The Wall Street Journal, through its editors and journalists who broke the 1MDB story on the international scene and weaved out several exclusives on the biggest money-laundering scandal in the world, has stricken again.
This time with a book that details some of the juicy deals sealed behind the scene.
The book, entitled ‘Billion Dollar Whale, The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World’ says some of 1MDB’s board seemed sceptical of Goldman Sachs fees. The book is written by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, two Wall Street Journal reporters
The $US190 million ($250 million) Goldman Sachs wanted was was excessive, they thought. Even the investment bank’s president of Asia, David Ryan thought so.
Goldman Sachs was paid a quarter of a billion dollars to raise money for the 1MDB. The fees were outrageously in excess of the normal $1.3 million Goldman Sachs would charge for such transactions.
The explosive new book puts the Najib Razak government into a deeper mess with its revelations.
The board new, surely the ministers involved knew that the fee was outrageous but it was to be done. From there, the Malaysian authorities probably have an idea who was behind the deal and who was pulling strings.
And the book will reveal who is that man who fooled the entire world, and Wall Street in the process!
If the 1MDB board was suspicious, and the Asia president of Goldman Sachs was sceptical of the deal, who forced it through?
The Mystery Man? The book is due September 18 and this is a preview of what it contains.
A portion of the book was leaked to The Australian Financial Review and it asserts that Goldman Sachs – now the target of a US Justice Department investigation – structured the transaction to generate windfall profits with little risk.
When some 1MDB board members looked doubtful during a Goldman presentation, a Goldman banker cajoled them with the line: “Look at your number, not at our number.”
Is there any doubt on who the banker is?
Tim Leissner is the only former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who is linked to the 1MDB scandal. it is alleged that he played a big role in sealing the deal. Singapore has banned him from doing business in the City State.
1MDB has made alleged losses of $US4.5 billion, but Najib denies all role in the losses which he also denied.
The money was – according to Sarawak Report – syphoned from Malaysia through a well-weaved plot, involving Abu Dhabi Sheikhs, Saudi Arabian royalties and ministers as well as (allegedly) the entire Malaysian Cabinet under Razak.
Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak pleaded not guilty to being part of a corrupt scheme after his arrest in July.