Beyond Najib: 1MDB's web of complicity
A roll call of enablers, incomplete recoveries, and systemic failure.
This one follows last week’s (or last year’s) poll on whether you wanted a money-power follow-up to the latest 1MDB trial.
Most answered yes, so here it is.
🔥 The next newsletter digs into private equity, so stay tuned.
The Malaysianist runs on subscriptions. Fuel up with a monthly, annual or founding member plan.
P.S. The founding member tier doesn’t have a ceiling; you can go as high as you want — it’s the ultimate supporter badge that also comes with a special section of its own.
And, yes, you can upgrade subscription tiers at any time.
Mulling a group purchase for family, friends and colleagues? I’ve got you. Group subscriptions come with discounts, too.
On December 26, High Court Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah convicted former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak on all 25 charges related to the illegal transfer of approximately RM2.28 billion (US$543 million) from 1MDB funds into his personal accounts.
Najib was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment (to run concurrently after his current sentence ends in 2028) and fined RM11.39 billion for abuse of power charges, with an additional order to repay RM2.08 billion under anti-money laundering laws.
In default of payment, further jail terms apply.
Sequerah’s judgement described Najib as standing “at the very apex of the decision-making process” in 1MDB, with fugitive financier Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) acting as his “proxy and intermediary”.
The judge dismissed Najib’s defence that the funds were Saudi donations or that he had been deceived, calling such claims implausible and “incapable of belief”.
Evidence showed the monies originated from 1MDB, and Najib’s return of most funds was deemed a staged cover-up.
But how did Najib manage to orchestrate this on such a scale?
The answer lies in structural vulnerabilities inherent to Malaysia’s system of governance.
These are frameworks that cut across legal, political and institutional oversight.
You could argue this comes with the territory of being PM.
When the prime minister also holds the finance minister portfolio, he is also MoF Inc personified, therefore legally empowered to act with sweeping authority over Malaysia's sovereign wealth.
A long Sunday read examining the enablers who made 1MDB possible, complete with names, numbers (including more money unaccounted for) and settlements that reveal a broader pattern of systemic failure.