US ‘preparing to return US$200 million of 1MDB-linked funds to Malaysia’
- US authorities will return US$200 million of 1MDB-linked funds to Malaysia, including US$140 million from a hotel sale, and US$60 million from the producer of the Wolf of Wall Street film
US authorities are preparing to return about US$200 million of funds allegedly misappropriated from troubled state fund 1MDB to Malaysia, according to people familiar with the matter.
The total includes about US$140 million from the sale of a stake in New York’s Park Lane Hotel and some US$60 million from a settlement paid by the producer of the Wolf of Wall Street movie, said two of the people, who asked not to be named as the details are private. The transfer could happen as soon as next week, they said.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has reached out to countries from Switzerland to Singapore for help in tracking and recouping the US$4.5 billion believed to have been siphoned from 1MDB. The scandal surrounding the state fund, set up to finance development projects in the Southeast Asian nation, has ensnared people and institutions from Malaysia’s former leader Najib Razak to Goldman Sachs.
Representatives of the US Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday after regular business hours.
Malaysia pulled in US$126 million last month from the sale of a superyacht once owned by Jho Low, the fugitive financier who has been painted as the mastermind behind the scandal. That was the largest amount of money that the country has recovered related to 1MDB, after it received S$15.3 million (US$11.1 million) from neighbouring Singapore last year. Low has repeatedly denied the allegations against him.
