Between 2009 and 2013, financier Jho Low, a family friend of the Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, and his associates helped embezzle at least $3.5 billion from 1Malaysia Development Bhd., a state investment fund created by Razak, the U.S. Justice Department alleged in a lawsuit filed in July, the Wall Street Journal reported today. It couldn’t have happened without the cooperation of a handful of bankers and the failure of a host of financial institutions and regulators to detect the alleged fraud, investigators believe. Low and his cohorts for years eluded detection or interference by at least eight banks, big accounting firms, a central bank and various government regulators, according to the Justice Department, investigative documents from other countries and people familiar with the affair. The banks included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Standard Chartered PLC. Read more. (Subscription required.)
For a further analysis of commercial fraud, make sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Fraud and Forensics: Piercing Through the Deception in a Commercial Fraud Case.
