(MMO) – Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak dismissed today claims of an international conspiracy against Malaysia following news reports of the US court action related to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
He said the US authorities were only doing their job with the civil lawsuit filed to recover more than US$1 billion (RM4.03 billion) in assets bought with money allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB.
“There is no conspiracy, they are doing their job. When there is a report, they are handling it based on the rules and regulations of the country,” Salleh told reporters after an event launch at Universiti Putra Malaysia here.
When asked, Salleh pointed out the US investigations only involved three individuals named in the lawsuit and did not include Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
“No other names are being investigated. It was very clear, I think the attorney general of the US was very clear in its statement that they’re not investigating anybody but the three individuals,” he said.
The former Sabah chief minister also said Malaysian authorities have been responding to the international scrutiny, despite criticisms from detractors.
“Our job here is to explain the situation. As far as we are in Malaysia, the 1MDB has been handling it quite well.
“We have allowed people to have their views. Tun Mahathir and the opposition have their own views and we explain things, but they don’t believe it,” Salleh said referring to former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who is now one of the government’s most vocal critics.
He debunked claims of a government cover-up on 1MDB and said authorities here have investigated the issue, as shown through Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report.
“Let them investigate, for us there is nothing to hide. As far as 1MDB is concerned, there has been the PAC report. We have deliberated on the matter and action will be taken based on the PAC report,” he said.
He added that most of the documents being investigated by the foreign authorities concerned matters that took place outside Malaysia.
“Sometimes you know, most of the documents under accusation is not happening here but in other countries.
“When you look at the transactions it involves other countries. Let them continue to do their investigation based on whatever laws under the jurisdiction,” he said.
The US Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit yesterday seeking the forfeiture and recovery of more than US$1 billion in assets linked to what it described in a press statement as an “international conspiracy to launder funds misappropriated” from 1MDB, the largest case ever brought by its Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.
US prosecutors said more than US$3.5 billion in 1MDB funds were allegedly misappropriated by high-level officials of the local state investment firm and their associates between 2009 and 2015. The money was allegedly laundered through “complex transactions and fraudulent shell companies” with bank accounts located in Singapore, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the US.
According to complaints that US prosecutors highlighted, the funds allegedly embezzled and laundered into the US were purportedly used to buy luxury properties in the US and UK, including a mansion in Beverly Hills, a penthouse in New York and a townhouse in London, paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, a US$35 million jet, as well as gambling debts in Las Vegas.
The money was also allegedly used to invest in EMI Music and to fund the production of 2013 Hollywood movie The Wolf of Wall Street.