Jho Low’s company received US$330mil, says whistle-blower

PETALING JAYA: Whistle-blower Sarawak Report claims to have obtained new documents to show that Good Star Limited, a company controlled by businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, had received the entirety of a US$330 million (RM1.18 billion) “loan” from 1Malaysia Development Fund (1MDB) in 2011.
It said the loan had been authorised by 1MDB, supposedly in favour of its former joint venture partner PetroSaudi International although Jho Low has repeatedly maintained that he has held no role in 1MDB and made no profit from its investment dealings.
Sarawak Report has earlier alleged that PetroSaudi directors had agreed to “act as front” for Jho Low and that out of a total of US$1.5 billion (RM5.36 billion) already invested in PetroSaudi between September 2009 and September 2010, US$860 million (RM3.07 billion) had been secretly siphoned into Good Star’s RBS Coutts bank account in Zurich.
“Now, official investigators have ascertained that a further US$$330 million, which 1MDB had sought approval to lend to PetroSaudi in May 2011, also all went straight to Good Star Limited instead,” said Sarawak Report in its latest exclusive.
It claimed that according to official investigators, reporting earlier this month to Malaysia’s regulatory authorities, the money was funded by “ringgit borrowing from offshore banks and the balance of the “Sukuk Murabaha proceeds”.
“The money was transferred in four separate tranches in the form of US currency – ($30 million, $65 million, $110 million and $125 million) – straight into Good Star Limited’s RBS Coutts, Zurich account, Sarawak Report claimed.
Yet approval had only been granted by the regulators for 1MDB to lend the money to 1MDB PetroSaudi Limited (BVI) on the basis that it was to “finance on-going overseas investment in the oil and gas sector”.
It added that the rationale for the approval was “to pursue a strategic and global partnership in the energy sector and promoting foreign direct investment into Malaysia”.
“There was no mention made of the company Good Star in the 1MDB application and neither was approval granted for the money to be sent to the company, but nevertheless all four of the payments totalling US$330 million from two separate banks in Malaysia went straight to Good Star Limited, according to the documents we hold,” the whistle-blower site said.
It quoted official investigators as saying that the application presented by 1MDB for the alleged loan claimed it was “part of the government-to-government initiative between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia specifically to explore investment opportunities in the energy sector”.
It also quoted the investigators as saying 1MDB had stated in its application to the financial controllers that its lending to 1MDB PetroSaudi (BVI) had been approved by the Minister of Finance and the 1MDB board of directors.
But the money did not go to 1MDB PetroSaudi (BVI). It went to Good Star Limited, controlled by Jho Low, said Sarawak Report, adding that shockingly, the investigation has further established that the US$$330 million sent to Good Star was officially reported to Bank Negara Malaysia as having been paid to 1MDB PetroSaudi.
Last week, the website claimed Singapore authorities have identified that over US$$500 million (RM1.79 billion) had passed through Jho Low’s own BSI accounts from Good Star between 2011 and 2013.
The Minister of Finance has, however, claimed in a series of statements that US$$2.3 billion (RM8.2 billion) was “redeemed” from the PetroSaudi investment in 2012 and that US$$1.103 billion (RM3.96 billion) of that money is still sitting in cash in 1MDB’s Brazen Sky account at BSI Singapore.
The question now is who was responsible for providing this misleading information that Good Star Limited was a subsidiary company of PetroSaudi International and why none of the banks involved in any of these transactions ever see fit to file a suspicious transaction report, said Sarawak Report, adding that it was perhaps time for the Auditor-General to check 1MDB account at BSI bank.