9 August 2017
Scores of emails relating to the business relationship between Najib’s fixer Jho Low and his key Middle Eastern contact, the US Ambassador Sheikh Yousef Otaiba, have confirmed a web of power-broking and kickbacks designed to relieve Malaysia of its public money.
The emails, released by a group named Global Leaks, show that the system was sanctioned from the top in KL and that Jho Low’s contacts were getting handsomely paid for facilitating deals. Sheikh Otaba himself received huge sums into his private companies from 1MDB, reported to have total $66 million, in return for assisting Jho Low with introductions and investments.
Email Trails Start in 2007
According to the data, Jho Low’s contacts with Sheikh Yousef Al Otaiba (whose father was Abu Dhabi’s first Oil Minister) began in 2007 as he sought to engage Middle East investors in Malaysian Government-backed projects such as the Iskandar Development Region (IDR) and later in Sarawak’s UBG (described as “The holding company owned by the Minister of Sarawak and Sons”).
Jho’s initial approach was to get Otaiba to engage Abu Dhabi’s Aldar Properties in for exclusive access to Iskandar Development Region, guaranteed by his own political connections in Malaysia
The email flow between Jho Low, Sheikh Otaiba and his colleague Shaher Awartani, partner in the company Silver Coast Construction & Boring, begin when Shaher first contacted Otaiba on 18th June 2007 asking:
Shaher was responding to a claim from Jho Low that he had secured, thanks to his apparent influence with the then Prime Minister Ahmad Badawi, a preferential opportunity for the Abu Dhabi group Aldar Properties to bid for the role of ‘Master Developer’ for land held by Malaysia’s Khazanah wealth fund in the Iskandar Development Region.
Otaiba who knew both the Chairman of Aldar, Ahmed Al Sayegh, and the CEO, Ronald Barrott, was plainly in a position to help swing the deal. He was also close to Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund Mubadala’s boss, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, a vital potential investor – the emails imply that Jho was plainly making those connections worth his while:
By September the well-connected trio had apparently estatblished a profitable relationship
By September, when Jho was suggesting his company Wynton set up an office in Abu Dhabi, Shaher wrote to Otaiba “that would certainly tie up nicely all our business/financial deals with Jho nicely “
Iskandar Deal
The early emails show how Jho informed his prospective collaborators that he had the right contacts in Malaysia to ensure that Aldar could get preferential treatment from Khazanah regarding the Iskandar bid, thanks to his inside track. Political considerations and Aldar’s perceived closeness to the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala were the important issue, normal tendering to one side. The decision was not really up to Khazanah, since the politicians in charge wanted Aldar, Jho implied in an email dated 12th June 2007:
Jho later described the Executive Director of Khazanah, Ganen, as “a very easy-going chap” ready to “casually meet” wherever suited – his email trail made clear who was really deciding matters:
The hurried deal to keep the PM happy (at that time Ahmad Badawi) matched the style and tactics that the youthful fixer would later adopt on behalf of Najib Razak over the 1MDB deal with PetroSaudi. Indeed, Najib was clearly already closely involved with the Iskandar project according to another email 3rd July 2007 from Shaher to Otaiba as Jho pressured to close the deal:
We have got the PM on side to promote ALDAR as the master developer, so CEO of Khazanah will play ball
There was another strange aspect to Jho Low’s offer to the Abu Dhabi consortium, which was also to manifested in his later ‘Government to Government’ ‘strategic investment’ deals involving the Middle East. Jho and his Malaysian political contacts seemed less bothered about getting cash injections and share of risk from these investors (into a property valued at $8 billion) than the appearance of a politically significant joint venture and Middle East investment. As Jho Low had written to ‘Yousef and Shaher’ June 17th:
The offer is remeniscent of the later 2013 ‘1MDB Strategic Partnership’ with Abu Dhabi, where again the Arab state put up zero cash, whilst the Malaysia Prime Minister Najib raised billions of dollars, which he then stole.
What was in it for Malaysia?
Modus Operandi?
Sources say that Otaiba and Shaher were being rewarded by Jho Low for making the introductions and encouraging investors like Mubadala to get involved. By 2008 they were linked into a second such ‘investment’ into Sarawak’s UBG, which was soon bought over, thanks to public money which Jho Low diverted out of 1MDB.
Shaher referred to a further engagement with Jho in June 2008 (involving the Malaysian Building Society, MBSB), as “a piece of business similar to the previous transaction”
By now the partners had a clear business relationship – was it based on access?
According to the emails, the arrangement continued to develop when Jho Low later ploughed stolen 1MDB money into the Helmsley Hotel purchase in New York – part of a joint investment with Mubadala. Emails show that Shaher and Otaiba were expecting to both get cash pay outs, apparently for facilitating that deal…. although it was less than they were anticipating, because Mubadla had only in the end put in $150 million instead of an expected $250 million.
The ‘usual arrangement’….
Otaiba had also recommended Jho Low/Mubadala as a buyer to the sellers of the Hermitage Hotel in Beverley Hills. Tom Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital, had known Otaiba’s father. It appears to have done the trick:
Key connections, Mubadala investment and commissions paid by 1MDB?
Later, when it came to 1MDB’s desperate bail out in 2014, where the fund had to raise a billion dollars to service debts, Jho can be seen emailing his two collaborators once more (using his Eric Tan email address) providing them with pro-forma letters for to send on to lenders in Abu Dhabi, urging them to invest in the massive loan. Otaiba duly sent on the pre-prepared letters to Abu Dhabi banks in his name:
‘Eric Tan’ emails draft begging letters to Arab lenders, which Otaiba obligingly sent on under his own name to help raise the money for 1MDB (and Jho’s yacht payment)
Jho Low, as we now know (thanks to the DOJ investigations in the United States) splashed some $140 million from that urgent loan to complete the purchase of his massive super-yacht, Equanimity – after which he immediately treated his girlfriend Miranda Ker to a wow factor holiday on board and presented her with personalised diamonds (also from the stolen money, which she has now returned).
What is clear from all these emails is that even before Najib Razak moved from Deputy Prime Minister to Prime Minister, Jho Low was operating as an informal, behind the scenes fixer in deals on behalf of senior figures in Malaysia. He reportedly used these deals to make huge sums of money. So, Malaysians are entitled to ask who else was making insider money out of this wheeler dealing?
Included in the correspondence on the PPB deal involving UBG in Sarawak, for example, was Najib’s brother, Nizam Razak, described as a “partner in the PPB deal”.
Already working closely with the Najib family in 2007?
Re-Branding Jho As The Arabs Start to Panic
At the start, it may have seemed a win-win arrangement for the young collaborators. Jho Low was employing his connections in Malaysia and Otaiba in the Middle East to create deals backed by Malaysian public money. However, as early as 2010 it becomes clear that the Abu Dhabi side were developing reasons to be wary of Low.
The first problem came when Low dropped Otaiba’s name in an interview with The Star newspaper, which had picked up on his super-ostentatious behaviour in St Tropez and elsewhere. The Star wanted to know how come Jho was suddenly so flush and Jho explained it was because of his good contacts in the Middle East, like Otaiba.
A friend got in touch with Otaiba to warn that the guy who was spending millions a night on Crystal and performing for the gossip columns was refering to him publicly:
“He needs to calm down and stop partying so much!”
A few days later the clearly dismayed power broker from Abu Dhabi received an awkward request from Jho Low via Shaher. Having finally found a route to cash in his share of UBG (thanks to 1MDB’s money channelled through PetroSaudi) Jho needed a new bank account to stash his cash and asked Otaiba to recommend him to Goldman Sachs Swiss.
“Hope all is well” Jho wrote on 7th May 2010 in an email entitled URGENT: Letter of Recommendation for Low Taek Jho, “I have started the process of setting up an account in Goldman Sachs Swiss to receive these funds. They required me to obtain two letters of reference from “important individuals”. Would appreciate if you could kindly assist me on an urgent basis with respect to the attached reference letter?”
Shaher advised Otaiba that this was a favour to avoid:
Shaher told Otiaba, before he confirmed what Sarawak Report had already noted at the time, which was that Jho Low and his family had started on a re-branding exercise in order to try and pretend their astonishing new wealth came from previous generations of successful business, rather than government related thefts:
Shaher informed Otaiba.
Jho becoming a liability
‘Third Generation Billionaire’
After 2010 Jho went from telling newspapers that he was just a “concierge” from a relatively modest family background, organising parties for his rich Middle Eastern pals, to claiming he was descended from a wealthy family background and posturing as a ‘philanthropist’. The family home in Penang still tells a different story:
Modest family home, El Nitsjo, at 69 Tanjong Bunga Road, Penang
The Lows launched a new foundation, allegedly based on long-term family wealth, established by an “industrialist” grandfather and then the business acumen of Jho’s dad, Larry Low, a former executive at the listed Malaysian company MWE. Although MWE was presented as an enterprise that Larry had founded and largely owned, he is not named amongst the MWE’s top shareholders and is no longer a Director.
What is now apparent is that the Penang businessman (now believed to be sheltering in Thailand) has been deeply involved in his youthful offspring’s networking and money-making gambits – not third generation billionaires, but as a family business.
Brother Szen Low worked together with Jho at Jynwell Capital and even his sister, Low May Lin, now features in DOJ court documents as the recipient of an email sent after he cut the deal with PetroSaudi “I think I hit a gold mine” he told her and his parents. May Lin is a corporate lawyer with expertise in off-shore incorporations, having worked for the specialists Maples & Calder.
Posing with his fundraiser and Edleman PR lady outside the UN building in New York
By late 2015, when the heat was on, Jho Low made a fan-fare of his philanthropy. Writing to his powerful former partners in Abu Dhabi Jho talked up the ‘Third Generation Family Foundation”. He boasted that through the UN he was supporting journalists at The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi, to cover sustainable development and conservation issues:
The Low Family’s ‘Third Generation Foundation’
However, by 2015 Jho Low’s email exchanges with his Arab friends appear one way and they reveal an increasingly desperate note, as his partners went quiet.
In March, just after Sarawak Report broke the PetroSaudi story, Jho wrote to Otaiba:
There is no evidence Jho received an answer, although Otaiba’s bankers wrote April 28th 2015 to say they had met Jho, who had told him that he was getting all his money out of BSI bank and advised Otaiba to do the same “BSI is getting messy” . The banker also said he had heard that 1MDB “assets were lost in translation… the asset/liability picture is not matching the monies/deposits transferred from 1MDB”.
Jho Felt Compelled to Buy a Bank
The banker Tobias Pfister, then told Otaiba that Jho now “felt compelled to buy a bank as a parking spot for his funds, as well as his friends and family”. Jho was looking at Amicorp Barbados which was 70% up for sale for $15 million. However,, Phister advised Otaiba not to get involved in buying a bank since “it is one of the most regulated industries”. There is no indication Otaiba and Shaher were speaking directly to Jho Low by this stage… Jho had sent a message to say “no calls or emails” were advised:
No calls or emails… something to hide?
In June Jho sent a trimphant email following the arrest in Thailand of whistleblower Xavier Justo, which had been orchestrated with the assistance of his own contacts in Bangkok.
Low then added the New Straits Times article he and his collaborators had helped to organise discrediting Xavier Justo. Otaiba made no response.
In September 2015, Jho was still plainly ‘pushing back’ on behalf of Najib still, although in hiding. The story had come out in the Wall Street Journal and The Edge that 1MDB money had gone missing after being sent to a fake off-shore entity. Jho Low begged his Abu Dhabi friends to work with “extremely concerned” Najib and agree a common strategy of “no comment”. So much for transparency:
Panic breaks out – Don’t reply to this anonymous email from Jho Low!
Malaysia Faces Sovereign Default
Jho Low’s promise that the money would be repaid has of course proved worthless. Abu Dhabi did not receive its billion back a year later in 2016 and after taking 1MDB to court it was ruled that Malaysia should pay $602 million by July 31st this year, plus penalties.
That ruling was not met. A five working day “cure period” was allowed under the agreement before penalties kicked in – a deadline that expired midday New York time Monday. Now 1MDB/Najib have begged IPIC to allow them till the end of the month, since they still say they ‘only have half the money’ – IPIC have demanded that half, which is $300 million, to be paid by Friday.
The last emails between Shaher and Otaiba in May 2017 indicate that the Emiratis are now aware that Jho Low has been in discussions with the DOJ, presenting an even bigger headache for the decision-makers in KL.
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Showing posts with label SarawakReport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SarawakReport. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 August 2017
SarawakReport : MORE LEAKS - How Business Flourished With Otaiba As Jho Low 'Re-Branded' From Party Boy To 'Philanthropist'......
Wednesday, 26 April 2017
SarawakReport : Najib's July 31st Election Deadline!
26 April 2017
All the signs are growing that Najib plans for a snap mid-year election and no wonder.
Yesterday’s ‘settlement’ with IPIC/Aabar was a total cave-in for Malaysia and it has left the Prime Minister horribly exposed with a very large bill indeed, due July 31st.
As DAP Finance Spokesman Tony Pua has pointed out, 1MDB surrendered on every point over its dispute with Aabar and the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund IPIC, agreeing to pay back the entire $1.2 billion bail out of June 2015, plus to take on all the remaining expenses on the two so-called ‘Power Purchase Bonds’ taken out by 1MDB in 2012, backed by a supposed guarantee from Aabar’s parent company IPIC.
IPIC spelt the terms out fully (and rather smugly) in its statement to the London Stock Exchange on Monday. The first payment from 1MDB to IPIC is $602,725,000, due at the very latest July 31st,. The second is an identical payment due by the end of December, the IPIC statement confirms.
What IPIC did NOT do, as Jho Low’s spinners had desperately been trying to make out in advance, was to make referrence or give any credence to the claim that under the agreement Malaysia would be finding the money from 1MDB’s dodgy (i.e. non-existent) funds in its Brazen Sky account.
That ridiculous spin was left to 1MDB’s own cheeky little statement yesterday, which left out all the hard detail on the embarassing numbers but went long on claims that 1MDB would find the money to pay back IPIC by “primarily by the monetisation of 1MDB-owned investment fund units”.
Journalists had been told by ‘insiders’ (i.e. Jho Low) that these ‘units’ where the ones allegedly held in 1MDB’s Brazen Sky account, which was frozen when Singapore closed down BSI Bank over money laundering the proceeds of thefts from 1MDB – thefts which Najib Razak continues to refuse to acknowledge took place.
There has been no indication that the account has been released and all the evidence indicates it had nothing of value in it anyway.
Yet Najib tried to give the ‘monetisation of units’ spin further momentum by issuing a separate statement through the Prime Minister’s Office:
The deadly admission
However, there is a deadly admission hidden in plain sight within this ‘settlement’, which Najib Razak has attempted to ignore, but which Tony Pua has spelt out in his reponse:
After all, the Prime Minister and 1MDB have continued, in the face of all the evidence, to claim that payments totalling $3.5 billion were paid to Aabar/IPIC as a ‘deposit’ to back the supposed guarantees of the Power Purchase loans.
IPIC have replied categorically that they never asked for such payments and never received them.
Last July a US Department of Justice investigation confirmed in a court deposition what everyone had long suspected, which was that the money was in fact paid to a series of bogus off-shore companies with names that made them sound as if they were subsidiaries of Aabar. In particular, Aabar Investments PJS Limited in the BVI, incorporated by the CEO of Aabar and it Chairman, but separate entirely from the Abu Dhabi group.
The DOJ provided a comprehensive money trail, showing how the money went from 1MDB into the fake BVI Aabar account, then on to a company owned by Jho Low called Blackstone Asia. Jho Low then used Blackstone Asia to pay huge kickbacks to the then Chairman and CEO of Aabar for performing that little favour (both those men are now in jail in Abu Dhabi) and divested the rest of the money on a massive spending spree, which included sending US$30 million directly to Najib’s account.
Yet Najib and his 1MDB CEO, Arul Kanda, have simply continued to deny this fact to the Malaysian public. They have claimed throughout this dispute that the money did indeed go to IPIC, which was why they were arguing that IPIC ought to have used it to bail out its debts.
After all, if the US$3.5 billion ‘deposit’ had been paid, why would 1MDB not expect IPIC to make that US$1.2 billion bail out from the money set aside for the purpose? There can be no doubt that if the money had actually been paid, 1MDB would have won that London arbitration battle hands down.
The fact that 1MDB has plainly been unable to satisfy the court proves the money wasn’t paid and Najib is lying. Tony Pua has totted up all the payments the Finance Minister still claims 1MDB made to IPIC, as laid before MPs in the Public Accounts Committee last year:
The money 1MDB still alleges it paid to IPIC totals $3.51 billion and yet yesterday’s settlement is an admission that IPIC never received it.
Bets are on for a July election!
Which is why many are now laying bets on the likelihood that Najib is going to cut his losses and go for an election BEFORE he has to come up with that hefty US$602 million payment owed to IPIC on July 31st!
The reason being that there is no money to be made from selling 1MDB’s fictional ‘units’ and so in the end that cash is going to have to be raised direct from the taxpayer through his Ministry of Finance, which is ultimately responsible for meeting the commitment.
Once that happens then all the lies and nonsence will be once and for all exposed – and Malaysian’s will be faced with the realisation that Najib will probably have to raise taxes to pay for it all.
Better that comes out in the wake of a hoped-for election win, Najib is reasoning, rather than any time in the run-up to a vote that has to be held latest next year!
One insider has told Sarawak Report.
So, if electioneering has started showing signs around where you live, you have the answer why. The party will be on you the voter and you the taxpayer!
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Thursday, 6 April 2017
SarawakReport : Native Outrage As Royal Mulu Is Handed To Chinese Management Without Consultation
6 April 2017
Prince Albert of Monaco enjoys fun & games at Mulu
Abang Johari had been Najib’s choice for Chief Minister the first time around, when Taib Mahmud was originally booted upstairs to the Governor’s mansion, but the departing CM sneaked the popular Adenan Satem into the post.
Now that Johari finally has the prize it is clear that he is obediently doing Najib’s bidding, including keeping China happy as part of the 1MDB bail-out plan, secretly organised by Najib’s proxy 2nd Finance Minister, Jho Low.
Johari’s first big foreign visit therefore was to China, where he signed a memorandum of understanding on behalf of Sarawak’s Economic and Development Council (SEDC) that has opened the way for the resource-hungry super-power to move in further on Sarawak’s economy.
In this respect natives from Mulu National Park have expressed outrage that the announcement of the cooperation deal included a cosy arrangement for the management of their National Park resort to be taken over by a Chinese company named Beijing Glory without a word of warning or consultation with the indigenous Berawan tribe, to whom the area once belonged before being confiscated.
Johari (middle right front) lines up with State Secretary Morshidi Abdul Ghani to sign the deal
Today representatives of the tribe complained that they were shocked that the transfer of the management of the resort has been handed over to the Chinese company, without so much as a by-your-leave from the wealthy Geneid family (Taib Mahmud’s sister Raziah and her Lebanese husband Robert), who managed to grab control of the area years before in order to develop the luxury jungle ‘eco-hotel’.
writes the Action Committee, which includes activists Willie Kayan, Denis Along and Usang Baya from Long Terawan & Mulu Totoh Baram.
Sarawak Report has documented and frequently written about the disgraceful confiscation of this valuable area from the Berawan Tribe by Taib’s influential sister for a mere token compensation.
Taib’s sister Raziah Geneid (3rd right) and family – she spearheaded the Mulu landgrab and controls the resort
Numerous members of Taib’s family are now shareholders in the various companies behind the luxury resort, which has always been treated as a luxury jungle play-den by the Geneids, who have made millions out of lands and contracts gifted by Raziah’s brother.
Whilst the disposessed Berewan of Mulu live in shacks and serve in the Mulu Hotel, the fun-loving Geneids are fond of lavish parties, big gems and couture outfits, usually featured in Tatler (where they have shares)
The Berawan themselves have been reduced to seeking what jobs they can, serving and entertaining visitors at the complex.
Dwellings of the local Berawan, original owners of Mulu
Nevertheless, the hotel has not been making money and the Geneids, who head the Board of Directors of the Borsamulu management company, have been looking to off-load the management onto professional hands.
Originally, they did a deal with the Marriott Hotel group to develop an ‘eco-resort’.
However, it seems the US company has pulled out following criticism over the corruption associated with the project.
Mulu Action Committee Statement:
The Berawan protestors have made clear they do not take kindly to this announcement of new Chinese owners without any consultation.
Few would argue with such concerns and Sarawak’s Beijing delegation included senior long-standing Sarawak officials, who ought to have known better than to steam-roller through such a deal, for example the State Secretary, Morshidi Abdul Ghani.
However, no one in Sarawak will be of course in the least surprised at Abdul Ghani’s compliance, since his total obedience in all matters has long since been bought and paid for by the present political leadership in the form of a 14,000 oil palm plantation handed to his immediate family for a bargain basement price.
Japanese hideaway!
Tired of Mulu? The Geneids have got themselves a 5 star Japanese Golf Course!
Daughter Aishah Geneid enjoys Japanese hideaway
As for the Geneids, Sarawak Report can reveal a brand new discovery from their astonishing wealth portfolio of properties and businesses world-wide, gained as family hangers-on to Taib Mahmud.
Geneid family members have been given to circulating happy holiday snaps of themselves of themselves enjoying their “new home from home”, featuring none other than a very fancy Japanese golf resort near Mount Fuji named Izu Heights Golf Club.
Research by Sarawak Report’s contacts in Japan has indeed indicated that the ‘entrepreneurial couple’ are as suspected the owners of the plush resort.
The parent company of the rolling golf course, is Izu Heights Development Pte. Ltd., whose representative is none other than Robert Geneid.
Other daughter Elia Geneid also enjoys the resort. She recieved tens of thousands of hectares of oil palm concessions in her 20s, so can doubtless afford a share
According to available data, the company was established on 28 February 2014 with 10 million yen in capital, but predictably operates at a loss.
In 2014 it had a revenue of 110 million yen (about a million dollars) and net profit of minus 24.7 million yen. In FY 2015 (Jan-Dec) it had revenue of 229 million yen and net profit of minus 17.9 million yen.
But, as far as the family are concerned this is their “Hot New Playground”, so perhaps there will be less time spent at Mulu, leaving the jungle resort with more rooms free to earn some money?
One thing is for sure, whilst the Berewan are expected to sit and take whatever the State Government decides, they can be rest in the knowledge that those State Government decisions have always been determined by whatever is best for the likes of Raziah and Robert and not themselves.
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Monday, 5 December 2016
SarawakReport : Taib's "YOUNG" wife been married twice before marrying him! Same as FLOM kut!
Celestial Justice For Taib Mahmud?
5 December 2016
Growing control… Ragad has started to inevitably dominate her elderly husband….
What would a wise and heavenly judge mete out as punishment to a man, who had desecrated Paradise and left its people’s destitute to fuel his own greed and power?
Would they strike him down with some cruel disease like cancer? Or arrange for him to be arrested, tried and jailed: his assets confiscated?
Or might they rescue this man from death only to subject him to an even more sobering, troubling and lengthy ordeal as he begins to realise that all he lusted for must turn to dust, like he himself? Might they condemn this selfish monster to a prolonged taste of his own medicine, as the target of another being every bit as selfish and greedy as himself, in order to torment him as he reaches out for help, love and respect in his old age?
In which case, Governor Taib Mahmud has finally met a subtle and divine justice in the form of his increasingly powerful and domineering much younger wife Ragad.
Sarawak Report has now received extensive evidence about the situation in which Sarawak’s ageing Governor now finds himself, as the victim of an arranged marriage to a serial exploiter, who counts openly together with her family members, the days until her hated husband dies.
Syrian born Ragad makes her curses in Arabic to her husband’s face, not just once a day but several times, as her secret joke with her surrounding family members, because he cannot understand her language. Unfortunately for her, there are others too who understand her words (unbeknown to her) and who have testified to Sarawak Report the shocking situation where a wife hands her husband a drink with such words as:
“May God take you. May God make people come and give me their condolences on you very soon. May God make this drink be poison to you. May Allah make me bury you very soon… May God give you a deadly disease”
Deadly curses heard said by Ragad, according to Arabic speakers who informed SR
“She says these things whilst rolling her eyes lovingly and smiling sweetly, as she hands something for her husband to take to eat or drink“, shocked onlookers have confided to Sarawak Report. “It is for her to vent her own fury and to amuse her mother and sister, who have ensconsed themselves in the home, which Taib plainly hates”.
Ragad was introduced to Taib through a marriage broker, whom she had used once before, thanks to enquiries made by Taib Mahmud’s sister Ragad and her Lebanese husband Robert Geneid. Taib was about to run for election once more in 2011 at an advanced age after three decades already in power and it was felt he needed a wife.
Getting what she can, but she wants security from the will….
Ragad paid 800,000 Rials (US$200,000) to the Saudi broker, nearly the entire settlement obtained from her divorce from her previous husband just two weeks before. The agreement was in anticipation of the vast wealth of the man to whom she was being introduced, but had not yet met.
Taib was not informed that his 30 year old bride had already been twice married and had two children from her first marriage. The entire arrangement was a family enterprise organised by Ragad’s mother and is treated as such, say insiders: “They are all after their cut”.
The couple had not even met before they performed an Islamic marriage in Saudi Arabia. Two weeks later they had a wedding in Damascus and it was only a month after that people back home in Sarawak (where Taib made all his money) were treated to the information that their Chief Minister had married and a surprise ceremony was also performed there.
Keep your eyes on the prize!
“Ragad was repulsed by her elderly spouse on sight, quite understandably” one insider told Sarawak Report in an extensive interview, explaining that she had originally understood it was the Sultan of Brunei she was to be spliced with, who looked young and fanciable enough. “She was disgusted when she realised who it actually was, but her mother was firm. She said “keep your eyes on the prize” and eventually Ragad forced herself to agree to full conjugal relations, as Taib was threatening divorce if not”.
It is in many ways a sad and tragic story. A wealthy old man looking for comfort in his old age has ended up with a woman who wishes him dead as soon as possible, so she can collect on her duties.
Ragad has widely discussed the ‘good news’ with associates, which is that Taib has already survived a serious bout of cancer and is not expected to live too much longer. She and her family are waiting on a recurrence of his disease, in the anticipation that he will die sooner rather than later.
However, whilst one might sympathise with such an awful predicament for a poorly old man, is that not the penalty he has paid for his own illicit wealth, his disregard for others and his vain and greedy decision to buy himself a young woman for his old age? How could she have possibly have married him for anything else but his money and therefore why would her attitude be any different from this?
“Ragad soon discovered that Taib had put all his affairs in order and left everything to his four children when he was ill before” Sarawak Report has been told. “So, Ragad has been pressuring to secure herself a large settlement since there is no love lost between her and those off-spring. In fact, they are very jealous and hate her”
So, not only is Taib beleaguered with a gold-digging wife, who makes fun of him and curses him, but he is surrounded by greedy, sullen and resentful heirs who hate the person he lives with and are scrapping to get all of his money stolen from the people. Again it is a clear penalty of illicit wealth and selfish greed, that little of the normal kindness and charity within families of more modest means features in the interactions of this rapacious ‘first family of Sarawak’.
Ragad is desperate to get pregnant to secure her cash
Ragad has been working to secure her position by falling pregnant, insiders have confirmed. However, three miscarriages have indicated what was feared, which is that chemo-therapy and age have diminished the chances of a natural child. “She has been trying to get him to go to the doctor, so they can have treatment, but he doesn’t want more children. He has accepted to take in her two already, even though he didn’t know they existed when they married. He is refusing and she is furious. She needs a child to secure her chunk of his money when he dies”.
Sarawak Report is sorry to have to impart such information, which would be private under ordinary circumstances. However, what the Taib family are fighting over is wealth that has been stolen from the State and its people. Now that a foreign born woman and all her family have also dug themselves into the situation, all this enormous financial wealth, taken from the natural resources of the country, could be removed entirely from the jurisdiction of Malaysia and into the hands of a greedy adventuress and her distant Middle Eastern family. This makes it of public interest.
Ragad has already secured massive sums handed to her by her husband and he has promised her a home and allowance when he dies. But, people say that she and her mother and sister and brother are anxious to make much more from their advantageous match.
“They are determined to bring him under their power. They have a long history of using black magic and they are trying it out on him. She inserts bodily fluids into his drinks, this is one method”
explained one insider, who described the practices, which are too disgusting to write about in detail.
Black magic aside, Taib, who is now 80 years old is vulnerable to his far younger, larger and stronger wife, thus turning the tables on a man who was once able to bully others and did so. “He began by showing jealously and trying to force her to stay at home and do as he wished, but these days she just does as she wants. She goes out to all hours when they are abroad as well. If he protests there are furious rows and she has a habit of taking valuables and destroying them in front of him. She is stronger than him.”
Taib used to be guarded by a long-standing secretary, who was loyal only to him:
“She sorted that. First she got him sacked and then allowed him back his job only if she does everything through her. So every call and every caller, it is now monitored and controlled by Ragad and that includes the family. The balance of power has definitely been changing in that household over the past couple of years as he just gives up and gets frailer”.
There is a view that if Ragad cannot have her way with a child, she will use her proximity and growing influence over her now fading husband to secure the level of wealth through his will at some stage.
Taib is mean and acquisitive and it is likely he will fight to protect his wealth for his family till the end. Two greedy and tenacious characters are now locked together and fighting for the spoils of Taib’s rape of Sarawak. But for what benefit? What pleasure and comfort?
Great shows for the camera…. but Ragad cannot resist constantly abusing her husband verbally to his face in a language he cannot understand..
Taib has bought a jet, which he has put to one side for his retirement (to be presented back to him by the State of Sarawak). But how much spending and extravagance can bring solace to an old man, who like a child only needs genuine love and regard to make the difference to his final years?
As this Thief Minister is finding out far too late, the most important things in life are the things that money cannot buy. In fact, too much money destroys these things.
So, maybe there has been an act of justice here and some celestial being has ensured ‘karma’ for Mr Taib or maybe it is just the inevitable outcome of life. It seems to have been his lot to have retained enough time on earth to be done by as he did; to belatedly discover the difference between what matters and what does not and to realise that he worked all his life to obtain the latter at everyone else’s expense.
This old man in his guilded cage may soon start to wish he could escape what he has brought upon his own head. In which case he should succumb to his own poison sooner rather than later.
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