Kuala Lumpur: The authorities had traced and found some of 1MDB’s funds in Najib Razak’s bank accounts, a Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) analyst told the High Court today.
Testifying in Najib’s 1MDB trial, Adam Ariff Roslan said he was seconded to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in 2018 and joined the anti-graft agency’s 1MDB task force.
During his time at MACC, he helped investigating officer Nur Aida Arifin to trace the links between the funds raised by 1MDB and the money Najib received in his accounts.
“She gave me multiple banking documentations as references,” Adam said, adding that the documents he received comprised local and foreign bank statements.
After conducting an analysis on the money trail, he prepared a report to establish the chain of transactions with links to the sources of the funds received by Najib.
“In my analysis, the money trail of the said funds received by the two accounts in question can be traced and separated into four phases, namely ‘Good Star’ (in 2011), ‘Aabar BVI’ (in 2012), ‘Tanore’ (in 2013), and ‘Options Buyback’ (in 2014),” Adam said.
In the prosecution’s 2019 opening statement for the case, they said Najib played a pivotal role in all four phases with an aim to enrich himself.
They added that after the 1MDB scandal broke out in early July 2015, the former prime minister and fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, “took steps to cover (Najib’s) tracks”.
Najib is standing trial on 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering over alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited in his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
The hearing continues before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
