Find out why 1MDB’s RM4 billion parked in Singapore bank, says veteran journalist
(The Malaysian Insider) – The investigation into troubled 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) should begin its decision to park RM4 billion in a small private bank in Singapore that has also suffered millions of dollars in losses, a veteran journalist said today.
Datuk A. Kadir Jasin, the former group editor-in-chief of The New Straits Times (NST), said it was suspicious that 1MDB would choose BSI Bank Limited Singapore when government-linked firms, corporations or agencies normally placed their funds in large local and international banks.
“To my knowledge, private banks are usually used by rich individuals and secretive family companies who do not want too many questions asked about their sources of the wealth,” said Kadir in a post on his blog, The Scribe.
“The move by 1MDB to park the money in Singapore with BSI only heightens the suspicion that something is amiss. So the investigators have to make sure that every single sen that 1MDB purportedly deposited with BSI is accounted for.”
He said BSI was a Lugano-based Swiss private bank that became part of Brazilian group BTG Pactual last year, and was previously owned by Italian insurance giant, Assicurazione Generali SPA.
