1MDB: Sheikh wouldn't get out of bed for under $135m, says witness

NEW YORK • One hundred million US dollars - that was the cost of doing business in the multibillion-dollar 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scam, former Goldman Sachs Group banker Tim Leissner testified.

Leissner, 52, the US government's star witness in its case against former Goldman banker Roger Ng, provided a description of the payment system on Wednesday for a jury in Brooklyn, New York. Leissner told of a meeting at which Low Taek Jho, known as Jho Low, the alleged architect of the massive fraud, spelt out who he said needed to be paid off for approval to raise and spend billions of dollars for Malaysia's wealth fund, 1MDB.

On the list were officials from Malaysia and Abu Dhabi, Leissner testified, including Malaysia's then Prime Minister Najib Razak and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates.

Low "said the sheikh would not get out of bed for less than US$100 million (S$135 million)", Leissner told the jury. Sheikh Mansour has not been accused of wrongdoing by the United States.

The UAE government media office and UAE Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

Leissner's testimony about the alleged payments came in his third day on the stand in the trial of Ng, his former subordinate at the bank and the only Goldman employee to be put on trial for the 1MDB scandal. Billions of dollars were siphoned off from funds meant for development in Malaysia.

Leissner pleaded guilty in 2018 and his cooperation in the trial may help him get a reduced sentence. Ng has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy and bribery charges, and his defence lawyers say he warned Goldman officials about doing business with Low.

The trial was interrupted on Wednesday by revelations that the government failed to turn over more than 15,500 documents related to Leissner. The judge has said she will pause the trial before defence lawyers begin questioning Leissner, and Ng's attorney has said he may ask for a mistrial.

The meeting Leissner described while on the stand took place at Low's home in the Mayfair section of London in 2012, not long before Goldman greenlighted work on 1MDB and raised US$1.75 billion for the fund, Leissner testified.

The project could not move forward unless 1MDB secured an outside guarantor for the debt it was about to take on, he told the jury.

He said Low, who held no official position at 1MDB but exerted outsize influence there, was able to get that guarantee from the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi and its subsidiaries.

At the meeting, Low took out a piece of paper and "started drawing boxes", Leissner told the court. On one side of the page were several boxes for Malaysian officials who needed to be paid off, and on the other were boxes for the Abu Dhabi officials, he said.

Low said that at the top levels, payments to the Malaysia and Abu Dhabi sides of the criminal enterprise "had to be the same and be perceived to be the same", Leissner testified. "In my mind, that meant both sides had to get US$100 million. I can't say I was surprised," he said, adding that years of working in emerging markets had taught him that bribes and kickbacks were sometimes linked with projects involving government officials.

At the end of his presentation, Low said Leissner and Ng would also be "taken care of", Leissner testified. "I was of course happy that I was about to make some additional money," he said. "I wanted to make more money, even though I was well paid at Goldman Sachs."

Leissner testified on Thursday that he also stole tens of millions of dollars from his accomplices in the fraud. He said "a large portion" of the US$6.5 billion raised through three 1MDB bond deals he helped organise with Ng was siphoned off to pay kickbacks and bribes to officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi. But the US$60 million in kickbacks he kept for himself was not enough, Leissner said.

When Low asked Leissner to "hold" €145 million (S$220 million) in a shell company in Mauritius, Leissner saw an opportunity. He told the jury that because much of his money was invested in illiquid assets, he kept US$80 million for himself.

Meanwhile, the former chief executive of Astro Malaysia Holdings said she is cooperating with Malaysia's anti-graft agency after recent allegations made against her.

Datuk Rohana Rozhan issued a statement via her lawyers on Friday after Leissner said in the trial that he had an affair with her and she blackmailed him into buying her a US$10 million house.

Leissner told a US court last week that he bought her a house in London in 2013 after she threatened to expose his involvement in the fund. His relationship with Ms Rohana lasted from 2003 to 2013, he told the jury.

According to the statement issued by Ms Rohana's lawyers, she said: "I've attended the offices of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and given them my full cooperation in their investigations."

BLOOMBERG, THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK