KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 — Government-owned firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and its related companies had sent its money through banks in multiple countries before RM2.28 billion of these funds made their way back to Malaysia and into then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s two personal AmIslamic bank accounts during the 2011 to 2014 period, a Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) analyst told the High Court today.
Adam Ariff Mohd Roslan said this while testifying as the 47th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over the misappropriation of 1MDB’s RM2.28 billion which was alleged to have entered the latter’s private bank accounts.
Today, Adam Ariff, who was formerly seconded to the 1MDB task force at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) as an analyst, concluded the findings from his money trail report based on his analysis of 343 banking documents.
“The fund tracing analysis revealed that the disbursement of the funds raised by 1MDB and its related companies were transferred through the banking system of multiple foreign jurisdictions between September 2009 and December 2014, where a portion of the proceeds from 1MDB and its related companies were subsequently transferred back into Malaysia into the two Najib Razak’s accounts at AmIslamic,” he said when reading from his 76-page money trail report.
Adam Ariff said the methods he had used to analyse the bank records include the “first in, first out” method where money would be used in the order that it is received, and that he had also relied on the facts before and after a piece of missing information in instances where there is lack of documentation — such as on a “Prince Faisal” whose Riyad Bank account was where money had passed through before reaching Najib — to trace the money as originating from 1MDB.
Adam Ariff said the entire process in which RM2,282,937,678.41 or RM2.28 billion from 1MDB was sent out and ultimately ended up in Najib’s two AmIslamic accounts could be identified as four phases, namely the “Good Star” phase, the “Aabar-BVI” phase, the “Tanore” phase and the “Options Buyback” phase.
Najib’s two AmIslamic accounts were given the code name of “AmPrivate Banking-MR” and “AmPrivate Banking-1MY”.
For the first phase, a total of RM60,629,839.43 or over RM60 million (approximately US$20 million) — which were transferred to “AmPrivate Banking-MR” from a Riyad Bank account in Saudi Arabia between February 23 and June 14, 2011 — could be traced back to a RM5 billion Islamic bond or Islamic medium term notes issued in May 2009 by 1MDB’s predecessor Terengganu Investment Authority Berhad (TIA) and a RM2.5 billion loan which 1MDB took on in 2010.
As for the second phase, where RM90,899,927.28 or over RM90 million (approximately US$30 million) were transferred from Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners’s Standard Chartered Bank account in Singapore to “AmPrivate Banking-MR” between October 30 and November 20, 2012, these can be traced back to 1MDB’s subsidiary 1MDB Energy (Langat) Limited’s (1MELL) bond issued in 2012.
For the third phase, where RM2,081,476,926.00 or over RM2.08 billion (approximately US$681 million) were transferred from Tanore Finance Corporation’s account at the Falcon Private Bank, Singapore to “AmPrivate Banking-MR” between March 21 to April 10, 2013, these were traceable to 1MDB’s subsidiary 1MDB Global Investment Limited’s (1GIL) US$3 billion bond issued in 2013.
For the fourth phase, Adam Ariff said the RM4,093,500 or over RM4 million (approximately £750,000) transferred from Blackrock Commodities (Global) Limited’s account at DBS Bank, Singapore to “AmPrivate Banking-1MY” on June 23, 2014 could be traced back to a US$250 million loan borrowed by 1MDB’s subsidiary 1MDB Energy Holdings Limited (1MEHL) in 2014.
Also under the fourth phase, RM45,837,485.70 or over RM45 million (approximately £8.7 million) transferred from Vista Equity International Partners Limited’s Amicorp Bank in Barbados to “AmPrivate Banking-1MY” between October 23 to December 19, 2014 were “partially traceable” to a US$975 million loan borrowed by 1MEHL in 2014.
Throughout the trial, Adam Ariff had shown charts of how money borrowed by 1MDB and its subsidiaries had gone through complex layers and chains of transactions through multiple bank accounts — with many owned or controlled by Malaysian fugitive Low Taek Jho’s Malaysian associate Eric Tan Kim Loong — before flowing into Najib’s private bank accounts.
Apart from bank accounts in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Barbados, 1MDB’s money had also travelled through accounts in the banking and financial systems in Switzerland, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Ireland before reaching Najib, the money trail charts prepared by Adam Ariff showed.
On the first day of trial, the prosecution had said it would show that 1MDB funds had been transferred in multiple transactions to Najib’s accounts, namely US$20 million equivalent to RM60,629,839.43 or over RM60 million from the first phase, US$30 million equivalent to RM90,899,927.28 or over RM90 million (second phase), US$681 million equivalent to RM2,081,476,926 or over RM2 billion (third phase), and transactions in British pound that were equivalent to RM4,093,500 and RM45,837,485.70 or a combined total of RM49,930,985.70 million or over RM49 million (fourth phase).
Today, deputy public prosecutor Kamal Baharin Omar asked if the money received by Najib in his bank accounts “originated from all the four phases” in 1MDB, with Adam Ariff then replying “yes”.
While Adam Ariff’s 76-page money trail report which was produced in court as evidence carried the date of July 27, 2023 which was just about a month before he began testifying, he explained that the date of the report was when he submitted it to the investigating officer for court proceedings in Najib’s 1MDB trial.
“I do want to clarify the findings of the report had already been completed I believe in June 2022, much earlier, except at that time, I wasn’t informed by the investigating officer yet that I was supposed to submit this report for court purposes,” he said.
Previously, he had said that he had examined bank statements and documents relating to 1MDB, Najib and other entities between June 2018 and June 2022 at the MACC headquarters, adding that he had identified and analysed 24 bank accounts in his money trail report including Najib’s two codenamed accounts “AmPrivate Banking-MR” and “AmPrivate Banking-1MY”.
Asked by Kamal Barin, Adam Ariff confirmed the identities of the key players in the four phases of the 1MDB scheme which resulted in RM2.28 billion going into Najib’s accounts.
This included Tarek Obaid who was identified as an authorised person for 1MDB PetroSaudi Limited and PetroSaudi Holdings (Cayman) Limited. Under the first phase, the company 1MDB PetroSaudi Limited had passed money to PetroSaudi Holdings (Cayman) Limited, which had in turn passed money to Tarek, who had then sent money to Low’s Good Star Limited before it went through a Prince Faisal to Najib.
Another person identified repeatedly was Low’s associate Tan Kim Loong, whose name and other details such as passport number, identity card number, phone number appeared in the companies whose accounts were used for 1MDB-linked money to pass through before eventually reaching Najib: Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners (Phase Two); Granton Property Holding Limited, Tanore Finance Corp (Phase Three); Affinity Equity International Partners Limited, Blackrock Commodities (Global) Limited, and Vista Equity International Partners Limited (Phase Four).
Adam Ariff confirmed that Tan was involved in the last three phases of the 1MDB scheme in transfers of money prior to the funds reaching Najib’s accounts.
Low is better known as Jho Low and is a man wanted in Malaysia over the 1MDB scandal. The prosecution on the first day of trial had described Tan as Low’s “shadow” and Low as Najib’s mirror image and alter ego.
Adam Ariff first took the witness stand on August 30, and today is his sixth day testifying in the 1MDB trial.
Najib’s 1MDB trial before judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes tomorrow, with his lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah expected to begin cross-examining Adam Ariff.
Najib’s lawyer Tania Scivetti this afternoon informed the court that Shafee is not feeling well today and has an infection, and that he has returned from visiting the doctor and is resting and will be available tomorrow for the cross-examination.
