Eyeing issues on 1MDB Malaysia episode 13

The Third Force

Clare Rewcastle Brown is up to no good again. This time the Chief Editor of Malaysia’s number one fake news portal, Sarawak Report, is busy coating old stories with new fluff and dishing them out as ‘bombshell exposes’. A few lines into her postings immediately reveals the new agenda – to derail the government’s truth campaign by flooding the internet with new lies.

Now, that’s a tall order for someone who has yet to debunk a series of articles that detail the extent of a global conspiracy to sabotage 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund. The series (links provided below), written by me and last published on the 1st of February 2017, has thus far revealed the names of Malaysians who were complicit with a group of foreigners to bankrupt the wealth fund.

The names of these Malaysians topped a laundry list of criminals who conspired with Maybank officials in 2013 to leak classified banking documents and other forms of government secrets to top executives at JP Morgan and Chase. The leak came to light following the discovery of email communication that took place between these executives and officials from the domestic banking scene.

Some of those documents wended their way to the desks of world-renowned figures, the most notable among them being billionaire George Soros and former British premier Tony Blair. Others who got a hold of those documents include officials from the World Bank’s StAR division, a group of Emirati businessmen, several media head honchos and financial analysts based in the United Kingdom (UK).

The wealth of classified information helped the Emiratis plan their every move. Their leader, Khadem al-Qubaisi, came to know that a group of Malaysians had contrived a scheme to sabotage a planned listing of 1MDB’s power assets. Without the listing, Qubaisi knew that the Malaysian fund would run into defaults with a syndicate of domestic banks that part financed the purchase of those assets.

And that is precisely what Dr. Mahathir Mohamad wanted. The former Malaysian premier was determined to bankrupt 1MDB to validate claims that the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak, had siphoned wealth from the fund for personal gain. Ms. Rewcastle took things a step further, implying that Najib was complicit with unnamed government officials to funnel that wealth into companies based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

But that’s not all.

Ms. Rewcastle channeled a large part of her fluff through a network of fake news portals she controls. For instance, a recent posting by the Tian Chua run Malaysia Chronicle (the Chronicle) bore signature traits to the kind of rubbish you’d expect from Sarawak Report. The posting concerned the administration of newly elected United States (US) president Donald J. Trump and its alleged links with Najib and members of the Government of Malaysia (GOM).

We’re now being told that Trump is going out of his way to ensure that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) does not pursue action against Malaysian officials ‘accused’ of stealing funds from 1MDB. According to the Chronicle’s posting, Trump made sure of this by firing a federal prosecutor who would likely have implicated these officials of wrongdoing.

Yet another day, yet another claim. And that’s how it is with the Chronicle and Sarawak Report, two of Malaysia’s foremost fake news channels. The question is, why is there a sudden and seemingly urgent need for Ms. Rewcastle to drag Trump into the picture? Is there something the Chief Editor of Sarawak Report is keeping concealed from Malaysians, something I have yet to make public?

And that is what we’re here to uncover. Through this article, Malaysians will learn of developments that took place in recent weeks that may have caused the Sarawak Report Chief Editor and her Malaysian overlord, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, to go into panic mode. But first, let us revisit the billion-dollar question that I’m told still lingers within the Malaysian conscience to this very day.

Was money ever stolen from 1MDB?

Once again, it was.

As a matter of fact, this has been addressed to the minute detail in parts 9 through to 12 of the aforementioned series. There, I revealed the names of Malaysians who conspired with a group of foreigners determined to rob the wealth fund of its worth. These foreigners belong to the same group of people who triggered the 2007/2008 financial crisis that caused major financial institutions worldwide to collapse.

To recap, a group of Emirati businessmen led by Qubaisi, the former Managing Director of IPIC, worked out an elaborate yet convoluted scheme to generate wealth using funds siphoned from 1MDB. They planned to accomplish this by moving the funds around a network of BVI and Panamanian registered entities with cross-continental ownerships that secretly belonged to both Qubaisi and Soros.

Qubaisi was assisted by a group of cash-rich Emiratis introduced to him by Marcus Ambrose Paul Agius, the current senior non-executive director of the BBC. Marcus seemed to owe a debt of gratitude to Qubaisi and his then business partner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, for helping pull off the biggest con-job ever in the history of Abu Dhabi (refer part 9, link below). But Marcus wasn’t the only one lending support to Qubaisi.

With him was Blair, who had in his possession confidential banking documents and secrets that pertained the GOM. Some of these documents and secrets had originated from Maybank and were fed to him by a top executive from JP Morgan and Chase. The remaining documents were derived from Mubadala and Petrosaudi officials through Blair’s associations with the founders of those entities.

Blair handed these documents and secrets over to Qubaisi, who in turn, handed them over to the group of cash-rich Emiratis. The documents had to do with 1MDB’s dealings with Maybank and the Mideast, while the secrets concerned Najib’s financial history and minutes of Cabinet meetings. By April 2013, Blair could more or less tell you how much Najib was worth and the kind of money the Prime Minister had in the bank.

With the wealth of information at Qubaisi’s fingertips, it was all systems go. The only thing left for him to do was to get some Malaysian officials on his side. Qubaisi set his sights on two people befitting the description of ‘money-crazed men’. One of them, a minister attached to the Ministry of Finance, happened to be the guy Najib tasked to overlook the affairs of 1MDB.

The listing, scheduled to take place during the first quarter of 2013, was deferred to allow the government to focus on the then upcoming general election. In this period, 1MDB resorted to other means of reducing its debt load. But once the election was over, the fund’s board found that the road towards an Initial Public Offering (IPO) was strewn with hurdles that seemed to have deliberately been placed there.

The person responsible for placing those hurdles was none other than Ahmad Husni, who, along with a top official from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and another from CIMB (who went by the pseudonym ‘dungeon master’), delivered instructions to officials from Maybank to prevent 1MDB from “reducing its debt to equity ratio.”

Husni came to know early in 2013 that a group of Emirati businessmen linked to Blair and Marcus were engaged in a scheme to siphon wealth from the Malaysian fund. But Husni wasn’t the first to discover this scheme. Late in December 2012, the former CEO of 1MDB, Dato’ Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, discovered that a company registered in the BVI purported to be one of IPIC’s was in fact a bogus entity that had nothing to do with the Abu Dhabi fund.

The truth is, Shahrol came to know late in 2012 that the company, Aabar Investments PJS Limited, was among the thirty-odd BVI companies that Qubaisi secretly owned through a convoluted scheme involving cross-continental ownerships. Through a third-party associate, Qubaisi urged Shahrol to channel funds from 1MDB to the BVI Aabar as part of an agreement by the Malaysian fund to fulfill its obligations to IPIC.

Shahrol acquiesced to the arrangement and was promised a reward amounting to USD10-15 million. My team is working to establish if the sum was promised by Qubaisi or someone associated with Blair. What is clear though, is that both Shahrol and Husni failed to properly advise the Prime Minister and 1MDB’s board of the BVI Aabar’s bogus status.

Husni’s and Shahrol’s shenanigans caused the GOM undue duress and embarrassment when IPIC fraudulently filed a case against 1MDB at the London International Court of Arbitration. I say fraudulently, because the person who ordered the filing had himself conspired with Qubaisi to rob the Malaysian fund of its worth. That person is none other than the chair of IPIC himself, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Why is Clare Rewcastle Brown desperate for a verdict against 1MDB?

There are basically 101 reasons for this, and I can’t explain them all in one article. However, you will find bits and pieces of information that address these reasons if you care enough to read parts three to twelve of my series in detail (links below). For now, I will focus on how she stands to gain should 1MDB fail in its bid to dispel IPIC’s claims at the London court.

In a nutshell, a verdict in favor of IPIC would help Ms. Rewcastle ‘prove’ that Najib went ahead and channeled funds to the BVI despite knowing of the BVI Aabar’s bogus status. By doing that, she would raise suspicion among Malaysians that Najib conspired with Qubaisi to rob the Malaysian fund of its worth. It would also help her advance the notion that Najib and his wife conspired with Penang born billionaire Jho Low to siphon funds from 1MDB for personal gains.

Getting Malaysians to believe such lies is no longer an easy task, something Ms. Rewcastle has come to terms with. Seeing her readership plummet by almost 77 percent since the 1st of January 2016, she is desperate to earn her keep with Mahathir. She realises that a verdict in favor of IPIC would help her do that. Only with such a verdict would she convince Malaysians that Mahathir was right all along, that Najib had dissipated funds from 1MDB worth RM42 billion into thin air.

The more Malaysians buy into her lies, the more she gets away with murder by wrapping untruths around hearsay and apocryphal stories designed to invoke paranoia, implying that Najib is simply bad news for the country. She will no longer need to support her claims with evidence – just the usual dose of crap she is usually dishes in multiple flavors and persuasive tones.

And the more persuasive she gets, the more valuable she is to Mahathir in complimenting his extended campaign against UMNO and the ruling Malaysian coalition. Now can you imagine the kind of millions the grand old man would be willing to pay her just for that?

So It’s all about the money?

Like I said, there are 101 reasons why Ms. Rewcastle needs 1MDB to ‘perish’ at the London Court of International Arbitration. Many of these reasons are far too complicated to be squeezed into a single article. However, there is a new development I think the GOM should be made aware of. To better appreciate the finer points to this development, let us begin with the press conference that former US attorney general Loretta Lynch delivered on the 20th of July 2016.

On that day, Lynch announced the filing of civil forfeitures complaints against an American movie Production company in the presence of Andrew G. McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI. According to Lynch, the company had benefited from the corrupt practices of 1MDB officials that resulted in money being laundered through the US financial system.

Lynch deliberately crafted her speech in a way that implied Najib was the ringleader. Though never stated explicitly, a report furnished by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) drove that impression further, leading to countless allegations by leaders of the Malaysian opposition that Najib was indeed the person the DoJ referred to as Malaysian Official 1 (MO1).

A group of legal experts from California are convinced that the DoJ and the FBI lack evidence to support claims made by Lynch at the presser. They further note that investigations by the FBI were proven incomplete and inconclusive at the time Lynch made the announcement, meaning, Lynch had no business insinuating the involvement of any Malaysian official.

The group is adamant that Lynch maliciously intended to implicate Najib in a scheme he may or may not have been involved with. They plan to hold her and McCabe accountable for abusing their positions in office to commit democratic thievery against the Prime Minister of a sovereign democracy. Lynch has since come to know of the plan and triggered alarm within the Clinton circle.

The word she got was that the Californians plans to throw her under the bus. She somehow traced the whereabouts of the Californian group and began prying into its affairs. But every attempt she made to squeeze details out of the group proved futile. Then, on the 3rd of March 2017, it was brought to her attention that Washington had in its possession enough evidence to throw her under a bullet train, forget the bus.

In a fit of panic, Lynch got in touch with Theodore S. Greenberg (refer part 2) to enquire if he knew anything about plans by the Trump administration to finish her off. Greenberg, now a private consultant for the World Bank’s StAR division and the US DoJ, replied by saying that the only person who had the answer to such a question was Andrew G. McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI.

When Lynch informed Greenberg of McCabe’s refusal to entertain her calls, the DoJ consultant contacted an attorney linked to John Forbes Kerry, the former US Secretary of State and staunch Mahathirist. Kerry’s attorney engaged the services of a go-between who then contacted Mahathir – directly – to enquire if the former premier knew anything about Najib’s alleged links to the Trump administration.

Now, this is the same guy who acted on behalf of McCabe in 2015 when arranging a meeting between Dato’ Seri Khairuddin Abu Hassan and Matthias Chang with FBI officials. Two years later, on the 5th of March 2017, this guy goes on to ask Mahathir if Trump is perceived a threat by the Malaysian opposition to the DoJ’s case against a movie Production Company that is alleged to have benefited from the corrupt practices of 1MDB officials.

Nine days later, on the 14th of March 2017, Tian Chua hosts a publication, purportedly by Asia Sentinel (the Sentinel), alleging that the Trump administration is in cahoots with persons linked to the Najib administration. According to the author, Trump deliberately fired a US attorney to demolish the DoJ’s case against the movie Production company.

A mere coincidence? You tell me.

So did Trump really fire a US attorney, and did it have anything to do with the DoJ case?

Yes and No.

When Trump first took office as President of the US, a large number of federal prosecutors voluntarily tendered their resignations. Their actions were not in protest but expected of federal appointees when faced with a change in the federal administration.

And that is a fact Malaysians need to understand. The American constitution clearly empowers the US president to appoint a list of public officials, federal prosecutors included, with the “advice and consent” of the US Senate. These officials serve at the pleasure of the president and are expected to reflect his or her policies to the best of their ability.

Given that a change in the federal administration would likely involve changes in ideology, federal appointees are customarily expected to resign the minute a new president takes the oath of office. If they refuse to resign, it becomes the president’s prerogative to either retain them or to have them fired. When Trump was sworn in, 46 federal prosecutors did not tender their resignations and chose to stay on.

One of them was Manhattan attorney Preet Bharara, who claimed that Trump had requested him to stay on prior to the latter’s inauguration. But Preet wasn’t the exception. What he failed to tell reporters was that Trump had also requested several other US attorneys to stay put. The only reason Trump did that was to ensure that the legal fraternity was not faced with a sudden vacuum that would disrupt due process and the course of justice.

But not Trump, who was hailed as being among the few presidents in US history that did not force the resignations of all federal appointees. Unlike his immediate predecessor and the guy who preceded him, Trump was bent on making sure that his list of potential replacements would pass the US Senate before deciding to relieve the remaining attorneys.

Once the list was finalised, Trump instructed Jeff Sessions – the newly appointed US attorney general – to request (and not instruct, as reported by CNN and CNBC) the remaining federal prosecutors to tender their resignations. Preet ignored the request and told everyone that he was determined to stay on. Every attempt to reach Preet and talk him into resigning proved futile.

Trump was left with little choice but to exercise his constitutional power by firing Preet. But that is exactly what Preet desired. My team confirms that not only was Preet asked to make a public spectacle of himself by refusing to resign, he may have been paid to do so. There are leads to suggest that Preet received funds leftover from the Clinton presidential campaign, though my sources are working hard to confirm this.

So yes, Trump fired Preet. And no, it had nothing to do with the DoJ case as alleged by the Chronicle, which most likely was the doing of Ms. Rewcastle. Like I said, the only thing Ms. Rewcastle is good for is using a network of fake news channels she controls – the Chronicle, the Sentinel and Sarawak Report – to spread lies, more lies and nothing but lies.

And yes, she will always be under my foot. She is no match for my team which is dedicated to upholding the truth and championing justice. And as you all probably already know, the truth always prevails. There are no two ways about it.

Eyeing issues on 1MDB Malaysia episode 12

The plot to sabotage 1MDB was hatched way back in 2013. Mahathir, Muhyiddin, Husni, Tony Pua and Clare Brown were all involved and they made sure that the sabotage succeeded, which involved siphoning out money to the Arabs, torpedoing the IPO (twice), and blocking bank loans to 1MDB. The motive was not only to bring down Prime Minister Najib but for a massive financial gain as well.

The Third Force

For the past two-and-a-half months, Malaysia Today has been featuring a series of articles (links provided below) wrapped around the idea that the global elites have long been manipulating Southeast Asian economies. The series took off by introducing George Soros as the man who architected the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis while pursuing a regime change agenda in Malaysia and Indonesia.

As the series progressed, it became clear that Soros was also the man who triggered the 2007 world financial crisis, though it was neither by his design nor that of his associates. Still, we’re talking about two monetary disasters in just one decade, each sparking the devaluation of major currencies and shattering stock markets worldwide.

But that wasn’t the biggest shocker.

The biggest shocker came with the revelation that Tony Blair was complicit with Soros from the day the he assumed control of Number 10 Downing Street, the headquarters of the United Kingdom (UK) government. Equally shocking was the revelation that the ex-premier was the brains behind a multifaceted conspiracy to sabotage 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund.

Currently, in its eleventh instalment, this series has met skepticism from some quarters who are adamant that the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak, had misappropriated funds worth billions of dollars belonging to the people of Malaysia. These quarters are fixated with the idea that I am a con-artist hired by the Prime Minister to keep him in power.

But the very fact that these skeptics get their dope from the opposition reeks of irony. Last Friday, my team confirmed – beyond any doubt – that Tony Pua was promised USD10-15 million by a group of foreigners linked to Soros and Blair to impute blame on Najib for ‘robbing Malaysians of their wealth’. The group is keeping Pua in its clutches simply because the opposition parliamentarian has roots running deep through some banking circles in Singapore.

Now, this is the same Pua who just recently filed a 110-page claim at a Kuala Lumpur court implying that Najib had used 1MDB as a vehicle to cart some billions into his coffers. So it looks like Pua is working hard to earn his keep with the group after all. That may explain why the Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara wasn’t all that pleased when I made public his associations with Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, the former deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.

You see, Pua’s mission was to turn voters against Najib by impressing upon them that the Prime Minister had dragged 1MDB to the brink of a collapse. I, on the other hand, revealed the existence of a complicity between Pua and Muhyiddin since July 2013 to trigger the fund’s collapse. So how can voters trust Pua anymore? And if they don’t trust him, how can he earn the USD10-15 million that the group of foreigners promised him?

Yes, Malaysians are an ignorant lot. They believe every bit of information that Pua and his overlords tell them. Even Lim Kit Siang had come to know in July 2013 of plans by a group of foreigners to sabotage 1MDB. Both he and Pua made very sure that news of those plans remained tightly guarded. Now that the cat is out of the bag, Kit Siang has one more reason to pop a bitter pill into his mouth every night before he goes to sleep.

That explains why the senior Lim secretly harbours a grudge against me. But he’s not alone. A great many people have a lot to lose should I persist with these exposes, estimated to span some 20-25 parts. I’m not even sure I will come back alive should I plan a trip to, say, California or New York. I am told, there are those in the US and perhaps even in Abu Dhabi who may actually want me dead.

But it is not as if I had expected any differently. The risks that come along with this job are very real, while the danger is always presumed imminent. Still, so long as there is breath in me, I shall remain The Third Force and will see to it that the truth never gets obscured by media propaganda or the flawed perception of the feeble-minded Malaysian. And battling that perception is what this article is about.

Today, I will attempt to address some questions raised by skeptics, beginning with the one that has been the source of irritation to Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK), the founder of Malaysia Today.

DID RAJA PETRA KAMARUDIN (RPK) PEN THE SERIES?

Despite having repeatedly explained to Malaysians that RPK signs off each of his articles with his name, a group of opposition Pakatuns are deliberately engaging cyber-troopers to post comments alleging that RPK penned this series. Sources reveal that the cyber-troopers are led by Kit Siang and are on a mission to discredit RPK for anything I say.

Well, let me be clear then – these articles are written by me, Raggie Jessy, a guest columnist with Malaysia Today. Everything I do, I do without prejudice and in the greater interest of national security. I am not a paid blogger and do not engage in the fabrication of stories, as alleged by Kit Siang’s cyber-trooper team.

At no point in time was I instructed to write these articles or any other that Malaysia Today has featured thus far. And neither do I expect Malaysia Today, or, for that matter, Malaysian Outlook, to shoulder the burden of my resolve to right wrong through my writing, be it an opinion piece, analytical piece or even a breaking story.

I do what I do because I believe in what I do. And Malaysia Today has been kind enough to offer me the space to do just that.

WHERE DO I GET MY INFORMATION FROM?

Frankly, that is something I am not at liberty to reveal even if the authorities were to compel me to do so using stringent Malaysian laws. I am willing to go down keeping my mouth shut. If that is the price I must pay to get the truth into the open, then so be it.

The fact is, the means by which I obtain the truth may at times transgress the bounds of law. If I were to assign myself an epithet befitting those means, I might be termed a vigilante of sorts, a person who is not a member of law enforcement but who pursues persons suspected of lawbreaking and punishes them.

I say ‘punishes’, because I think my articles are punishing enough to those I accuse of wrongdoing. For instance, when I reveal that Tony Pua is a criminal, you can rest assured that it affects him immensely.

REALLY? TONY PUA IS A CRIMINAL?

Yes, he is.

Pua failed to inform the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) what he already knew in July 2013. He knew that the second Minister of Finance, Dato’ Seri Ahmad Husni bin Mohd Hanadzlah, was complicit with a group of foreigners to render 1MDB insolvent. Pua even knew that the then Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of 1MDB, Dato’ Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, had conspired with the Emiratis to squeeze the Malaysian fund for cash.

Didn’t it occur to Pua that an intervention by the authorities then could have averted a dispute currently being arbitrated at a London court? Isn’t what he did tantamount to abetting a crime wherein which money from 1MDB was stolen? And doesn’t that make Pua a criminal?

The only way he can come out of this clean is if he were to trigger action pursuant to law against me for making these ‘preposterous’ claims.

SO HUSNI AND SHAHROL ARE CRIMINALS TOO?

You bet.

The duo abused their respective positions in their respective offices when they sanctioned payments to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Aabar Investments PJS Limited (Aabar-BVI). They did this despite knowing that the founder of the company, Kahdem al-Qubaisi, had no intentions of remitting those payments to the intended recipient, the Abu Dhabi based International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC).

Sources reveal that the duo were promised ‘rewards’ amounting to gratification worth USD10-15 million each just to keep their mouths shut. The last I checked, it was an offence for any officer of a public body to use his/her office or position for gratification through his/her actions or decisions, pursuant to Section 23 of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009.

Sources also reveal that Shahrol had known since December 2012 of plans by Qubaisi, then the Managing Director of IPIC, to reap benefits using funds siphoned from 1MDB. Not only did Shahrol keep his mouth shut, he deceptively led the fund to believe that Aabar-BVI was a subsidiary of IPIC.

Now doesn’t that make Shahrol a criminal?

HOW ACCURATE IS THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN MY ARTICLES?

You may as well ask the same question to Mahathir – how accurate are the claims he makes in his blog posts?

According to the grand old man, Najib had dissipated funds worth RM42 billion into thin air. Well, shouldn’t he be furnishing Malaysians with hard proof showing exactly how Najib dissipated those funds? Otherwise, why should you believe him and not me? Just because he was an ex-premier?

Malaysians should also ask Clare Rewcastle Brown to list down the names of 1MDB officials who conspired to siphon wealth from the fund and attach hard evidence to validate her claims. We need to know who these people are and how they carried out the crime. No more juicy stories coated with applesauce, but the cut and dry proof of who did what, when and where.

And how.

Ms. Rewcastle should also clarify if she had been promised millions by persons linked to Blair or the Emiratis to wage a media campaign against 1MDB. While she’s at it, she should reveal if Husni was complicit with her against Najib or ‘paid’ by persons linked to Qubaisi to keep his mouth shut. I, for one, would like to know if Husni is at this very moment the beneficial owner of a property unit in the United States worth approximately USD5 million.

Malaysian’s would also like to know of Pua’s links with Ms. Rewcastle. The opposition parliamentarian had on several occasions consorted with the Sarawak Report Chief Editor to plan attacks on Najib and 1MDB. Pua is said to have hopped on board Ms. Rewcastle’s express a year after he was appointed to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) as panel member.

If Mahathir and Ms. Rewcastle can produce legitimate answers to the questions above, then, and only then, will I come out publicly to announce that Ms. Rewcastle is in fact the reincarnation of Mother Teressa and that Mahathir is Malaysia’s very own Gandhi. But that will never happen. The only thing they know to do is lie, lie and lie.

And no – I never lie.

WILL THE CROWN PRINCE OF ABU DHABI ADMIT THE TRUTH?

I’m not sure. You’ll really have to ask his men that question.

There are those who believe that Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan loves his brother, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, so much, that he’s not likely to admit the latter had had once conspired with Qubaisi to rob 1MDB of its worth. But rest assured, the Crown Prince is as determined to get to the bottom of the brouhaha surrounding the Malaysian fund as is the Malaysian government. I am told, he is planning to seek a compromise that is fair, and, in his view, honourable.

Mohammed is also taking steps to ensure that the government of Abu Dhabi gets its act together. That explains why he plans to merge Mubadala Development Company with IPIC. The Crown Prince wants Mansour under his radars at all times and does not trust his brother to lead another state-owned company all by himself.

Eyeing issues on 1MDB Malaysia episode 11

This is part three in the series titled Clare Rewcastle Brown’s ‘heist of the century’. In this third and final part we will reveal how Husni and Muhyiddin knew back in 2013 that 1MDB was going to be sabotaged. However, instead of warning Najib about it, Muhyiddin approached Mahathir to discuss how they could help ensure that the sabotage is successful and use this to bring Najib down and at the same time walk away with a large sum of money.

The Third Force

For the past year or so, the name Aabar Investments PJS Limited has been making headlines the world over, a company registered in the BVI and the reason IPIC had a falling out with 1MDB. Currently, the two factions appear locked in dispute over the status of the company, which officials from IPIC insist isn’t one of theirs.

The Malaysian Ministry of Finance (MoF) found this difficult to believe, considering that the BVI registered entity (Aabar-BVI) had officials from IPIC listed as stakeholders. That, and the fact that the MoF has in its possession agreements negotiated through Qubaisi in his capacity as the chair of an Abu Dhabi entity bearing a name similar to that of the BVI company.

The MoF insists that Aabar-BVI is a subsidiary of IPIC. What the MoF did now know is someone from the ministry conspired to withhold information that had the potential of averting a dispute currently being arbitrated in a London court. And that person is none other than the former Second Minister of Finance, Dato’ Seri Ahmad Husni bin Mohamad Hanadzlah.

Husni came to know early in 2013 what the CEO of 1MDB, Dato’ Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, had known since December 2012. The former minister discovered that the BVI registered Aabar was in fact a vehicle through which Qubaisi robbed the Malaysian fund. It was brought to his attention that a mismatch existed in 1MDB’s dealings with IPIC. Yet, Husni deviously chose to remain silent and instead played innocent by questioning the government’s motives for setting up the wealth fund.

Should authorities conduct a thorough background check on Husni, they will discover communications proving the former minister’s knowledge of a scheme to sabotage 1MDB. While my team has yet to complete a discovery on Shahrol, it is clear to us that Husni had known of the scheme since January 2013.

The Chief Editor of Sarawak Report, Clare Rewcastle Brown, implicated Najib in a complicity to rob 1MBD. But there is a lot she kept hidden from us. For instance, she failed to mention the reason she finds it absolutely necessary that Qubaisi and Najib be found guilty of fraud and acts of criminal malfeasance.

And that’s what we’re here to discover. Through this article, the final in a three-part series, we will find out if funds from 1MDB were indeed stolen, and if so, who benefited most from the theft. Most importantly, we will figure out – for the first time ever – how Ms. Rewcastle stands to benefit should the London International Court of Arbitration find 1MDB in default of its obligations to IPIC.

Suspect #1 and 2: Husni and Qubaisi

The first person that will benefit from the spiriting of 1MDB’s money through the BVI is Husni. The second is Qubaisi, who may have accumulated material wealth worth approximately USD600 million, a large portion of which was converted into fixed assets in the US.

A month after 1MDB sealed a multi-billion-dollar joint-venture agreement with China’s SGCC (refer preceding article), Qubaisi began establishing a network of entities in the BVI that grew in numbers with each passing month. By 2014, there were at least five entities bearing the name Aabar, two of which were struck off on the 1st of May that year pursuant to Section 2013(1)(c) of the BVI Business Companies Act (2004). The companies had defaulted in payment of annual fees and fines imposed for various offences.

A check by my team revealed that these entities – Aabar Resources (Global) Limited (Aabar Global) and Aabar Strategic Investments Limited (Aabar Strategic) – along with several others had facilitated transfers worth billions for IPIC despite them being unrelated to the Abu Dhabi fund. A further check revealed that the money ended up being spirited through the US financial system before being converted into fixed assets.

As we dug deeper, we discovered that a sizable portion of money that was channeled through Qubaisi’s BVI network in 2013 had originated from 1MDB. It appears that a former minister is at this very moment the beneficial owner of a property unit in the US worth approximately USD5 million, purchased using wealth Qubaisi generated by moving that money around the BVI and, thereafter, the US.

This ex-minister is said to have questioned the government on the 24th of October 2016 for its failure “to act on the management of 1MDB for investing money in the wrong places.” The only person who fits the description is Husni, the former Second Minister of Finance, who posed that very question on that very day when debating the 2017 Supply Bill in Parliament. It seems that Husni had been paid to keep his mouth shut.

Suspect # 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7: Jürgen Mossack, Soros, Mansour, Marcus and Tony Blair

The man who taught Qubaisi everything there was to know about tax havens and money laundering was Jürgen Mossack. Throughout the year 2013, Mossack helped Qubaisi channel wealth from the BVI through many of Soros’ offshore interests to generate surpluses. Most of that surplus was shared between Mossack, Qubaisi, Mansour and Soros despite that wealth belonging either to the government of Abu Dhabi or to sovereign wealth funds.

Mossack, a tax scam expert, is the son of Erhard Mossack, a Nazi SS officer from a unit once known as the ‘Death’s Head division’. In 1977, Mossack founded a controversial law firm – the Mossack Fonseca & Co – and taught Soros everything there was to know about ways to evade tax authorities. Early in February 2010, Massack began imparting that knowledge to Qubaisi and taught the former IPIC Managing Director ways to con world governments.

The first thing Mossack told Qubaisi to do was to coax Amanda Staveley into transferring the ownership of PGI3 to Nexus Capital Investing Limited, a BVI concern wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi International United Investments LLC, or ADIUI. To recap, PGI3 was a BVI registered vehicle through which Ms. Staveley secured 758,437,618 shares from Barclays in 2009 (refer preceding article).

ADIUI, in turn, was 100 percent owned by Mansour, meaning, the IPIC chair had gained full control of those shares. Mossack needed the ownership transferred to Mansour as relations between Ms. Staveley and IPIC had gone to pot. As Qubaisi understood it, Mansour was to dispose of those shares and channel proceeds through his BVI network.

However, just as Mansour was about to do that, word got out that Mohammed, Mansour’s brother, was in discussions with certain Abu Dhabi officials on the possibility of establishing partnerships with 1MDB. It is not known if the Malaysian government was in touch with Mohammed at this point. Nonetheless, Mansour made many attempts to dissuade his brother, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, from diving into a deal with the Malaysian government. But Mohammed stood his ground.

As a result, Mansour decided to hold on to his seven-odd percent in Barclays just yet. The thing that Mansour feared most was that his brother would get him to dump proceeds from the sale of those shares into 1MDB, the same way the Crown Prince got him to pledge billions to Barclays in 2008. Mansour went on to caution Blair that his brother was dead serious about forging an alliance with the Malaysian fund.

On the 18th of October 2010, Blair’s biggest fear came to life when Mubadala signed two collaborative agreements centered on energy and infrastructural development worth up to USD7 billion with 1MDB through two of its subsidiaries, Mubadala Real Estate & Hospitality (MREH) and Mubadala Industry (MI).

The announcement triggered some back and forth communication between Qubaisi, Mossack and a group of Emirati businessmen linked to Blair and Marcus. The group discussed ways to ‘fracture’ Mohammed’s ties with Malaysia and decided that the best way forward was to reduce 1MDB to insolvency. An interesting point to note is that the group spoke of ways to generate wealth using funds from 1MDB. The Emirati faction conceded to wait for a time that was most opportune to strike.

That opportunity came on the 7th of March 2012 when 1MDB announced plans to acquire Tanjong Energy Holdings Sdn Bhd for USD2.81 billion from the person who controlled it, Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan.

Suspect #8: Unknown official from Ministry of Finance

1MDB’s purchase of Tanjong afforded the Malaysian fund a total net generating capacity of 3,951MW through control of the unit’s eight power plants. Months later, on the 14th of August 2012, 1MDB made public a decision to extend that capacity through the purchase of the Genting Group’s 97.7 percent stake in a power and utility unit, Mastika Lagenda Sdn Bhd.

The USD738.01 purchase gave the Malaysian fund control of Mastika’s 75 percent in power generator Genting Sanyen Power and all of Mastika’s holdings in Mastika Utilities & Services and Mastika Water Management. To raise capital needed for the purchases, 1MDB issued two bonds worth USD1.75 billion each through two of its subsidiaries, 1MDB Energy Limited and 1MDB Energy (Langat) Limited

Qubaisi wasted very little time in getting IPIC to guarantee all obligations (principal and associated interests) related to those bonds. But the guarantee came with a very steep price. Under the terms of an agreement sealed between the two funds, 1MDB was to park a security deposit worth USD1.4 billion with IPIC, which Shahrol later authorized to Aabar-BVI.

Shahrol came to know in December 2012 that Qubaisi planned to squeeze 1MDB for cash. He understood why IPIC had made such exorbitant demands, including stock options that gave IPIC and all its subsidiaries the right to acquire up to a 49 percent stake in 1MDB Energy Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary company of the Malaysian fund (since renamed Powertek Investment Holding Sdn Bhd, or PIHSB).

But Shahrol made no mention of this to Najib or the bulk of the fund’s board members. While my team is still in the midst of a discovery into Shahrol’s dealings with the Mideast, it appears that the former CEO of 1MDB may have struck a deal of sorts with Qubaisi some time in December 2012 itself.

Qubaisi’s interest in PIHSB stemmed from the firm’s 100 percent holding in Krishnan’s Tanjong unit (since renamed Powertek energy Sdn Bhd, or PESB). Months later, Qubaisi came to know of a USD 1.9 billion syndicated bridging loan that 1MDB secured through a consortium of borrowers led by the Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank).

Now, all this would have been fine if we assume that officials from 1MDB had informed Qubaisi of the bridging loan. However, Qubaisi had in his possession confidential information pertaining transactions 1MDB had performed since 2009, including summary notes of negotiations that took place between the Malaysian fund and Maybank officials in 2012.

So how did he get hold of all that information?

Well, prior to negotiations that took place between 1MDB and IPIC, Blair had already been tipped off by officials from PetroSaudi of dealings that had gone on between the Malaysian fund and the Saudis. The information related to a USD2.5 billion partnership PetroSaudi had entered with 1MDB on the 30th of September 2009. Basically, Blair needed to know if there were people in 1MDB that his team could use.

The former British premier was given access to such information due to a £41,000 a month advisory role he secretly negotiated with PetroSaudi back in November 2010. Apart from the two percent commission that came with every deal he helped broker with the Chinese, Blair was promised access to confidential information that pertained the Saudi firm and its dealings with foreign wealth funds.

But that is not all. Blair found himself in a unique position owing to another advisory position he held. On the 1st of January 2008, Blair was made the advisor of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JP), the largest financial institution in the US by net asset worth. Blair negotiated the role through Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chairman and CEO, who offered the former British premier an annual salary of £2 million without the need for him to enter office.

Through an executive linked to Michael Cavanagh, Dimon’s deputy, Blair was fed top secret information that pertained 1MDB and its dealings with PetroSaudi. As if that wasn’t peculiar enough, the same executive seemed to be in possession of details pertaining the USD1.9 billion syndicated bridging loan that 1MDB secured in 2012 to part finance the purchase of Krishnan’s power holdings. Those details were handed over to Blair in April 2013.

Upon investigation, my team traced the leak of information to an individual subordinate to the current CEO of the Maybank Kim Eng Group (MKEG), Dato’ John Chong. Back in March 2013 when the leak took place, the 13th Malaysian general election was slated to be around the corner. Chong was yet the CEO of Maybank Investment Bank Berhad and was a year away from becoming MKEG’s acting head.

The Maybank official fed Cavanagh’s associate everything that needed to be known about the syndicated loan and a lot more. Blair went on to channel that information to Qubaisi, who in turn, passed it over to a group of Emirati businessmen. With the wealth of information, Qubaisi was able to plan his moves very carefully, knowing well in advance that 1MDB was positioned precariously and would crumble if it defaulted any of its loans.

It appears that the Maybank official was receiving instructions from someone in the Ministry of Finance. Judging from the information leak, it seems that a group of Malaysian bankers were already involved in a conspiracy to sabotage 1MDB even before Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad got involved.

And yes, there was talk of a ‘reward’ in the event 1MDB was reduced to insolvency.

Suspect #9: Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin

In July 2013 or some time thereabouts, the Maybank official commenced a series of communications with another official from Bank Negara, possibly the same person Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) referred to in his 13th of August 2016 posting in Malaysia Today (refer link below). These officials, who went by various pseudonyms, received instructions from someone who appeared to be a top executive in CIMB who was specific with instructions to prevent 1MDB from “reducing its debt to equity ratio”.

A month later, a series of multi-channeled communications commenced between officials from Bank Negara, Maybank, CIMB, AmBank, Bank Muamalat, the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the Securities Commission, all of whom went by very peculiar pseudonyms and spoke in very peculiar terms. The back and forth related to plans by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to deprive 1MDB of oxygen and to depict the fund’s Board of Directors as being fraudsters who helped Najib siphon money belonging to Malaysians.

Prior to the back and forth between these officials, Muhyiddin became the first Malaysian politician to be approached by a representative from Blair’s camp, who met the then deputy premier’s aide in June 2013 and told him that an international conspiracy to sabotage 1MDB had begun. The representative gave Muhyiddin’s aide a peek into “evidence of 1MDB’s precarious position” that Blair’s camp had obtained from PetroSaudi, JP and Maybank.

The representative, who seemed to know that Mahathir had planned to wage a vendetta against Najib, told the aide that the clock was ticking, that both Soros and Blair were willing to help destroy Najib if Mahathir or his people reciprocated with top secret information from Bank Negara and the Malaysian Securities Commission.

A very excited Muhyiddin immediately approached Mahathir and conveyed with optimism that 1MDB was about to be sabotaged. Mahathir liked what he heard and gave Muhyiddin the go-ahead to assemble a team to assist Blair and Soros. Secretly, though, the former premier decided to wait and see what Blair and Soros had in mind before making his move.

But unbeknown to Mahathir, Muhyiddin was offered a cut amounting some USD30 million in the event the former deputy premier could convince the Malaysian authorities that Najib was responsible for dissipating billions from 1MDB into thin air. The broad idea was for Muhyiddin to keep the spotlight pointed away from Qubaisi and his team while they worked to bankrupt the Malaysian fund.

That explains why the former deputy premier still sticks around Mahathir despite knowing that he has a cat in hell’s chance of becoming the next Prime Minister of Malaysia. To leverage his position, Muhyiddin roped Tony Pua into the conspiracy by telling the DAP parliamentarian that 1MDB was about to be sabotaged by a group of foreigners.

Suspect #10: Clare Rewcastle Brown

Not many are aware that 1MDB first decided to list its power assets in 2012, days after the fund purchased Genting’s Mastika units. On the 17th of August 2012, someone with knowledge of the matter confirmed that the fund had planned to raise as much as USD2 billion in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to help lessen its debt load.

The plan was for the IPO to be made before the 13th general election. Instead, 1MDB issued bonds worth USD3 billion which Goldman Sachs then underwrote and sold at prices above the preset minimum. Word of the bond deal was communicated to Blair by a man named Jackson Eisenpresser, who fed the former British premier the A-Z pertaining the deal. Late in 2013, Eisenpresser told Blair that the IPO had been deferred to a date yet to be fixed by Najib and his men.

In RPK’s 13th of August 2016 posting, he spoke of a conspiracy by Mahathir and his team to sabotage the IPO (refer link below). According to the blogger, persons linked to Mahathir and a former Malaysian Minister of Finance, Tun Daim Zainuddin, approached senior members of 1MDB’s management to act as moles within 1MDB with the sated aim of sabotaging the impending IPO.

While my team concurs that RPK made absolute sense, a similar conspiracy had already been contrived by members of Blair’s team in March 2014. Per plans, Mansour was to have come out on the 15th of August 2014 to announce that 1MDB had yet to fulfill part of its obligations to IPIC pursuant to agreements that existed between the two funds.

A coincidence?

Our investigations revealed that Mansour had planned to publically dissociate IPIC from Aabar-BVI by ‘pointing out’ to Najib that 1MDB officials had made a grave error in judgment. The date for the announcement was deemed appropriate by Mansour and Qubaisi to afford the latter time to divest his holdings and that of his associates in all his BVI concerns. Qubaisi was in the midst of negotiating the sale of some assets in the US, including one or two units the US Department of Justice spoke of in its 20th of July 2016 press conference.

But something unexpected happened.

Qubaisi became upset that Mansour was taking so long to remit some payments due to him. The payments related to Mansour’s seven-odd percent in Barclays (refer preceding article) that Qubaisi once held a beneficial interest in. On the 19th of July 2013, Mansour shocked everyone when he disposed of those shares, the existence of which was not known even to his advisors.

Following the sale, a misunderstanding erupted between Mansour and Qubaisi. The latter demanded a slice of profits since it was he who once held those shares in trust for Mansour. After some back and forth, Mansour agreed to channel ten percent of the profits to Qubaisi. But the ten percent never came.

On the 30th of July 2014, Qubaisi drew the line. He told Mansour that he had no intention of returning IPIC’s interests – worth some USD20 billion in various asset categories – that Qubaisi and his associates were the beneficial owners of. A very shaken Mansour immediately got in touch with an associate of his and related what had just happened.

When the associate heard what he heard, all hell broke loose. He insisted that Qubaisi be relieved of his positions in IPIC. But Mansour was reluctant to do so as both he and Qubaisi had jointly participated in the issue of some instruments. On the 10th of August 2014, a decision was reached – Mansour would delay the planned 15th of August 2014 announcement while he sorted things out.

By then, Clare Rewcastle Brown had already been approached by persons from Blair’s camp to participate in a conspiracy to sabotage 1MDB (refer details in parts four, five and six). Owing to developments in Abu Dhabi, Ms. Rewcastle was told to put the spotlight on Jho Low while they figured out what to do with Qubaisi. On the 28th of February 2015, Ms. Rewcastle published Heist of the Century and zeroed in on Jho’s alleged relationship with Najib and his family.

When a July 2015 coup attempt against Najib fell flat on its face, plans changed. Ms. Rewcastle was told to shift the spotlight on Qubaisi by accusing the former IPIC Managing Director of conspiring with 1MDB officials to rob wealth that belonged to the people of Malaysia. She did just that through a 26th of September 2015 article titled King Khadem and his sovereign wealth.

According to my sources, the Sarawak Report Chief Editor was promised a multi-million dollar reward in the event 1MDB loses its case in the London Court of International Arbitration. The case revolves around the status of the BVI registered Aabar which 1MDB insists was a subsidiary of IPIC.

If 1MDB loses the case, the fund would officially be in default of its obligations pursuant to agreements it entered with IPIC. In all likelihood, 1MDB would have to remit a yet-to-be-determined sum of money to the Abu Dhabi fund, which is sure to range in the billions.

Unbeknown to the Malaysian government, the arbitration was Blair’s idea and a way of killing two birds with one stone – to get paid a commission from Mansour commensurate to the portion of money Qubaisi owed him and to saddle the Malaysian fund with more debt.

As for Mansour, a victory would pave the way for him to trigger action pursuant to law against Qubaisi, on grounds that the former IPIC Managing Director had used the same modus operandi to siphon wealth from the Abu Dhabi fund.

And Ms. Rewcastle?

Well, a verdict against 1MDB would help her ‘prove’ that Najib had known all along the BVI registered Aabar was a bogus entity. Or so she would claim, raising suspicion among Malaysians that Najib had conspired with Qubaisi to rob the fund of its wealth. In Malaysia, what matters most is the ink of perception, which Ms. Rewcastle knows all too well is most difficult to erase.

And it is that ink that will earn her more millions through Dr. Mahathir Mohammad.