Pua reminded the Najib Administration that it had consistently dismissed the WSJ allegations against the state-owned investment firm as “unsubstantiated malicious allegations”, and a “global conspiracy to bring down a democratically elected government”.
“As a result, the Malaysian investigating agencies took the cue and refused to conduct any genuine investigations into the monstrous heist despite mounting evidence and damning Auditor-General and Public Accounts Committee Reports.
“However, the ‘s*** has hit the fan’ now, and Datuk Seri Najib Razak must chastise local regulatory authorities for their ineptitude on the 1MDB scandal,” Pua said, adding that the scandal is the largest in Malaysia, while the assets seizure is the largest in US history.
He called for the prime minister to also instruct the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to follow the lead of the DoJ.
“They must charge all the relevant parties who have stolen billions from the people, including but not limited to Riza Aziz and Jho Low.
“Local authorities must also identify ‘Malaysian Official One’, who was accused by the DoJ as having siphoned billions of ringgit of 1MDB’s borrowed wealth,” Pua, who is also DAP National Publicity Secretary, said in a statement.
The DoJ filed lawsuits yesterday saying that over US$3.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB.
In its lawsuits, filed in Los Angeles, DoJ said it sought to seize assets “involved in and traceable to an international conspiracy to launder money misappropriated from 1MDB”.
The DoJ also alleged offences were committed over a four-year period and involved multiple individuals, including Malaysian officials and their associates, who conspired to fraudulently divert billions of dollars from 1MDB.
It specifically named Riza, who is Najib’s stepson, Jho Low, and Abu Dhabi government officials Khadem al-Qubaisi and Mohamed Ahmed Badawy Al-Husseiny.
Pua also criticised the Government for having insisted that it wasn’t robbed.
“With Malaysia now the global laughing stock following the DoJ’s action to seize some US$1 billion of assets stolen from 1MDB, the Malaysian Government remains inexplicably oblivious to the grand theft,” he said.
The DoJ’s seizure of more than US$1 billion worth of assets, the single largest seizure in US history, was expected to include properties and other assets purchased with money allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB.