PETALING JAYA: The US Justice Department has filed a forfeiture suit to seize a pencil drawing by Pablo Picasso allegedly bought for US$1.3 million by Jasmine Loo using funds misappropriated from 1MDB.
Loo was the former legal counsel for 1MDB, the investment fund at the centre of a US$4 billion financial scandal involving corruption, bribery and money laundering conspiracy.
The suit was filed on Aug 28 to seize the drawing,”Trois Femmes Nues et Buste D’Homme”, as well as assets and funds in a Swiss bank account held by an offshore company, Glen Vine Partners Limited.
The Justice Department said Glen Vine was established by Loo in October 2014 in the British Virgin Islands, with Loo as its sole beneficial owner.
According to the suit, the drawing was bought at a Christie’s auction in New York in 2014 using funds that were “either unlawfully diverted from 1MDB” or can be traced to the sovereign wealth fund.
It said the assets could be forfeited since they were properties linked to violations of US laws.
The suit said the drawing was bought with money diverted from a US$3 billion bond issued by a 1MDB subsidiary in March 2013 to take on debts.
It added that this included some US$6 million sent in July 2013 to a Singaporean BSI Bank account belonging to Springbrook Global Limited, another company Washington said was owned by Loo.
Some US$1.9 million was then transferred from Springbrook’s account to Loo’s personal account at BSI Bank in Singapore in May 2014, it said.
Malaysian police arrested Loo, a former associate of fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, to assist in investigations into 1MDB.
The prosecution in Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial said last month that it had yet to decide whether to call Loo to testify in the former prime minister’s corruption case. - FMT
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