1MDB gave false documents

Whistleblower site Sarawak Report revealed today that debt-ridden 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) gave false bank statements pertaining to its subsidiary’s accounts to the Singapore branch of BSI Bank.

It said it was passed "disturbing evidence" showing that BSI Bank had dismissed documents supplied by 1MDB relating to the accounts for Brazen Sky Limited in Singapore.

"The documents were supplied to various authorities by 1MDB’s CEO Arul Kanda and purported to show Brazen Sky’s statement of accounts in November 2014.

"However, the Swiss private bank has told the Singapore authorities that the document did not originate from them and does not represent a true account of the assets of the 1MDB subsidiary," Sarawak Report said in an article on its site today.

The site, which had been revealing information about 1MDB, said the information about the bank statements was reported back to Malaysia on March 13, two days after Prime Minister and Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak issued a parliamentary reply that confirmed that the remaining US$1.103 billion had been “redeemed” from Brazen Sky’s alleged offshore fund in the Cayman Islands and was now being “kept in US currency” at BSI Bank Limited in Singapore.

Sarawak Report said separate insider information obtained in Singapore had corroborated that there was no actual cash in the relevant Brazan Sky Limited account.

It revealed that according to a source, the account merely contained "paper assets" and the "true value of which cannot be determined”.

"This new information raises huge new concerns about the management of 1MDB on the day that (DAP lawmaker) Tony Pua has himself revealed the extent to which electricity prices for Malaysian customers are due to be hiked (in some cases by over 20%) as part of the government’s efforts to bail out the failing development fund through a series of favoured power deal concessions."

Sarawak Report cited how confusing the 1MDB money trail had been, with "years of twists and turns in the various accounts provided by 1MDB as to what happened to the money supposedly retrieved by the fund after it terminated its ill-fated first joint-venture with the company PetroSaudi International in 2009".

The site said it had now seen evidence that Arul Kanda did privately submit documents from 1MDB to relevant authorities, in order to apparently substantiate the various claims about 1MDB’s BSI Bank account in Singapore.

The evidence, according to Sarawak Report, showed that he had sent copies of bank statements to regulatory bodies, which were then passed to BSI Bank in Singapore. These included a November 2014 bank statement for Brazen Sky Limited’s account at BSI Bank.

"However, BSI subsequently informed the Singapore regulatory authorities that the document was a false statement and did not originate from the bank itself.

"It is a devastating development, which undermines 1MDB’s entire position regarding the missing billions of ringgit from its accounts and the situation now demands a far fuller examination of its position, particularly by the regulators concerned and the forces of law and order.

"Yet, six weeks after the Auditor-General was tasked by the Prime Minister with examining the fund, there has been no information regarding his investigation or his findings," the site reported.

Sarawak Report said it also learned through separate sources that another major private and corporate customer of BSI Singapore was none other than businessman Low Taek Jho, who is commonly known as Jho Low.

Low is the person said to be the driving force behind 1MDB’s various investment decisions, including the PetroSaudi deal that transferred US$700 million into an account controlled by him in the name of Good Star Limited at RBS Coutts in Zurich.

"BSI was also the original bank approached in Geneva by PetroSaudi when it was seeking to set up a Swiss account for Good Star in 2009, in order to receive the original US$700 million dollars siphoned out of the joint venture deal.

"Sarawak Report therefore calls for a thorough investigation by the Singapore authorities into the role of BSI Bank relating to 1MDB and into its dealings with its top private customer, Low." – April 22, 2015