Najib’s trial: Money from 1MDB ending up in PM’s account a ‘red flag’ that could not be ignored, says witness

KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 — BSI Bank would have put a stop to 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s (1MDB) transactions if it had known at the time that money from the Malaysian-owned company would eventually end up in then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s bank account, a former bank official told the High Court today.

Former BSI Singapore banker Kevin Michael Swampillai said this while testifying as the 44th prosecution witness in Najib’s trial over RM2.28 billion of 1MDB funds which allegedly entered the latter’s private bank accounts.

Swampillai had previously testified as to how 1MDB’s subsidiaries Brazen Sky Limited and 1MDB Global Investment Limited (1MDB GIL) had opened bank accounts in BSI Bank, and how money was sent in and out to fiduciary funds to give the illusion that 1MDB funds were being invested in genuine investments.

Today, Swampillai, who was former head of BSI Singapore’s wealth management services, said it was quite clear that “layering” was being carried out to disguise the source of funds for 1MDB’s purported investments and the ultimate beneficiaries of these funds.

Deputy public prosecutor Mohamad Mustaffa P. Kunyalam then showed Swampillai a chart with the money trail of US$2.721 billion that flowed out from 1MDB GIL’s BSI bank account on March 19, 2013 before funds eventually flowed to Granton Property Holding and Tanore Finance Corporation, and finally with US$681 million of these funds having flowed between March 21 to April 10, 2013 into an account named “AmPrivate Banking-MR” with the account number ending 9694.

Mustaffa said the AmPrivate Banking-MR account under AmBank belongs to Najib.

Mustaffa: And that is the account of Datuk Seri Najib. As a banker, if you know the money for this investment for 1MDB GIL were to be transacted into multiple layering and it goes finally into prime minister of Malaysia as end recipient, would you as a banker allow such transaction to go through?”

Swampillai: No.

Mustaffa: Why wouldn’t you?

Swampillai: Because the obvious fact is it’s the prime minister of Malaysia, a politically-exposed person, having some kind of link to 1MDB being a government-linked entity, so all of these would be red flags. And had that particular account have been with BSI Bank, I think the red flags would have been too serious to ignore. It would have been stopped.

However, at the time of the transactions, BSI was not aware that the prime minister of Malaysia’s account would be the final recipient of these funds, Swampillai confirmed.

Former Singapore-based banker Kevin Michael Swampillai arrives at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex, in Kuala Lumpur July 27, 2023. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

Mustaffa then showed another chart which showed that money raised from bonds issued by 1MDB Energy Ltd and 1MDB Energy (Langat) Ltd were in 2012 “invested”, with the funds flowing through various entities and fiduciary funds, before US$30 million of that money eventually ending up ing the same AmPrivate Banking-MR bank account “which happens to be account of Datuk Seri Najib”.

Mustaffa then asked: “And that amount transacted that went into the account was US$30 million in total. Would you allow this transaction to go through if you knew the final recipient would be the prime minister of Malaysia?”

Swampillai, who was involved in the transactions when money flowed through fiduciary funds to be “invested”, replied: “Same answer as before, no, it would not have been allowed to go through.”

Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor is pictured at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex, in Kuala Lumpur July 27, 2023. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

Similarly, Mustaffa showed another chart of a trail of funds in 2014 that were layered through various entities, before the equivalent of RM45 million reached an AmPrivate Banking account belonging to Najib, again asking: “Would you allow such transaction to go through if you knew it would finally be in the account of prime minister of Malaysia or finance minister?”

Swampillai replied: “No, the bank would not have allowed it.”

He completed his testimony today.

Swampillai had previously testified that he believed the transactions through 1MDB-linked companies in the fiduciary funds was with Najib’s knowledge, having said that BSI Bank had asked “persistent questions” about where the money channelled through the fiduciary funds would finally end at and what it would be used for.

But Swampillai had previously said Low Taek Jho — a fugitive better known as Jho Low and purported to be Najib’s adviser in the past — had consistently responded by claiming that the transactions were “highly confidential” government-to-government investments and no further information could be made available.

Bank Negara Malaysia’s former governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz is expected to testify as the 46th prosecution witness this afternoon.

Najib was seen wearing a light brown suit, while his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor was also seen sitting in the courtroom during the trial.

On the first day of trial, the prosecution had said it would show that 1MDB funds had been transferred in multiple transactions to Najib’s accounts, namely US$20 million equivalent to RM60,629,839.43 or over RM60 million from the first phase, US$30 million equivalent to RM90,899,927.28 or over RM90 million (second phase), US$681 million equivalent to RM2,081,476,926 or over RM2 billion (third phase), and transactions in British pound that were equivalent to RM4,093,500 and RM45,837,485.70 or a combined total of RM49,930,985.70 million or over RM49 million (fourth phase).

The total of 1MDB funds that the prosecution had said it would prove had entered Najib’s accounts from all four phases would come up to a total of RM2,282,937,678.41 or over RM2.28 billion.