The Justice Department announced Friday that it has reached an agreement to recover an additional $20 million in misappropriated 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds.
In June 2024, the department announced it had already recovered and returned and assisted in returning to Malaysia approximately $1.4 billion.
Beginning in 2016, a landmark effort encompassing now 43 civil forfeiture actions filed in the Central District of California and one in the District of Columbia by the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS) led to the seizure of over $1.7 billion in stolen assets.
This is the largest recovery to date under the Justice Department’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. The funds include both funds finally forfeited to the government and funds the department assisted in recovering and returning. The department continues to litigate actions against additional assets allegedly linked to this scheme.
According to court documents, the funds from 1MDB, formerly Malaysia’s investment development fund, were laundered through major financial institutions worldwide, including in the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, and Luxembourg.
As alleged in the civil forfeiture complaints, from 2009 through 2015, more than $4.5 billion in funds belonging to 1MDB were misappropriated by high-level officials of 1MDB and their associates, and Low Taek Jho, also known as aka Jho Low, through a criminal scheme involving international money laundering and embezzlement.
Some of the embezzlement proceeds were also allegedly used to pay bribes. As alleged in the complaint filed in this case, tens of millions of dollars in funds misappropriated from 1MDB were paid to companies owned and controlled by Frank White Jr. and others. The unlawful source of these funds was unknown to White Jr. at the time of the payment.
White Jr. has consented to $20 million in forfeiture in this case, all of which derives from these embezzled funds.
In conjunction with the agreement announced today, White Jr.’s company, DuSable Capital Management LLC (DuSable), submitted amended filings pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The amended filings disclose additional political activities performed by DuSable for the government of Malaysia, including lobbying the U.S. government to provide non-financial support for a solar project in Malaysia.
1MDB was created by the government of Malaysia to promote economic development in Malaysia through global partnerships and foreign direct investment. Its funds were intended to be used for improving the well-being of the Malaysian people.
Instead, funds held by 1MDB and proceeds of bonds issued for and on behalf of 1MDB were misappropriated and spent on a wide variety of extravagant items, including luxury homes and properties in Beverly Hills, California, New York, and London; a 300-foot superyacht; and fine art by Monet and Van Gogh.
The funds also were sent into numerous business investments, including a boutique hotel in Beverly Hills, a movie production company that made “The Wolf of Wall Street,” the redevelopment of the Park Lane Hotel in Manhattan, and shares in EMI, the largest private music-rights holder.
As alleged, other funds were provided to various public officials and co-conspirators.
