GISB: unmasking the shadowy sect behind Malaysia’s worst child sex abuse scandal

Celebration Mall had stood empty for years until new owners with grand ambitions swept in 24 years ago.

The transformation breathed new life into an area that had been losing its lustre in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. A sense of community returned. Families did too. Some sent their children for horse riding lessons at the mall’s new stables.

At the heart of this remarkable turnaround was Global Ikhwan Services and Business (GISB), a conglomerate with business interests spanning everything from farms to fast food.

Many of the fresh faces that had appeared around Celebration Mall, it turns out, were former members of the banned Islamic sect Al-Arqam – dismantled by the authorities in 1994 for promoting a “deviant form” of Islam in this predominantly orthodox Sunni nation.