Malaysian Deputy Finance Minister Liew Chin Tong on Thursday denied that fugitive businessman Jho Low had entered the country for talks linked to the theft of billions of dollars from state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Low, whose full name is Low Taek Jho, faces multiple charges including corruption and money laundering in the United States and Malaysia over his alleged central role in misappropriating at least 4.5 billion dollars from 1MDB. He has consistently denied wrongdoing, and his whereabouts are unknown.
News portal Sarawak Report broke the 1MDB scandal and has continued reporting on it since. In May, it reported that Low had secretly re-entered Malaysia last year as part of a Chinese delegation, to negotiate debts linked to the fund. The Wall Street Journal separately reported that Low was in talks with Malaysian authorities on returning 1MDB-linked assets.
Liew denied the details of both reports after being questioned in parliament by lawmakers on 1MDB matters. “I deny the allegations,” he said.
Liew told parliament the government still had to pay an estimated 20.1 billion ringgit, or 4.9 billion dollars, of 1MDB’s debts. The fund’s total obligations stood at 51.4 billion ringgit, he said, adding that Malaysia has so far recovered 31.3 billion ringgit in 1MDB-linked assets.
Asset recovery efforts were ongoing, Liew said, including criminal and civil proceedings against Low as well as financial institutions that enabled the scandal.
Cyprus villa seized
A Nicosia district court issued a confiscation order in June for Low’s luxury seaside villa in Ayia Napa. The Attorney General’s office said it had jointly applied for the seizure with the Unit for Combating Money Laundering, and that Low’s legal team did not oppose it.
Low bought the property, in the Cape Greco area of Ayia Napa, in 2015 for around 5.9 million euros. He used the purchase to secure Cypriot citizenship under the country’s since-abolished Citizenship by Investment Programme, receiving his passport the same day the Cabinet approved his application, September 19, 2015.
How Low secured his passport
Low signed with citizenship broker Henley & Partners in May 2015. The firm has said it identified Low as high-risk due to his political exposure and rejected him as a client, adding that it was never mandated by him. Investigative reporting by OCCRP, however, found that Henley worked with Low through a Cypriot intermediary company, earning 60,000 euros from his citizenship fee and a further 650,000 euros for helping arrange the villa purchase.
The purchase itself triggered anti-money-laundering alerts at the Bank of Cyprus, which reported Low to Cyprus’s anti-money-laundering unit, MOKAS, the following month.
The late Archbishop Chrysostomos II also wrote to Cyprus’s then-Interior Minister that August, requesting speedy naturalisation for Low, followed by a second letter days later. On September 19, the day Low’s citizenship was approved, the Archdiocese received a 300,000-euro payment from him, which the Archbishop later described as a donation.
Cyprus stripped Low of his citizenship in a process that began in 2019 and concluded in June 2024, after an independent commission rejected his appeal.
(With information from Reuters)
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