WANTED businessman Low Taek Jho is not facing joint charges by the US and Malaysia, said Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“The cooperation (between Malaysia and the US Department of Justice) is very close. If there is a need for us to jointly charge him, we will do so. But at the moment, the charges are different,” the prime minister told a press conference at the Perdana Leadership Foundation in Putrajaya today.
“What is going to be the problem (for Low) with the US is money laundering. For us, it is (about) where 1Malaysia Development Bhd money has disappeared to.”
He said Low, better known as Jho Low, the alleged mastermind of the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, would know what had happened to the state investor’s funds.
So, too, would former prime minister Najib Razak, who also held the finance portfolio, his wife, Rosmah Mansor, and his stepson, Riza Aziz, added Dr Mahathir.
“I am quite sure Najib, Rosmah and Riza know where the money is, but they are not telling, of course. We’ll wait for them to change their mind.”
Low was charged in absentia by Malaysian authorities in August with eight counts of money laundering, involving BSI Bank in Singapore and Switzerland, between December 2013 and June 2014.
Three charges are for receiving money to the tune of US$261 million (RM1 billion), and the other five are related to the transfer of US$196 million.
The DoJ has indicted Low for conspiracy to commit money laundering and bribing foreign officials, together with former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng Chong Hwa.
Ng was arrested in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, and will be extradited to the US. – THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT
Dr M: 1MDB scandal will never happen again
PUTRAJAYA — Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said emphatically that a scandal the magnitude of 1MDB will not be allowed to be repeated in Malaysia.
When asked if banking reforms were needed in response to the global corruption and money-laundering scandal, he said there were safeguards in the government that were designed to prevent such fraud.
However, he said these were circumvented by those now accused of defrauding the country of billions.
“It will never happen again, we won’t allow that kind of operation, setting up a company to bypass the rules of the government as to the limit of borrowing.
“What Najib did was to set up a company which is not governed by government rules, and then borrowed RM42 billion and that was stolen; we don’t do that anymore,” he said during a press conference at the Perdana Leadership Foundation. – MALAY MAIL
THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT / MALAY MAIL
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.