TIM Leissner is engaged in plea-bargaining talks with American prosecutors who are pressing the former Goldman Sachs banker on details whether the bank closed an eye to the looting in 1MDB, reports Bloomberg.

Leissner, once Goldman Sachs’ Southeast Asia chairman, was adviser to 1Malaysia Development Bhd, the strategic investment fund set up in 2009 by former prime minister Najib Razak.

Under him, the New York bank’s Southeast Asian unit raised almost US$6 billion (RM25 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.

If US prosecutors reach a plea agreement with Leissner, he would become a key witness against his superiors at the bank, said Bloomberg, quoting a source.

The Pakatan Harapan government said last month it would seek to recover nearly US$600 million paid to Goldman Sachs for arranging the sale of 1MDB bonds.

Leissner produced an unauthorised letter vouching for Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, the central figure in the US Department of Justice’s probes into billions of dollars allegedly siphoned off 1MDB.

Leissner was suspended by Goldman over his role in 1MDB and his work on an Indonesian mining deal and left the bank in 2016.  

In June 2015, Leissner wrote to Banque Havilland, a small Luxembourg private bank, vouching for Low, who wanted to open an account there.

The DoJ 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 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 2017, the DoJ filed another suit to seize US$540 million in assets, including the US$165 million yacht Equanimity, owned by Low, and the rights to Dumb and Dumber To. – July 20, 2018.