Sarawak Report has more detail on the plot to defraud 1MDB with a document that shows that the former Aabar CEO Mohd Badawy Al-Husseiny was the signatory for the bogus BVI company Aabar Investments PJS Limited, which Abu Dhabi confirmed this week has nothing to do with the sovereign wealth fund of a similar name.

Moreover, despite signing an agreement in the name of the bogus subsidiary Aabar Investments PJS Limited, it is notable that Al-Husseiny uses the letter head of the genuine Aabar company, Aabar Investments PJS!

It means that the Chief Executive Officer of Aabar, who was known to be the loyal side-kick of his boss Chairman Khadem Al Qubaisi, was a willing participant in the scam, as Sarawak Report has long-since speculated.

The Swiss Attorney General yesterday confirmed he is investigating both men and Abu Dhabi is known to have detained Husseiny and frozen the travel documents of both men. The United States issued a formal extradition request for Al-Husseiny, who is a US citizen of Kenyan extraction, last month.

The pivotal role of Aabar Investments PJS Limited has become clear, as it emerged that a total of US$3.51 billion was paid by 1MDB to the company, supposedly in connection with guarantees and options negotiated by the genuine Aabar/IPIC sovereign fund of Abu Dhabi regarding its power purchase loans in 2012 .

The first bond was raised in May and BVI documents show that the bogus Aabar company was incorporated there just two months earlier in March:

Those official loans were also signed off by the same CEO and Chairman and it would appear that this was therefore a deliberate conspiracy, entered into by the leadership of both parties (1MDB and Aabar) to siphon out the money raised in a series of loans negotiated by Goldman Sachs, including a later US$3 billion raised in March 2013 to supposedly develop Tun Razak Exchange.

Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) member Tony Pua has today released details from the interchange he had with 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda regarding the bogus Aabar BVI company as late as December last year, during which Kanda clearly sought to avoid answering the question as to who owned the company:

“Tuan Tony Pua Kiam Wee: You didn’t answer the question. Did we pay money to Aabar Investments PJS Limited?

Encik Arul Kanda Kandasamy: Yang Berhormat, I think what has come out as speculative newspaper article, I don’t think it’s suitable for me to explain that.

Tuan Tony Pua Kiam Wee: You didn’t pay money to Yang Berhormat Tony Pua, you don’t say that is speculation, you said “I’ve never paid you any money”. Did you pay money to Aabar Investments PJS Limited?

Encik Arul Kanda Kandasamy: Yang Berhormat, in 2012 1MDB executed a series of agreements with Aabar Investments PJS Limited, I think the Auditor General’s team have copies of those agreements. It was mentioned at the last meeting. And yes, funds were paid as part of those original agreements and subsequently amended agreements.

Having acknowledged that as late as December 2015 he still had not fully checked the ownership of Aabar Investments PJS Limited (which had been wound up in June), Kanda told the PAC that this company was crucially connected to the structure of guarantees and options linked to the loans raised by 1MDB.

“Tuan Tony Pua Kiam Wee: Is Aabar Investments PJS Limited related to Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi?

Encik Arul Kanda Kandasamy: As far as we are aware, yes Yang Berhormat.

Tuan Tony Pua Kiam Wee: We made an agreement with them we should know whether they are or they are not, cannot be as far as we are aware.

Encik Arul Kanda Kandasamy: Sorry Yang Berhormat, I missed that last point you made.

Tuan Tony Pua Kiam Wee: My last point is, when we do an agreement, multibillion Ringgit or Dollar agreement with counter party, we need to know their full background. Cannot be “as far as we are aware”. So, are they or are they not a subsidiary of IPIC or of Abu Dhabi government?

Encik Arul Kanda Kandasamy: Yang Berhormat, again, our answers stand, as far as we aware, when we executed those agreements, that is the situation. It was linked to the guarantee Yang Berhormat, if you recall. The guarantee that was procured by IPIC.

In fact the bond issue by Goldman Sachs (of which SR has a copy) does not mention the bogus company and only refers to Aabar Investments PJS, which did not receive any money sent by 1MDB.

Tony Pua has also pointed out that 1MDB officials were still denying money had gone missing months after the company they had paid it to was liquidated in the BVI back in June of last year!

Time for new scapegoats?

The document obtained by Sarawak Report is an agreement, signed by Al-Husseiny on behalf of the bogus Aabar Investments PJS Limited to take part in the development of Tun Razak Exchange, owned by 1MDB.

Najib’s cheer-leaders, who have gone noticeably quiet over the past few days, will doubtless be considering this new revelation to determine if there is an opportunity to identify new scapegoats on whom to blame this scandal.

In particular, would it be plausible to argue that 1MDB were the victims of a scam by these two Aabar executives to take the money, which the Malaysian company had thought was being paid to the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund in return for services rendered?

Clearly there are problems with embarking on such a tack:

– 1) Aabar Investments PJS Limited has been identified as having sent over US$150 million to Najib’s step-son’s Hollywood production company in the US, in a deal currently being investigated by the FBI.

– 2) Given vast sums were identified as missing and the false nature of this bogus company was flagged up months ago, Arul Kanda and his team at 1MDB need to explain why, instead of jumping into immediate action to chase up their company’s missing billions, they instead have remained secretive and in defensive denial that anything went wrong with these deals.

– 3) 1MDB management need to explain why they considered it acceptable back in 2012 to pay a total of US$3.51 billion to the bogus Aabar company, as part and parcel of a loan facility that raised only US$3.5 billion – unless they too were complicit in the plan to remove the entire sum from 1MDB into the pockets of third parties – the Swiss Attorney General has referred to “two public officials” in this context as well as a “motion picture company”.

For these reasons and more it will be very hard indeed to convincingly suggest that this theft from 1MDB was merely perpetrated by the men from Aabar, without the connivance of the fund itself.

There is also the looming reality, which is that very soon the entire money trail from 1MDB to the ultimate beneficiaries of the heist will become public. The ultimate beneficiary, as everyone in Malaysia now knows, is Najib Razak, who received billions into his accounts at the very time those billions were disappearing into a web of off-shore companies through the initial payments to the bogus Aabar Investments PJS Limited (BVI) concern.

Najib has so far claimed that a bogus Saudi prince was his benefactor, but has been unable to prove it.

He has also claimed that he is innocent of the fact that a separate transfer of millions of ringgit within Malaysia into his own private accounts came from the public company SRC. Although Najib spent this SRC money on lavish luxuries through his credit cards, his hand-picked new Attorney General has accepted the excuse that the PM did not realise that the money had been paid into his accounts or that it came from SRC.

A later statement has added that these luxury purchases, from jewellers and houses of high fashion, were made on behalf of orphans and victims of flooding.

So, will Malaysia be further required to believe and accept that likewise Najib received billions into his accounts through a money trail from 1MDB, but which he was gulled into believing was a generous donation from a foreign prince?

Messrs Apandi, Azalina, Dahlan and Salleh are clearly now mulling this matter and for now are remaining silent.

Yet, as the news day closed in Malaysia, Mr Kanda amazingly DID issue a belated statement indicating that 1MDB are indeed now embarking on the tack that they “may have been the victim of a fraud“!  He has promised to develop this line of argument tomorrow and there can be little doubt that the Abu Dhabi executives will emerge as the prime villains in 1MDBs tardy new story of victim-hood.

Inside working of a scam

The document released to Sarawak Report is an “offer to enter into a joint land development agreement” with a 1MDB subsidiary to “jointly develop” a parcel of the so called KL International Financial District in June of 2012.

There is no evidence that this offer was ever consummated into any form of agreement.  Indeed the Goldman Sachs bond offering the following March to raise US$3 billion for 1MDB with the alleged general purpose of engaging in this joint venture with Aabar (of which SR has a full copy, see below) makes clear that at the time that loan was raised Aabar had not yet taken up its share of the proposed ‘strategic joint venture’.

And, of course, there is no evidence that any serious money has ever been spent on the still derelict district.

However, the earlier document from the bogus Aabar Investments PJS Limited contains a term sheet that spells out a clear modus operandi in this deal, which is also reflected in the earlier power purchase agreements between 1MDB and Aabar, which Kanda referred to as specifically engaging this fake company to receive payments for alleged guarantees and options obtained by Aabar.

The 26 page list of proposed terms in this offer spells out a very similar story of proposed co-guarantees and options, which 1MDB might later be induced to pay out for, in the same way already identified in the earlier ‘power purchase’ arrangements:

Interestingly, this exact sum of US$1.4 billion was immediately paid from the money raised in March 2013 in order to fund “working capital and debt repayments” according to 1MDB’s annual report.  The remaining US$1.56 billion has not been accounted for at all say the fund’s critics.

And, of course, the term sheet does not fail to mention the bogus Aabar will be given nonsensical “options”, which as before 1MDB would then have to buy back!

With the cat and its kittens now well out of the bag and scurrying around all over, it is clear that Mr Kanda and his Prime Minister boss at 1MDB are now seeking to finally play the shocked and surprised victims of a terrible heist, from which Najib so unwittingly benefitted to the tune of billions.

Yes, the Aabar Chairman, Mr Khadem Al Qubaisi, most certainly got his cut, as Sarawak Report has long since revealed.

Nearly half a billion dollars went into his Luxembourg Edmond de Rothschild private bank account in 2012 from the Jho Low company Blackstone Asia Real Estate Partners Limited (a BVI outfit also set up as a bogus attempt to pretend to be linked to a well known major international company).

However, it is also on record that the Prime Minister too received massive payments from the same Blackstone source, as well as billions from the wider network of Jho Low companies.

Do the three prime movers of this conspiracy, Najib, Jho Low and Rosmah (paying for her favourite son’s Hollywood caper) really believe they can now convince the world that they are the victims of a “dodgy Arab and a dodgy Kenyan” and that they received the money in ‘good faith’?

Well run?

As a footnote, Sarawak Reports thinks readers might be interested to view some of the assurances given by Goldman Sachs to their bond buyers at the time of the 2013 US$3 billion issue.  The bank vouchsafes that 1MDB is a tightly run company, with strong management structures, due diligence and whistle-blowing provisions in place.  No further comment is needed: