Where is the US$2 million?

By MT Webmaster Last updated Oct 7, 2015

If the money had been paid and if Justo had sighted the proof of payment, that would mean the money is still somewhere in transit and is still in the hands of one or both of the brokers. And the Malaysian police want to know whom is the person still keeping the money.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Xavier Andre Justo, who is now serving a jail sentence in Thailand, said that he was supposed to have been paid US$2 million for the stolen data he sold to The Edge. And Clare Rewcastle-Brown was his broker who was supposed to receive the money on his behalf and then transfer it to him over eight months.

Justo never received the money, though, because he was arrested before the first transfer could be done, he said in The Straits Times (Singapore) news report below.

In an earlier news report it was revealed that The Edge wanted the stolen data first before they would pay the US$2 million. Justo, however, did not agree. He wanted proof of payment before he would hand over the stolen data. So the whole arrangement was done through brokers — Clare as Justo’s broker and Tony Pua as the broker for The Edge.

Once proof of payment was shown, Justo handed over the stolen data. However, till today he never received any money. So the Malaysian police (PDRM) are keen to meet Justo to ask him about this.

In an earlier report it was revealed that Clare was still ‘chasing’ Tony Pua for the money, the broker for The Edge. This would probably mean that Tony Pua is still keeping the money. If Tony Pua no longer has the money and has in fact handed it over to Clare, then the police may need to take his statement to confirm this.

So the police are trying to meet Justo to get his statement before they zero in on the broker or brokers to find out what happened to the US$2 million. What the police know thus far is that The Edge paid the US$2 million but Justo never received it. Now the police need to solve the mystery of who is holding on to that money, Tony Pua or Clare?

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I was offered US$2 million for stolen data: Ex-PetroSaudi employee Xavier Andre Justo on the 1MDB saga

Ex-PetroSaudi employee says he was never paid what prominent Malaysian businessman promised him

(The Straits Times, Singapore, 24 July 2015) – Swiss national Xavier Andre Justo – who is now in jail in Thailand in connection with trying to blackmail his former employer, PetroSaudi, which is entangled in a huge scandal involving the Malaysian government – has claimed that he was promised US$2 million in exchange for data he stole from his former employer.

He also told The Straits Times in a prison interview that he was never paid what he was promised by a prominent Malaysian businessman. Justo claimed a deal was reached in Singapore in February on the sale of the documents, which was followed by lengthy discussions on how he would be paid.

The group of people he met in Singapore to negotiate the sale of the data were named in a 22-page confession Justo made to Thai police. He showed a copy of the confession to The Straits Times.

“I tried to open an account in Singapore, to have the money paid directly from (the buyer’s) account,” Justo said. “DBS Bank refused, I don’t know why. After that I opened an account in Abu Dhabi in my own personal name which was refused by (the buyer) because it had my name on it.”

“Then I tried to use my company account in Hong Kong and he said the same, after that it was through a Luxembourg company and then again (the buyer) refused and after that Clare Brown took the lead,” he said.

He was referring to Ms Clare Rewcastle-Brown, the Malaysian-born British-based editor of the Sarawak Report, which over the past year has made astonishing claims about the misappropriation of billions at state investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), whose advisory board is headed by Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Justo claimed the buyer also “offered to pay me by cash”.

He said: “So I was supposed to go to Singapore every week or every other week to receive an envelope with a few thousand or tens of thousands, and repeat this process for months until the final amount will have been paid. And again I refused.”

Justo echoed what Thai police said last week: that his confession was backed up by documents including a record of his WhatsApp conversations with the buyers.

“All of what is written in my confession, most of it is proven by e-mail conversations, WhatsApp messages I have had with (them).”

Ms Rewcastle-Brown had agreed to receive the US$2 million from the buyer and send him US$250,000 a month for consultancy services, he claimed.

“I don’t know if she received the money or not, (because) I was arrested,” he said. “I have no idea.”

Justo, who gave the interview across a table in a small office inside the sprawling Bangkok Remand Prison, also claimed that the group he had met in Singapore – including Ms Rewcastle-Brown – had tampered with the data he had given them.

“I gave the original documents without any kind of alteration,” he claimed. “I can say that I gave those documents to two groups of people,” he added. One was Ms Rewcastle-Brown and “her IT guy” and the other was the Malaysian businessman and his colleague. The Straits Times is not naming the businessman as well as his colleague pending their response to the latest allegations.

He alleged that those he met had talked about using the documents “to try to bring down the Malaysian government”, adding that they also referred to plans to “modify the documents”.

Justo, 48, was clean-shaven, looking well and composed. He was clad in a light blue cotton prison issue shirt and darker blue shorts. Looking over his reading glasses, he showed The Straits Times his confession, written densely in capital letters over 22 pages. He said it had not been made under duress, and that he had been pleasantly surprised at how well he had been treated in the Bangkok prison.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK