‘THESE GUYS ARE QUITE SICK’: ANWAR FEARS LUXURY ASSETS SEIZED FROM NAJIB & FAMILY HOMES IN 1MDB PROBE COULD SURPASS MARCOS WEALTH

Malaysian police said late on Thursday they had confiscated 284 boxes, containing designer handbags such as Hermès Birkin bags, and 72 suitcases, with jewellery, cash and other valuables, from a Kuala Lumpur apartment raided in connection with the 1MDB investigation.

Officers armed with automatic weapons stood guard outside the villa as their colleagues used a shopping trolley to load up vans with the seized goods. Malaysians watched live on Facebook feeds.

“I think we will probably register an impressive record surpassing that of Imelda and the rest,” said Mr Anwar, referring to Marcos and his wife. She was notorious for the expensive shoes and handbags she had amassed during his 20-year rule.

The former finance minister told the Financial Times the alleged corruption was a “mind-boggling” abuse of office by a regime that gave “speeches about helping the poor. These guys are quite sick-minded.”

Mr Anwar was freed from jail after the opposition trounced Najib Razak, prime minister, in elections this month,

Some of the boxes taken by police in the raid, marked with the brand name Hermes © AP Anger at the allegations that billions of dollars were misappropriated from 1MDB, a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, helped oust Mr Najib, who founded the fund.

The opposition, led by 92-year-old former strongman Mahathir Mohamad, went on to take power for the first time in the country’s history. Mr Mahathir intends eventually to hand over the reins to Mr Anwar.

Since being sworn in as prime minister, Mr Mahathir has begun a new investigation into 1MDB, banning Mr Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor from leaving the country. He has also appointed a special committee to examine 1MDB, from which the US Department of Justice has estimated that $4.5bn was misappropriated.

In addition to the assets confiscated on Thursday, the police searched five other locations around Kuala Lumpur linked to the 1MDB investigation. These included Mr Najib’s family home, where they spent hours trying to drill into an old safe.

Mr Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer, Harpal Singh Grewal, said on Thursday that the police searches amounted to harassment, because they were conducted at length at the start of Ramadan, the fasting month for Muslims.

Anwar Ibrahim: Malaysia’s ‘sick-minded’ corruption must end In response, Amar Singh, head of the commercial crime investigation department, told reporters that the police were “very professional”.

He declined to give a total value for the assets confiscated so far. He declined to say if Mr Najib himself was the target of the 1MDB investigation. Mr Singh also declined to reveal the owner of the apartment, adding that it was “not important to whom the unit belongs” but that the search was conducted as part of the 1MDB probe.

Mr Najib’s spokesman said he was “not aware” of who owned the seized goods.

Cynthia Gabriel, an anti-corruption campaigner who was appointed to the new government’s council investigating 1MDB, said that the scale of the initial asset seizures was “shocking”.

She expects “more to be uncovered”. She said the case highlights the “wanton greed, abuse of power and impunity” of Mr Najib and his government “at the expense of the poor citizens of Malaysia”.

Mr Anwar said that he would “strongly support” the establishment of a special commission to recover the assets stolen from 1MDB. This would be similar to the body in the Philippines that has taken back around $4bn since Marcos was ousted in 1986.

https://www.ft.com/content/08cf2c70-5aa1-11e8-bdb7-f6677d2e1ce8