Goldman Sachs to face criminal charges in multibillion-dollar fraud scheme

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs and two former executives on Monday for their role in the alleged multibillion-dollar ransacking of state investment fund 1MDB.

Attorney General Tommy Thomas said the government is seeking several billion dollars in fines from Goldman Sachs for breaches of securities laws that involved it making false and misleading statements to investors.

He said his office will seek prison sentences of up to 10 years for the former Goldman executives, Roger Ng Chong Hwa and Tim Leissner, who is married to model Kimora Lee Simmons.

Chelsea’s husband allegedly used Clinton Foundation ties to boost his failing Eaglevale hedge fund--
co-founded with Goldman Sachs execs. In a hacked email to Podesta, ex-Clinton aide Doug Band claims
Marc Mezvinsky traded on Clinton family ties to help his failing hedge fund (now shuttered).

By KENNETH P. VOGEL, Politico staff, 11/06/2016

Chelsea Clinton’s husband Marc Mezvinsky extended invitations to a Clinton Foundation poker event to rich Clinton supporters he was courting as investors in his hedge fund, and he also relied on a billionaire foundation donor to raise money for the fund, according to the WikiLeaks documents. They also assert that he had his wife Chelsea Clinton make calls to set up meetings with potential investors who support her family’s political and charitable endeavors.

The documents — a memo and an email — were written in late 2011 and early 2012, respectively, by ex-Clinton aide Doug Band. They were sent to family confidants including John Podesta, who is now serving as Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, and Cheryl Mills, who was Clinton’s State Department chief of staff. They were hacked from Podesta’s Gmail account and made public Sunday in the latest batch of Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks.

At the time Band wrote them, Mezvinsky, who had been an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, was working with two partners to raise capital to launch a hedge fund of their own called Eaglevale Partners. The word among rich Clinton backers on Wall Street was that the family would look favorably on investments in Eaglevale, a major Manhattan investor told POLITICO.

That sentiment seems to be corroborated by the newly released WikiLeaks, which could provide fodder for critics, including Clinton’s Republican rival Donald Trump, who argue that the Clintons have used their charitable foundation to try to enrich themselves. Band did not respond to requests for comment Sunday, nor did representatives for Chelsea Clinton or the Clinton Foundation, while an Eaglevale spokesman declined to comment or to make Mezvinsky available for comment.

THE PODESTA EMAILS----In a Jan. 2012 email to Podesta, Mills and current Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Band wrote that Mezvinsky invited “several potential investors” for his hedge fund “and a few current business ones” to a foundation poker night fundraiser he had been planning. “I assume all are contributing to the foundation, which of course isn't the point,” Band wrote. “The entire plan of his has been to use this for his business.” In the same email, Band — referring to Chelsea Clinton by her initials — wrote that Mezvinsky “has CVC making some calls for him to get mtgs with some clinton people.” And, in a Nov. 2011 memo released Sunday, Band wrote that major Clinton Foundation donor Marc Lasry was “assisting Marc Mezvinsky – Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky’s husband – in raising money for his new fund.”

Lasry, who also employed Chelsea Clinton as a chemical industry analyst at his own hedge fund Avenue Capital Group from late 2006 until 2008, declined to comment. But Band, in his Jan. 2012 email, suggested that Mezvinsky needed to lean on his wealthy and well-connected in-laws because he wasn’t having much luck generating investor interest in his hedge fund on his own. “His raising money for his own fund hasn't been going well,” wrote Band, who at the time was engaged in something of a turf war with Chelsea Clinton. She had accused Band, who had worked closely for years with Bill Clinton at the foundation and on for-profit ventures, of using his foundation role to supplement his money-making ventures.

--SNIP--

SOURCE https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/chelsea-clinton-foundation-marc-husband-230859

'Wolf of Wall Street' producer charged with 1MDB money laundering in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia on Friday charged one of the “Wolf of Wall Street” film producers, and stepson of former prime minister Najib Razak, with money laundering, alleging he misappropriated $248 million linked to state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Riza Aziz, stepson of former Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak, arrives at a court in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia July 5, 2019. REUTERS/Lai Seng Sin Riza Aziz, a co-founder of Hollywood production firm Red Granite Pictures that was behind the Oscar-nominated film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” was charged with five counts of money laundering.

Prosecutors alleged Riza received a total of $248 million as a result of misappropriation of 1MDB funds.

Riza pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Each charge carries a financial penalty of up to five million ringgit ($1.21 million), a maximum jail term of five years, or both.

The court granted Riza bail at one million ringgit and asked him to surrender his passports.

After unexpectedly losing an election to Mahathir Mohamad in May last year, Najib has been slapped with a series of corruption charges, mostly tied to losses at now-defunct 1MDB.

Najib, who founded 1MDB in 2009, faces 42 criminal charges related to huge losses at the fund and other state entities. He has pleaded not guilty and has consistently denied wrongdoing.

The U.S. Justice Department has estimated that a total of $4.5 billion was misappropriated by high-level officials at 1MDB and their associates between 2009 and 2014.

1MDB is being investigated in at least six countries for alleged money laundering and graft.

U.S. prosecutors have said Red Granite had financed three films using funds they suspect were stolen from 1MDB.

Red Granite paid the U.S. government $60 million in September 2017 to settle a civil forfeiture claim over the rights to “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

($1 = 4.1340 ringgit)

Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Michael Perry

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