(July 14): DAP today said troubled state investor 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) may have tampered with financial documents regarding its 2014 audit.

The party's national secretary, Tony Pua said this concerned the latest audited financial statements for March 2014 to banks, which he said was different from the copy extracted from the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM).

The amendment, Pua said, was in regard to US$1.22 billion in funds, in which the word "utilised" was replaced with "set aside".

He said based on the copy obtained from CCM, the auditors confirmed that the amount had been redeemed or more or less used up.

"But by changing one word – from 'utilised' to 'set aside' – the audited accounts to the banks would provide a false assurance to the lenders that 1MDB had already set aside nearly US$1.22 billion of cash to pay them when the interest and loans become due.

"In fact, I have valid reasons to believe that the above isn't the only alteration on the 2014 financial statements by 1MDB," Pua said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

Pua said the alleged tampering was "grander" than what former PetroSaudi International director Xavier Justo has been accused of doing to emails and other documents about 1MDB.

The banks that had lent to 1MDB must now peruse the firm's financial statements with a fine-toothed comb to uncover all discrepancies between the original copy lodged with CCM and the doctored copy in their hands, the Petaling Jaya Utara MP said.

Pua today furnished a copy of the audit submitted to CCM which read: "As at the date of this report, the amounts received from the redemption of investments of US$1.22 billion (RM4.03 billion) in the SPC above have been substantially utilised for the purposes of debt interest payment, working capital and payments to Aabar as refundable deposits..."

He said the doctoring of 1MDB financial statements was a serious criminal offence under the Penal Code.

As such, he urged banks to immediately file police reports if discrepancies were found in the financial statements.

"If 1MDB is now so audacious as to doctor financial statements, I am now seriously concerned about the integrity of the various documents which it had submitted to the auditor-general, including the minutes of the Board of Directors, directors' resolutions and other relevant documents.

"I would be very worried if they have been similarly tampered to hide the wrongdoings of the company, its directors and officers," he said.

Asked if he had proof that the financial statements for March 2014 furnished to the banks were tampered with, Pua said: "I am making the allegation.

"It would be ridiculous for me to make this allegation which can be easily disproved."

He said 1MDB could easily come out to dismiss the allegation.

Pua added that it was ironic that 1MDB had claimed that leaked information about its dealings had been tampered before being exposed by website Sarawak Report, when the company itself was committing "the same offence on a grander scale".

He said it was a serious issue because it would become a clear breach of warranty and representation made by 1MDB to the banks, where such a breach would automatically tantamount to an "event of default" typical in nearly all loan agreements between lenders and borrowers.

Pua said 1MDB owed RM3.5 billion to a consortium of 4 local banks - Maybank, RHB, Alliance and HwangDBS Bank, adding that AmBank and Affin Bank also had "hundreds of millions of ringgit in exposure to 1MDB".

"By triggering the event of default, all of 1MDB's outstanding loans to these institutions will become immediately due and payable," Pua said.

1MDB has said that documents taken by Justo from PetroSaudi and leaked to Sarawak Report were tampered with.

Justo is now in police custody in Thailand where he is being investigated for alleged blackmail and extortion.

Claims that he had tampered with emails taken from PetroSaudi were also made by pro-government newspaper the New Straits Times, citing an unnamed source from private cyber security firm, Protection Group International (PGI).

Following that, Malaysian ministers accused Justo of tampering with confidential emails that led to exposes over 1MDB. – The Malaysian Insider