Unmasked! Taib The Godfather
By Sarawak Report
Sarawak Report has uncovered devastating documents which prove that Abdul Taib Mahmud, Sarawak’s Chief Minister, is the real owner of millions of dollars of property assets held in the name of family members abroad.
The damning discovery lays bare a system of private deals, which enabled the Chief Minister to conceal his true ownership of the properties. This was presumably in order to hide the extent of his enormous wealth, for which he has yet to provide any legitimate explanation.
Under the system, whilst it is Taib’s relatives who are publicly registered as the official shareholders and directors of the companies owning the properties, a separate, private agreement ensures that the shares are actually held in trust for him. Download PDF .
Documentary evidence of elaborate concealment
Among documents in its possession Sarawak Report has a copy of one such private agreement (see above) relating to the shares in Sakti International, a company that owns buildings in San Francisco. Sakti is part of a web of companies started in North America by the Taibs, which includes Sakto, a major Ottawa property company, and Wallysons, which owns the Abraham Lincoln Building in Seattle, housing a top secret anti-terrorist facility for the FBI.
The five official shareholders of Sakti International, which is registered in California, are Taib’s brothers, Onn Mahmud and Arip Mahmud, along with three of his children, Sulaiman Taib, Mahmud Taib and Jamilah Taib. However, as the document which we have obtained shows, a resolution made soon after the formation of the company has privately ruled that half those shares (a commanding majority) are held in trust for the Chief Minister. The value of these shares amounts to 40 million US dollars for Sakti alone, according to the company’s own documents.
Tip of the iceberg?
However, Sakti International, estimated to be worth US $80 million, accounts for just a small proportion of the Taib family wealth. Our previous exposes have revealed a vast portfolio of further international property assets, which are owned by members of Taib Mahmud’s immediate family. For example, Taib’s own children are the shareholders and directors of numerous companies controlling residential and commercial buildings in Canada, Australia, Britain and the United States together worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. Yet, suspiciously, many of these assets came into their possession when they were in their early 20s and still college students with no visible access to legitimate resources to invest. The inevitable question for Taib Mahmud, therefore, is whether, as in the case of Sakti International, they are also secretly holding these other properties in trust for him? If not, what explanation can there be for these investments?
