EX-BANKER Tim Leissner has agreed to cooperate with United States authorities investigating the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal that brought down the Najib government this year.
His cooperation is key to unravelling the world’s biggest kleptocracy case that Malaysia says pushed the national debt to some RM1 trillion and sent former prime minister Najib Razak to the dock last week.
The Malaysian Insight learnt that Leissner agreed to cooperate with the US rather than Malaysian authorities after he was stopped while travelling back to his house in Austria two months ago.
“There was a US-Austria joint operation, in which they stopped him and asked him about 1MDB.
“He then reached out to Jho Low and the Malaysian’s lawyers, and they told him to cooperate with the US investigators,” a source told The Malaysian Insight, referring to Low Taek Jho, the Malaysian businessman at the centre of the scandal.
Leissner, once Goldman Sachs’s Southeast Asia chairman, was advisor to 1MDB, the strategic investment fund set up in 2009 to help the nation build infrastructure.
He is married to American model-turned-designer Kimora Lee Simmons.
Under him, the New York bank’s Southeast Asian unit raised almost US$6 billion (RM24.2 billion) for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013. The money was meant for development projects, but US prosecutors allege that the bulk of it was diverted by high-level 1MDB officials and their associates.
He left Goldman Sachs in 2015 and was barred from working in the both the US and Singapore financial markets when 1MDB became embroiled in allegations of financial irregularities that sparked probes in multiple countries.
The sources said Leissner’s cooperation would provide investigators with a clearer picture over the bonds, one of which was guaranteed by Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Corp.
US prosecutors had also alleged that the so-called US$681 million “donation” to Najib’s private bank accounts came from the other bond.
Critics had questioned Goldman’s earnings from arranging bond sales for 1MDB, where it made about US$593 million from three bond sales.
The US bank had previously defended the Malaysian fees as representing underwriting risks and market conditions at the time.
Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said last month that Malaysia would seek to recoup US$4.5 billion potentially lost through 1MDB, as well as fees paid to Goldman.
“We have to prove ownership of the money,” Dr Mahathir told Bloomberg TV.
“The previous government, in order to avoid accusations of wrongdoing, decided that the money was not theirs, so they are not making any claims. But we know the money is ours. It’s from 1MDB,” he had said.
It is not known if the US authorities will share any information from Leissner with their Malaysian counterparts, particularly with the prosecution against Najib, who has denied any wrongdoing in the 1MDB affair. – July 9, 2018.
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Comments
In fact, if Najib were to be charged in the US, going by the response of nearly every similar accused, he would be plea-bargaining and accept a sentence and fine.
Only in psychopath-accepting Bolehland, does he and his aidors and abettors get free airplay and Najib pretend all is well. As if we were born yesterday.
Media too is pathetic --still stuck in third world mode. What's so hard to show a "Follow the money" apple crunched pie chart showing how much money is missing and what Najib's argument on where it has gone is and what the rational man's argunent is. In any event, Najib CANNOt explain the whole hole. If he did, he would have answered and not allow the Clare-Rewcastle Brown expose to explode and stay exploded.
Is any sane person thinking that there is less hard evidence against Najib versus Rajaratnam who is languishing in jail after a plea bargain?
Time Malaysia laddered back to the developed state and spirit it had in the Spice Trade/Straits of Malacca heydays in the 1400s.
#spiritofponnamal
Posted 5 years ago by Bala Pillai · Reply
Posted 5 years ago by MELVILLE JAYATHISSA · Reply
Posted 5 years ago by Besaman Mucho · Reply
Posted 5 years ago by Henry Mancini Jr · Reply
A Goldman Sachs spokesman told Reuters: "Since we suspended Mr. Leissner, we have discovered certain activities he undertook that were deliberately hidden from the firm, which we have brought to the attention of the relevant authorities who continue to receive our full cooperation."
This sounds like a 'get out clause'! Goldman don't make mistakes so once Tim Leissner's dealings with 1MDB were exposed they disowned him pure and simple.
Posted 5 years ago by Bob Archie · Reply
Posted 5 years ago by Teh Ewe Leng · Reply