Umno received more than RM20mil from 1MDB funds, court told
An investigating officer from the police force told the High Court hearing Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial that Umno benefitted from 1MDB funds to the tune of more than RM20 million.
(FMT) – Foo Wei Min from Bukit Aman’s commercial crime investigation department said he was tasked to probe the former prime minister’s receipt and use of funds in his account 10 years ago.
Foo said his investigation ran simultaneously with a probe by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) involving Najib’s alleged abuse of powers.
The police officer told the court he probed the money trail from a US$3 billion bond, raised by 1MDB to develop the Tun Razak Exchange (TRX).
He said he found that part of those funds entered Najib’s personal accounts.
Foo said a sum of US$1.59 billion was transferred by 1MDB to three offshore funds belonging to Cistenique Investment Fund (US$530.3 million), Devonshire Funds Ltd (US$646.5 million) and Enterprise Emerging Markets Fund or EEMF (US$414.1 million).
Subsequently, he said Devonshire transferred US$640 million to Tanore Finance Corporation, while Cistenique and EEMF deposited a total of US$625 million into the same account.
“My investigations showed that a total of US$681 million was transferred to Najib’s accounts between March 21 and 25, 2013 in nine transactions.
“The Ambank officer (Yap Wei Keat) told us that the transactions were split into nine tranches to avoid disruption to the country’s currency exchange rate (which would occur) if a large amount of funds entered Malaysia all at once,” Foo said.
The witness then said between Aug 2 and 14, that year, Najib issued five cheques to Umno totalling RM20 million, while Umno Batu Kawan received RM100,000.
Other recipients of funds identified by the witness were Lim Soon Peng (RM246,000), Orb Solutions Sdn Bhd (RM2 million) and Semarak Konsortium Satu Sdn Bhd (RM303,000).
“The Umno Batu Kawan division chief, Mohd Noor Ahmad told us (police) that he received the RM100,000 and used it for political purposes at the constituency,” Foo added.
Meanwhile he said that Orb Solutions, which handled Najib’s social media accounts, received RM2 million.
Foo also said Semarak Konsortium Satu offered speechwriting and public relation services to Najib.
The hearing continues before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
Najib is standing trial on 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited in his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
