MALAYSIA seeks a former Goldman Sachs banker convicted last year in New York of helping loot billions of dollars from its 1MDB sovereign wealth fund to return to the country before starting his 10-year US prison sentence, said a Malaysia Now report.

US district judge Margo Brodie in Brooklyn yesterday delayed Roger Ng’s scheduled September 6 surrender date by one month to October 6, after federal prosecutors said they needed more time to talk with Malaysian authorities about first letting him stand trial on charges there.

Prosecutors said “the US is working to ensure that the procedures governing the defendant’s return to Malaysia will not unduly delay the service of his US sentence,” 

Ng’s lawyers agreed to the one-month delay, prosecutors said. Marc Agnifilo, one of the lawyers, declined to comment.

The case stemmed from about US$6.5 billion (RM30.19 billion) in bonds that Goldman helped 1MDB sell in 2012 and 2013.

US prosecutors said US$4.5 billion of that sum was embezzled by officials, bankers and their associates.

Ng, 51, was convicted in March 2022 on bribery and money laundering conspiracy charges. Brodie called his embezzlement “a crime of pure greed” when sentencing Ng a year later.

US prosecutor Drew Rolle, at a court hearing last month, said Ng could be returned to Malaysia to stand trial there once he is in US custody.

Agnifilo said at the hearing that Malaysia wanted Ng’s cooperation with an ongoing 1MDB probe.

Ng was arrested in Malaysia in November 2018 and agreed to be extradited to the US three months later.

In a separate letter to Brodie yesterday, lawyers hired this month by the Malaysian government said the US had “backtracked” on its commitments regarding Ng’s surrender. The lawyers called the matter a “very serious issue.”

Ng’s former boss Tim Leissner, also onetime Goldman banker, pleaded guilty and testified against Ng at trial. He has not yet been sentenced.

Jho Low, the alleged mastermind of the 1MDB scheme, was also criminally charged but is at large. –  September 6, 2023.