KUALA LUMPUR (June 16): Some US$670 million had entered into former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s private bank accounts with AmBank from 2011 to 2013, the High Court heard on Thursday (June 16).
 
Wedani Senen, a manager with the SWIFT unit at AmBank, verified that Najib had received the funds from Prince Faisal Turki Bin Bandar Al Saud, Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Ltd and Tanore Finance Corp.

Wedani, whose primary role is to oversee bank transactions, said that on Feb 24, 2011, Najib received US$10 million from Prince Faisal into his AmPrivate Banking-MR account ending in “694”.

The money was transferred from Riyad Bank in Saudi Arabia, she told Justice Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah while verifying transactions of money entering into Najib’s accounts, at the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)-Tanore trial
 
A similar transaction occurred four months later, on June 14, 2011, with Najib receiving US$10 million from Prince Faisal’s Riyad Bank account to Najib’s “694” account, she said.

Moving on to the 2012 transactions, Wedani verified that US$5 million was deposited into the "694" account from the Blackstone Asia account in Standard Charted Singapore on Oct 30, 2012.

A month later, on Nov 19, 2012, US$25 million was deposited into the “694” account from the Blackstone Asia account.

Lastly, Wedani verified the transfer of a whopping US$620 million into Najib’s “694” account from Tanore Finance via its Falcon Private Bank Ltd account in Singapore.

Wedani was reading from her prepared witness statement in which she outlined that she would verify 12 transactions of money going to Najib’s AmBank accounts. She stopped at the US$620 million transfer, and will continue reading her statement when the trial resumes on Monday (June 20).

Najib, 68, is facing four charges of using his position to obtain bribes amounting to RM2.3 billion 1MDB funds and 21 charges of money laundering for the same amount.

The prosecution was represented by Deputy Public Prosecutor Najwa Bistamam, while Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammad appeared for Najib.

In 2018, The Edge reported that 1MDB, via 1MDB Global Investments Ltd, issued US$3 billion of bonds underwritten by Goldman Sachs in March 2013. The money was for the development of Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) in Kuala Lumpur.

However, more than US$1.26 billion of the proceeds was diverted to a bank account held in the name of Tanore Finance Corp.

Eric Tan Kim Loong, an associate of fugitive financier Low Taek Jho (Jho Low), was the beneficial owner of the Tanore account.

Funds that originated in the 1MDB bonds issue that were deposited with the Bank of New York Mellon were transferred to the account of 1MDB Global Investments at BSI Bank in Lugano. From there, US$835 million was sent to the Tanore account in Singapore via three investment funds. Another US$430 million was sent to the Falcon Bank account of Granton Property Holdings in Singapore, from where the whole sum was sent to the Tanore account.

In total, the Tanore account managed by Tan received US$1.26 billion of money that originated in 1MDB. It is, however, not clear if Tan was the sole signatory and beneficial owner of the account or if Jho Low was also a party.

What is clear is that on March 21, 2013, Tan gave instructions to transfer US$620 million from the Tanore account to an account at AmPrivate Bank in Malaysia. The wire transfer was processed through correspondent bank accounts at JP Morgan Chase and Well Fargo in the US.

This US$620 million is purportedly the money which ended up in Najib’s "694” account.

Meanwhile, in the case of  Blackstone, Tan was both the beneficial owner and signatory of the account.

The Edge report in 2018 detailed that a total of about US$1.1 billion was transferred, either directly or indirectly, via overseas investment funds into the Blackstone account in Singapore, which was used as a transit account to improperly distribute funds to individuals affiliated with 1MDB, International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) and Aabar Investments PJS Ltd (Aabar BVI).

Between May 25, 2012, and Dec 14, 2012, five wire transfers totalling US$636 million were sent from the Aabar BVI Swiss account to the Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners account in Singapore. These wire transfers were processed through correspondent bank accounts at Standard Chartered Bank and Citibank in the US.

Another US$455 million was transferred from the Aabar BVI account to Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners through a layering process in which the money was first invested in two so-called funds — Enterprise Emerging Market Fund and Cistensque Investment Fund.

Aabar BVI is the fake Aabar that is alleged to have received US$1.367 billion from the two US$1.75 billion bonds that Goldman Sachs raised for 1MDB to buy power assets from Tanjong PLC and the Genting group in May and October 2012.

Acting on the instruction of Jho Low, Tan would, within days of receiving the money, arrange for hundreds of millions of dollars from the Blackstone account to be transferred out.

The US$30 million which were deposited into Najib’s “694” account purportedly originated from here.