money siphoned from 1Malaysia Development Bhd, Reuters reported.

The US$260 million Equanimity was allegedly purchased by Jho Taek Low, an associate of the Malaysian prime minister, and whom the DoJ has fingered as the mastermind in a scheme to steal from the state investment fund.

The vessel, moored in waters near the island of Bali, can hold 26 guests and 33 crew members. It has a helicopter pad.

“We have been inspecting the crew since yesterday and now we are taking action since we have received approval from the court to seize the boat,” Agung Setya, director of economic and special crimes at the Indonesia’s criminal investigation bureau, told Metro TV.

A December report in The Australian said Low was dividing his time between the Equanimity and a posh hotel in Shanghai.

It said the key target of the international investigation into 1MDB had cruised the seas of Southeast Asia, with stops in Cambodia, Thailand, Bali and some of Indonesia’s tiniest islands, in the last six months.

“… amid reports he could be arrested and charged within weeks or months following an international investigation, Low is said to be splitting his time ­between Equanimity’s gold-plated interior and the equally luxurious Peninsula Hotel in Shanghai, overlooking the Huangpu River,” the report said. 

The report, citing US court documents, said it was during a “frolic” aboard the Equanimity in 2014 that Low gave his then girlfriend, Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr, a diamond jewellery set worth US$2 million. Kerr has since handed over the jewellery to US investigators.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has launched a criminal investigation into funds allegedly siphoned off from 1MDB and has sought to delay civil suits filed in the past two years to forfeit more than US$1 billion (RM4.3 billion) in real estate and other assets.

In the civil cases, the department alleged that 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.

In June, the DoJ filed another suit to seize US$540 million in assets, including the Equanimity and the rights to Dumb and Dumber To, produced by Red Granite, a production house co-owned by Riza Aziz, Najib’s stepson. – February 28, 2018.