DOJ recovers additional $6M connected to 6-year scandal involving Malaysian company 1MDB

The Justice Department has recovered an additional $6 million in assets in a roughly 10-year, ongoing investigation into a Malaysian company’s officials laundering and embezzlement of billions of dollars. 

The DOJ’s recent findings released Wednesday resolve a civil forfeiture case seeking to recover money involved in the Malaysian strategic development company 1MDB’s multibillion dollar scandal from 2009 to 2015.

The $6 million just recovered by the DOJ was used to buy a luxury New York City apartment for a personal assistant of businessman and fugitive Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low. He was found guilty in connection to the scheme and submitted a pardon request to President Trump this month after his disappearance.

Low’s assistant, May Ling Catherine Tan, has been collecting rental proceeds from the property. Under the forfeiture order entered in the case, both the apartment and the money Tan has made from renting it will be forfeited to the U.S. government.

Low and other high-level officials and associates of 1MDB misappropriated and spent over $4.5 billion of the company’s funds over six years. Low has been wanted by the International Criminal Police Organization and FBI since 2016 for his central participation.

Malaysia’s government initially created 1MDB to promote economic development in the country through international partnerships and foreign direct investment, with funds intended for improving Malaysian people’s well-being, the DOJ’s report says.

Low and the other officials instead misappropriated and spent the money on properties in London, New York and Beverly Hills, California, a 300-foot superyacht and art pieces by Monet and Van Gogh. 

More funds were invested in businesses such as a Beverly Hills boutique hotel, the movie production company that made “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Manhattan’s Park Lane Hotel’s redevelopment project and EMI, a major British music company and record label. Public officials and co-conspirators involved in the scheme also received money, the report says.

DOJ trial attorney Barbara Levy is prosecuting the case with help from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs and the U.S. Marshals. The FBI’s New York International Corruption Squad will lead the investigation.

The Justice Department has recovered an additional $6 million in assets 10 years after a Malaysian company laundered and embezzled billions of dollars in the United States.