This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 18, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has reportedly raided Maika Holdings Bhd offices on Tuesday as part of its investigation into alleged corruption and power abuse, following an expose by Sarawak Report earlier this year.

According to news reports quoting MACC sources, Maika’s office in Klang and its company secretary’s office in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur were involved in the afternoon raid, and that several documents linked to the investigation had been seized.

“Yes, documents of the company secretary and liquidators were seized,” Free Malaysia Today (FMT) quoted a source as saying.

According to FMT, Sarawak Report claimed that Maika had passed millions of ringgit in cash and other forms of payments to companies linked to its former chief executive, Datuk Seri S Vell Paari, between 2003 and 2009, before the company’s collapse.

The whistle-blower site also claimed that despite a seven-year probe into the demise of Maika, which reportedly lost the savings of some 66,400 shareholders linked to MIC — the bulk of whom were low-income earners — the investigation papers were never revealed.

Maika had raised some RM106 million from the shareholders for its investment activities, but its profits were allegedly channelled elsewhere.

Vell Paari, the son of former MIC president S Samy Vellu, is now MIC secretary-general. Maika was initiated by Samy Vellu in the 1980s as an investment vehicle for the Indian community.