The individual then cashed it all out.
The biggest question raised by this, said Rafizi, was the lack of action by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM).
This, he said, was especially so as any cash withdrawal of such a huge amount would by right raise a red flag, and BNM, as the country’s central bank, would have been alerted to it at least within a few weeks, he said.
“I want to know why BNM did not charge the individual for money laundering?
“Because his actions – taking out and handling RM43 million in cash – surely would have been noticed by BNM,” he told a press conference at his Invoke office here.
Rafizi had earlier explained how the money had flowed from SRC, a former subsidiary of 1MDB, to the accounts of the company that the individual owned.
According to one of two diagrams the Pandan MP distributed to the press, RM39.7 million was moved from SRC to the account of a first company on Jan 9, 2015.
On the same day, the said first company funnelled RM40 million into the account of a second company, which, four days later, issued seven RM5 million cheques to the enterprise owned by the individual mentioned above.
Between Jan 15 and Jan 20 that year, this individual cashed out all the money, totalling RM35 million, by issuing 69 cheques to himself, Rafizi claimed.
The second diagram showed a series of transactions that occurred between Dec 24 and Dec 31, 2014.
It started with SRC transferring RM40 million to the first company, which channelled the money to the second company. This second company then transferred RM8 million to another account belonging to the enterprise.
The individual, on Dec 31, 2014, cashed out the RM8 million, again, by issuing 16 RM500,000 cheques to himself.
“I have checked the enterprise’s documents with the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM), and I can confirm that the enterprise belongs to the individual I named,” said Rafizi.
The enterprise’s registration with SSM was made in 2013, and had expired on Nov 6, 2014, he said, before pointing out that the transactions he mentioned above had all taken place after the enterprise’s registration expiration date.
“So (the former BNM governor) Zeti Aziz and the current BNM governor have to explain why they didn’t charge the individual for money laundering because for someone to handle cash totalling RM43 million in three weeks would surely raise a red flag,” added Rafizi.
He also said the individual was never probed by BNM for the transactions, although he was one of the first five people arrested by a special task force that was formed later that year to investigate the alleged misappropriation of 1MDB funds.
As part of its investigations, the task force had conducted raids on SRC International Sdn Bhd, Gandingan Mentari Sdn Bhd and Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd, the then attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail had said.
The task force comprising BNM, the police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, and the Attorney-General’s office, was disbanded the same year.
Rafizi said he would be making a new report to BNM, to urge the central bank to open a money laundering investigation against the individual, so the latter may be taken to court to explain what had happened to the money.
This was because he was concerned that the money might have gone into the pockets of “certain politicians”, said Rafizi.
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