Explainer: Malaysia's ex-PM Najib and the multi-billion dollar 1MDB scandal

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Top Highlights

• Malaysia's top court

• former prime minister Najib Razak

• 12-year prison sentence

• August 23, 2022

• 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)

• 1MDB was a sovereign fund set up in 2009

• help of Malaysian financier Jho Low

• promote economic development.

• Najib

• prime minister from 2009 to 2018,

• co-founded 1MDB

• chaired its advisory board until 2016.

• raised billions of dollars in bonds for use in investment projects and joint ventures between 2009 and 2013.

• kleptocracy investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ)

• $4.5 billion

• diverted to offshore bank accounts and shell companies

• linked to Low.

• billions more remain unaccounted for.

• buy luxury assets and real estate for Low and his associates,

• private jet, a superyacht, hotels, jewelry, and to finance the 2013 Hollywood film "The Wolf of Wall Street",