Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 18): Fugitive financier Low Taek Jho’s (Jho Low) days as a protected asset of the Chinese intelligence service may be numbered.

In the 76th edition of the newsletter Whale Hunting published on Tuesday (Jan 17), American journalist Bradley Hope said that many clues together and the whisperings of a source connected in China gave him the impression that Jho Low's free run could come to an end soon.

Hope said it is well established that after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started investigating, Jho Low stuck around in Hong Kong and Macau as his bases of operation with periodic trips and lengths of time on his yacht around Thailand and elsewhere in Asia.

“What we know from our reporting is that during this time he began to get closer with the Chinese state intelligence service, especially a man called Sun Lijun.

“In the years afterward, it emerged that [Jho] Low single-handedly negotiated one of the greatest mortgages of sovereignty in the modern age,” he said.

The author said former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was denying up and down any money was missing from Malaysia, but there was a multi-billion dollar hole he couldn't make disappear.

Hope said that meanwhile, China was keen to expand its power and influence in Malaysia, as well as make extortionate amounts of money on infrastructure projects paid for by the Malaysian government.

“[Jho] Low was the broker. He arranged for Najib to start toeing the 'Party Line' and stop pushing back against Chinese incursions into Malaysian waters and sign multi-billion, largely unnecessary infrastructure projects at inflated prices.

“In exchange, the Chinese counter-parties arranged for funds to flow back to Najib in a variety of ways to not only cover up 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Bhd) but prop up his re-election campaign,” said Hope.

He said that unfortunately for Najib, he lost the election and everything exploded into view.

Hope said that at that moment, Jho Low went from a strategic intelligence asset to a liability.

“He wasn't useful anymore, but his arrest would be a risk to China's reputation because who knows what Jho [Low] learned over the years working with the intelligence apparatus and any other funny deals he cooked up.

“Meanwhile, [Jho] Low's protectors started getting into serious trouble. Sun Lijun, his patron, was convicted for corruption,” he said.

Hope said Malaysia went through a series of political convulsions after Najib, but lately is led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, one of the key men angling to expose the 1MDB scandal from the very beginning.

He said neither former PMs Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin nor Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob were overly focused on Jho Low — the biggest fish to fry for the opposition was Najib himself, while the people from Najib's own party (Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri) would rather everyone forget about 1MDB altogether.

Hope argued that China is at the point where it could argue that Jho Low and a rogue intelligence agent, Sun, worked for their own corrupt goals and without permission from the Party.

He said the Party, it could argue, has now completed its  investigations and is ready to hand Jho Low over and his assets to Malaysia.

“Anwar, meanwhile, might agree that getting Jho [Low] back is a major political coup that allows him to recover huge amounts of money for Malaysia while finally closing the door on the 1MDB chapter,” he said.

The catch

Hope said China is going to want assurances that any besmirching of the Belt and Road Initiative stop (no matter how much the US pushes Malaysia to talk about it), as well as for Jho Low to keep his mouth shut about his spy work and dealings with the rich and powerful in China.

“I would imagine they would want Malaysia to lock him up and keep him far away from any FBI agents still investigating the case.

“Of course, there are many moving parts to this and things I don't know. But I have a feeling, backed up by some murmurs and whispers from connected sources.

“Therefore, I put the odds at 6/10. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said 1/10,” he said.

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