The
stepson of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak bought a £23.25 million
house in central London in 2012 with money originating from the
troubled Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB Funds.
The stepson of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak
bought a £23.25 million ($33.6 million) house in central London in 2012
with money originating from the troubled Malaysian state investment
fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., according to people familiar with the
situation.
The redbrick four-story house, built around 1900, is
part of a row set back from the road and protected by security gates, a
short walk from Malaysia’s diplomatic mission in
London’s exclusive Belgravia neighborhood. The registered owner of the
house is Qentas Holdings Ltd., a company based in the British Virgin
Islands. Mr. Najib’s stepson is the beneficial owner, the people
familiar said.
Investigators believe that money from the Malaysian fund known as 1MDB was used to buy the house in July 2012. The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that Riza Aziz, a film producer and stepson of the Malaysian leader, used money that originated from 1MDB to buy $50 million worth of properties in New York and Los Angeles and to finance the 2013 movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
A
spokesman said last week that Mr. Aziz’s film company, Red Granite
Pictures, “is responding to all inquiries and cooperating fully.”
“There
has never been anything inappropriate about any of Red Granite Pictures
or Riza Aziz’s business activities,” the spokesman said. “What they
have done and will continue to do is develop and produce successful and
acclaimed movies that have generated more than $825 million in
world-wide box-office revenues.”
Money used to buy the properties in London and the U.S. was part of
at least $238 million that was transferred to an offshore company owned
by Mr. Aziz called Red Granite Capital from another offshore company set
up to resemble an Abu Dhabi company 1MDB did business with,
investigators believe, according to people familiar with the matter.
The
offshore company, Aabar Investments PJS Ltd., received more than $3.5
billion from 1MDB over several years. It has a similar name to Aabar
Investments PJS in Abu Dhabi, which is owned by one of the Emirate’s
sovereign-wealth funds called International Petroleum Investment Co.
IPIC has said in a filing to the London Stock Exchange that the Aabar in
the British Virgin Islands that transferred money to Red Granite
Capital isn’t part of its corporate structure.
A
$133 million tranche of the money was received by Red Granite Capital
in June 2012, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The London
property was acquired a month later without a mortgage, according to
the U.K. Land Registry.
Mr. Aziz has denied wrongdoing, as has Mr. Najib.
Mr.
Najib attended a conference in the U.K. capital on May 16 to promote
investment in his country. He told business leaders and politicians
gathered at Marlborough House, the headquarters of the Commonwealth
group of nations, that Malaysia is an “ideal partner.” He urged the
audience to look at the “real story in Malaysia” instead of believing
certain media stories without specifying which stories he was referring
to.
Raja Aziz, film producer and stepson of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Photo:
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
More than $1 billion originating from 1MDB landed in Mr. Najib’s
private bank accounts, the Journal has reported, citing people familiar
with probes in two countries. Some of the money was used to pay for
political spending in Malaysia, as well as clothing and jewels,
according to Malaysian investigation documents that include
bank-transfer information.
Mr. Najib has acknowledged he received
$681 million as a legitimate donation from Saudi Arabia and that most
of it was returned. Malaysia’s attorney general agreed the money came
from Saudi Arabia legally and cleared Mr. Najib of wrongdoing.
The fund was set up in 2009 by Mr. Najib to boost the economy using money borrowed from the global markets.
1MDB
is today at the center of corruption probes by authorities in Malaysia
and six other nations. Investigators believe as much as $6 billion of
the fund’s money was siphoned away, according to a person familiar with
one country’s probe. The fund has said it would cooperate with
investigators, but maintained its investments were accounted for.
The
Ministry of Finance of Malaysia, the owner of 1MDB, accepted the
resignation of the fund’s board of directors earlier this month after a
report from a parliamentary committee criticized decisions made by the
firm. It also dissolved its board of advisers, which Mr. Najib chaired.
Related
1MDB has said it would cooperate with investigations but hasn’t been
contacted yet by any outside agency. It has maintained that all its
investments are accounted for.
Just four days before Mr. Najib’s
London speech, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron convened a major
anticorruption summit at Lancaster House, a few hundred feet from the
Commonwealth headquarters. Mr. Cameron condemned unspecified corrupt
politicians who steal from their countries and use companies in offshore
financial centers to secretly buy properties in London to launder their
ill-gotten gains. He announced a new public register of all beneficial
owners of property in the U.K. Plans to include property already owned
and not just future transactions went further than some had expected.
Foreign companies own 44,000 London properties, according to the
government.
“We want to clean up our property market and show
there’s no home for the corrupt in Britain,” Mr. Cameron said at the
conference. “When people steal money from your country and hide it in
mine we will expose them and return the money.”
In response to a
question from the Journal at the anticorruption conference about Mr.
Najib, Mr. Cameron said that the 1MDB controversy won’t deter the U.K.
government from doing business with Malaysia. Mr. Cameron said that
while he had raised “concerns” with Malaysia, he still wants to promote
business ties.
“Britain is an international trading and investing
nation,” Mr. Cameron said. “There is no country that is entirely free
from corruption.”
From the Archives
Malaysian prime minister Najib
Razak is trying to contain the fallout from the investigations linking
him to 1MDB. A look at what you need to know about the state investment
fund. Photo: Getty Images (Originally published July 31, 2015)
Hugo Swire, a minister in the U.K. Foreign Office, attended the
Malaysian investment conference. He said there wasn’t a contradiction
between the British government’s support for the Malaysian investment
conference and the earlier anticorruption conference.
“What we
decided there and what was discussed there has universal application but
I am not aware that that should impact on anything we are discussing
this afternoon,” Mr. Swire said. “I am not setting myself up as a judge
and a jury.”
Prime Minister Najib was introduced at the investment conference by Jonathan Marland,
a member of the House of Lords and a former trade envoy for Mr.
Cameron. Mr. Marland described the conference as “a huge love-in.” He
thanked the Malaysian prime minister for his crucial role in securing
investment from a Malaysian group of companies in 2012 to redevelop
London’s Battersea power station, a multibillion-dollar project by the
River Thames.
“When our country was at its knees you came and
invested,” Mr. Marland told the Malaysian prime minister. He later told
the Journal that he didn’t want to “interfere” in Malaysian internal
affairs by commenting on 1MDB.
Write to Simon Clark at simon.clark@wsj.com, Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com and Bradley Hope at bradley.hope@wsj.com
