Najib’s trial: Ex-banker says 1MDB’s US$2.3b ‘investment’ had zero economic benefits, only to prevent fraud detection

KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 — The refashioning of government-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s financial dealings into a purported US$2.318 billion investment abroad was not economically beneficial at all, and it was only meant to give false comfort to 1MDB’s owner and board of directors that the company’s funds were still intact, a former Singapore banker told the High Court.

Swampillai said this while testifying as the 44th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over the misappropriation of RM2.28 billion of 1MDB funds, which were alleged to have entered the former finance minister’s private bank accounts.The BSI bank was tasked to help carry out 1MDB’s Cayman Islands subsidiary Brazen Sky Limited’s US$2.318 billion investment via Hong Kong-based fund manager Bridge Partners International Investment Limited.

“I as well as a few other people in BSI bank, my superiors also felt, we were wondering whether that US$2.318 billion figure that was being bandied about, whether it was to plug a hole in 1MDB’s balance sheet. So I remember that conversation taking place, so we suspected there were losses somewhere in the group,” he said.

“I remember the emails vividly because it’s not always an employee of the bank would convey a threat issued by someone who’s not even a client of the bank, in that way, in that tone,” he said, adding that Low was personally also a client of BSI but he had no legal standing or connection to the 1MDB transactions.

But Swampillai said there were many “red flags”, as the six purported promissory notes were a set of “IOUs” — usually referring to written promises to pay money owed to the other — that do not stand up to scrutiny.

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