The Malaysian Supreme Court on Friday sentenced former Prime Minister Najib Razak to an additional fifteen years in prison in the corruption scandal surrounding the Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB. That report local media, including the New Straits Times.
Najib must also pay a fine of 13.4 billion Malaysian ringgit, equivalent to 2.81 billion euros. If the 72-year-old former politician does not meet this requirement, he faces another 40 years in prison.
Najib has been in prison since 2022 over the case. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison in 2020, but managed to postpone his prison sentence for two years by appealing each time. At the beginning of 2024, Malaysian King Ibrahim halved Najib’s prison sentence to six years. The politician would therefore be released in 2028, but that will now be 2043 at the earliest.
The Wolf of Wall Street
The 1MDB scandal is considered one of the largest corruption cases in the world. Najib formed the sovereign wealth fund shortly after taking office as prime minister in 2009. Formally the fund was intended to attract foreign investment, but in reality it built up billions in debt.
In the meantime, Najib channeled enormous amounts of money to his private accounts and projects in his environment: according to prosecutors, approximately 4.5 billion euros disappeared from the fund. The money ended up in art, real estate, and probably also in the production of Hollywood films The Wolf of Wall Street.
The scam first came to light in 2015, when The Wall Street Journal Accused Najib – then Prime Minister of Malaysia – of transferring the equivalent of 680 million euros to his private accounts. Najib and an attorney general appointed by himself denied the accusations: the money in his account was said to have been a donation from a Saudi prince.
12,000 pieces of jewelry
After Najib’s party lost the 2018 elections, a large-scale investigation was launched and the former prime minister was arrested. In May that year, the Malaysian police seized 12,000 pieces of jewelry, 567 handbags, 434 watches and 234 sunglasses from the former prime minister after house searches. Total value of the confiscated goods: approximately 234 million euros.
The scandal also affected the American Goldman Sachs, which was involved in siphoning off the money. Two bankers from the investment bank were sentenced to prison terms of two and ten years for their role. Goldman itself settled for billions of dollars with the American and Malaysian authorities.
According to the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times Razak is expected to appeal against the ruling on Monday. The alleged mastermind behind the billion-dollar fraud, businessman Jho Low, is still on the run.
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