UAE envoy's firms linked to Malaysia 1MDB fraud: report

Companies connected to the UAE's ambassador to the US received $66mn from offshore accounts that contained money allegedly embezzled from Malaysia's 1MDB investment fund, Al Jazeera reported, based on documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

In 2015, allegations emerged that billions of dollars were stolen from Malaysia's state-owned 1MDB.The WSJ said leaked e-mails of ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba included "descriptions of meetings between Shaher Awartani, an Abu Dhabi-based business partner of Otaiba, and Jho Low, the Malaysian financier the [US] justice department says was the central conspirator in the alleged $4.5bn 1MDB fraud".The US justice department said that the billions had been stolen from 1MDB by people close to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.The fund is also at the centre of investigations in many other countries, including the UAE and Singapore.Najib has denied any wrongdoing and 1MBD officials have said they have found no evidence of misappropriation.According to the WSJ, in addition to the meetings between Awartani and Low, "a Singapore criminal case against a Swiss banker disclosed $50mn of payments made to the companies connected to Otaiba, including Densmore Investments Ltd in the British Virgin Islands and Silver Coast Construction and Boring in the UAE". The WSJ added: "In separate documents reviewed by the Journal related to Singapore's investigation of alleged 1MDB-linked money laundering, authorities describe Densmore as controlled by Messrs Otaiba and Awartani. Those documents also describe another $16mn of separate payments to Densmore in the form of loans from a company connected to the alleged fraud."Hackers from a group that calls itself "Global Leaks" began leaking e-mails from al-Otaiba's inbox recently.According to the WSJ, a number of those e-mails show communications between al-Otaiba, Awartani and Low."On May 5, 2015, a Dubai-based financial executive working at a company controlled by Messrs Otaiba and Awartani told Otaiba in an e-mail that Low had instructed the men to close their accounts at BSI Bank, a private Swiss bank that investigators in the US, Switzerland and Singapore say played an instrumental role in the alleged 1MDB fraud. Densmore held an account at BSI."Further, the WSJ said al-Otaiba declined to comment on its findings, but a spokeswoman for the UAE embassy told the news organisation that the embassy "noted the existence of numerous orchestrated dossiers that have been prepared … targeting the ambassador and which are purported to contain hacked e-mails".She also said the embassy "will not talk to or respond to any of these dossiers".