The scandal-hit fund says Amicorp played “a critical role” in facilitating the laundering of more than $7 billion.
Scandal-hit Malaysian fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad has announced it will sue business services provider Amicorp Group and its CEO Toine Knipping for more than $1 billion for allegedly conducting fraudulent transactions worth more than $7 billion over a five-year period US dollars were made possible.
The insolvent 1MDB claims that Amicorp, headquartered in Hong Kong, created and managed a complex conspiracy consisting of layers of shell companies, sham transactions and fraudulent financial structures that concealed the true origin and destination of the funds.
“We are bringing this lawsuit to seek justice for the role we believe Amicorp played in laundering and ultimately squandering billions of dollars in stolen funds,” 1MDB said in a statement on Monday.
It highlighted that Amicorp “played a critical role in defrauding the sovereign wealth fund by facilitating the laundering of over $7 billion in misappropriated funds between 2009 and 2014.”
According to 1MDB, stolen funds were allegedly routed through Singapore, Barbados, Curaçao, Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands.
In addition, it was alleged that Amicorp provided access to the global financial system through Amicorp Bank, registered in Barbados, and provided fund companies and banking services to enable the repeated circulation of assets, thereby creating the impression that the assets had been invested by 1MDB and The income that would have been generated at that time had actually been embezzled.
The Malaysian fund is seeking damages for losses it suffered as a result of its “dishonest” assistance to Amicorp in breaches of fiduciary duty and conspiring to commit unlawful acts. The lawsuit is part of a global effort to recover stolen 1MDB assets.
Last week, a Malaysian court approved the government’s request to bar PetroSaudi International and its chief executive from accessing $340 million related to 1MDB.
The Malaysian ruling came after Tarek Obaid, the Swiss-Saudi chief executive of the oil exploration and production company, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Switzerland in August for embezzling $1.8 billion from 1MDB.
The billion-dollar financial scandal has led to criminal investigations worldwide for years, including in the USA, Switzerland and Singapore.
Investigators in Malaysia and the United States had previously estimated that several people withdrew $4.5 billion from 1MDB since its founding in 2009 and used it to buy items ranging from works of art to a superyacht.
The scandal also led to the fall of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government in 2018. Najib is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption related to a massive financial scandal at 1MDB.
He has appealed to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest and a hearing has been scheduled for January 6.
