Eight senior officials from Malaysia's external intelligence agency, including its former director, were arrested on suspicion of stealing more than $ 16 million from government coffers.
The arrests represent a dramatic extension of the anti-corruption campaign that has gripped the Asian nation since it was launched in May this year. The campaign is led by a special task force within the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). The task force was set up by Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad with the aim of probing the so-called 1MDB scandal.
The acronym refers to 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a government-owned strategic development company led by the then Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato Sri Najib Razak, with the aim of raising funds to meet foreign direct investment in the country.
However, in 2015, opposition politicians started claiming that hundreds of millions of dollars had disappeared from the fund. In May 2018, when Malaysia's current prime minister took office, the MACC launched a national investigation into the allegations. Meanwhile, Western governments, including the United States, have claimed that several billion of 1MDB funds invested from abroad were stolen and used to purchase a superyacht, private aircraft and other luxury items, such as jewelry, clothing and art. By August, the 1MDB probe had turned into the largest corruption investigation in Malaysian history. On 6 August, former Prime Minister Najib Razak was charged with money laundering and prevented from leaving the country.
MACC operations commissioner Azam Baki told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday that police arrested eight current and former members of the Malaysian External Intelligence Organization (MEIO). The eight included officials, case officials and the agency's former director, Hasanah Abdul Hamid. Baki added that during the arrests, police seized over $ 6 million in cash and luxury items from various locations, including the MEIO headquarters in Putrajaya, Malaysia's administrative center located 25 miles south of Kuala Lumpur. A ninth person, an unnamed Malaysian businessman living in London, was also arrested, the MACC official said. According to a government press release, the eight current and former MEIO members are linked to a $ 16 million transfer from the 1MDB fund to private bank accounts in Malaysia and overseas. All eight have denied the allegations via their lawyers.