SEVERAL high-quality counterfeit handbags were among items seized in ongoing investigations into Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, police said today.

Bukit Aman’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department director Amar Singh said the counterfeit bags were of very high quality and cost a lot despite not being original items.

“I would not call it fakes. They were very good copies, very few, which were also expensive,” he said at a press conference at the CCID headquarters in Jalan Semarak.

The mention of fakes drew laughter from the media personnel.

Amar said a total of 567 handbags were seized from premises linked to Najib that included his private residence at Jalan Langgak Duta and the condo units where his son and daughter lived at Pavilion Residences, as well as an empty unit at the same condominium.

The handbags were from 37 brands that included Hermes, Prada, Versace and Chanel, among others. One of them, under the brand Bijan, was custom-made and is not available on the market.

Only the values of the Hermes bags, of which there were 272 pieces, has been ascertained at RM51.3 million.

Amar said it took police eight days to evaluate and to authenticate the handbags.

Some of the handbags seized, Amar said were valued at RM1.6 million.

In all, the total haul of handbags, cash, jewellery, watches and branded sunglasses seized were between RM900 million and RM1.1 billion, he said.

The value of jewellery seized was RM440 million for 12,000 items but this was only the cost of materials and did not include workmanship, design and sales costs.

Amar said police will be interviewing those who said these items were given as gifts to Najib and Rosmah, before recording the couple’s statements on the seized items.

“There were reports made previously about the watches we seized. We need to verify if they are gifts,” he said.

Police reopened their investigation into the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial scandal soon after the new government led by Pakatan Harapan came into power on May 9.

Raids on premises linked to Najib began a week after PH won the election. – June 27, 2018