Malaysia has announced it will recover 12 artworks, including works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Henri Matisse, following negotiations with US authorities to repatriate assets linked to the global corruption scandal at 1MDB, a strategic development company under scrutiny for alleged fraud.
The works are in the custody of auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s in the United States and have an estimated combined value of more than $30 million, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said in a statement on Saturday. They were purchased by Jasmine Loo, a former public investment fund attorney, and were in the custody of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Talks this week in the United States between MACC, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also focused on fugitive Low Taek Jho and Fugees rapper Pras Michel, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison, in part for conspiring to help Low.
Low, identified as the mastermind of the 1MDB scandal, in which US$4.5 billion was illegally embezzled, is believed to be hiding in China. Malaysia has been working for years to repatriate Low, who was indicted in absentia in 2018 by a local court on eight counts of money laundering.
In September, Malaysia said it had recovered more assets linked to Low with help from Singapore, following a comprehensive civil forfeiture agreement between the financier and the DOJ.
The DOJ said that “there are still assets owned by Jho Low in Singapore that are not included in the US settlement agreement,” the MACC said.
MACC also reported that other topics discussed included former Goldman Sachs banker Tim Leissner; businessman Tarek Obaid and his company PetroSaudi; and Riza Aziz, film producer and son-in-law of former Prime Minister Najib Razak.
The FBI and DOJ reaffirmed their commitment to cross-border cooperation and strengthening international coordination with Malaysia “to ensure that any remaining assets located overseas can be traced, seized and recovered in accordance with the law,” MACC said.
A US court sentenced Leissner to two years in prison in May after he pleaded guilty to aiding in the looting of 1MDB. The German citizen was at the center of what U.S. prosecutors described as one of the largest financial frauds in history, in which billions of dollars were siphoned from the fund.
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