Lawyer Richard Barnes Confidant of Musa Aman Detained By MACC
Yesterday (8th July), Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) had detained Datuk Richard Christopher Barnes a senior lawyer, a confidant of Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman on links to Micheal Chai and his alleged smuggling of 16 million cash out of Hong Kong airport.
5 MACC officials went to Richard Barnes legal firm, Shelley Yap Leong Tseu Chong Chai and Co in Kota Kinabalu, and took away boxes of files in relation to this case. As of now, Richard Barnes is in remand for 5 days in the MACC office in Putrajaya.
Yes, Premier Najib Tun Razak’s fight against corruption is closing in on Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman. Initially, the Premier was in a quandary and was unwilling to pass a routine political directive for the arrest and prosecution of Musa Aman’s cronies for the allegedly involvement in illegal foreign currency dealings and the smuggling of 16 million cash out of Hong Kong airport by the adopted brother Micheal Chai. But not for now. Premier Najib Tun Razak is going after one by one, all of Musa Aman’s timber cronies and nominees and so far 14 have already been roped in by the MACC. Well done!
In Malaysia no arrest or prosecution takes place without Premier Najib’s sanction and this is a fact. It is a political formality that the police or MACC and Attorney General adhere to.
The MACC’s criminal investigations department started to investigate Musa Aman’s close allies, for flouting exchange control regulations and running Mafia-type shelf companies in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Singapore which runs to hundreds of million. Most of the money is under-table payments from timber kickbacks from Yayasan Sabah Concession areas made to Hong Kong-registered companies said to be linked to Musa Aman.
These companies would buy and trade foreign currency on the black market with money from the timber kickbacks. Micheal Chai and GANG then made weekly transfers involving millions of dollars which amounts to sabotaging our economic reforms by trading on the black market and flouting the Exchange Control Act in both Malaysia and Hong Kong, an offence punishable with jail time or a fine.
