After a fractious two and a half weeks in the Swiss Federal Court in Bellinzona the prosecutors who have alleged serious fraud and aggravated money laundering charges against the two PetroSaudi directors, Tarek Obaid and Patrick Mahony, have finished their summing up. Their recommendation to the judges was for the maximum punishment available be meted out, nine years in jail for Patrick Mahony, accused of stealing at least $55 million, and ten years for Tarek Obaid, who is accused of walking away with over $720 million from the Malaysian fund. Moreover, given that both men are deemed a flight ..read more

The final day of questioning for the PetroSaudi defendant Tarek Obaid, charged in Switzerland with the theft of nearly two billion dollars from 1MDB, saw his lawyers once again name-dropping royal contacts. In their ongoing attempt to portray their client as a top level royal emissary of Saudi Arabia who was secretly negotiating international relations for Malaysia, they presented photos of Obaid featured among the guests of honour on royal occasions including with the Saudi Royal family and separately with Prince Charles, now the British king. According to the Swiss paper Le Temps ..read more

The PetroSaudi boss and alleged mega-fraudster, Tarek Obaid, spent last week arguing in the Swiss Court that he needs secrecy and protection from Saudi Arabia. However a court order released on Friday has undermined those claims, indicating his earlier actions had raised fears he might actually flee to Saudi Arabia instead. The order of March 15th, which has just been made public, reveals that the Swiss authorities had been placed on alert in October last year when, as a possible ruse to avoid receiving notifications, Obaid had cited a change of lawyers, referring pros ..read more

It would appear that the alleged Saudi fraudster and money launderer, Tarek Obaid, was in fact some sort of Gulf version of 007: a secret agent acting on the direct instructions of the former King of Saudi Arabia. He cannot, of course, prove such a sensitive matter, not only because a King ““does not write his instructions on a piece of paper” but also because he would be killed were he to open his lips. This seems to be the line of argument that Mr Obaid has embarked on in order to persuade the federal judges presiding over the 1MDB-related fraud trial in Bellinzona that they should ..read more

In high finance you get used to big sums and myriad deals. This could be why during his first day in the dock the former PetroSaudi Chief Investment Officer, Patrick Mahony, apparently struggled to remember the purported $700 million loan he’d organised to be ‘paid back’ by 1MDB on the first day of the so-called joint venture project with the Malaysian fund. According to reports, similar memory lapses afflicted him during much of the initial questioning being carried out by the Swiss judge into the fraud, theft and money laundering charges facing him and fellow former director Tarek Obaid ..read more

The two indicted directors of the sham PetroSaudi oil company, charged with defrauding Malaysia’s 1MDB fund of USD 1.83 billion, turned up for the first day of their trial at the Swiss Federal Court in Bellinzona today…. but immediately challenged the case against them. Lawyers for the owner of PetroSaudi, Tarek Obaid, and his Chief Investment Manager, Patrick Mahony, who plead not guilty, entered a slew of complaints even demanding one of the three judges, the president of the Court of Criminal Affairs, David Bouverat, be recused on grounds of alleged bias – a matter the lawyers claim to ..read more

More than nine years after Sarawak Report first reported details of the initial $1.83bn theft from Malaysia’s 1MDB fund through a bogus joint venture with their sham group of oil companies, the two key collaborators behind PetroSaudi International have finally been brought to trial. They stand accused by Swiss prosecutors of having enriched themselves by almost a billion dollars from criminal proceeds of that theft with the director and and present only shareholder, Tarek Obaid, personally approaching billionaire status. Obaid gained $580 million as a direct result of the thefts and at least a ..read more

The banner, under which the professed ‘Father of Modern Sarawak’ (Abdul Taib Mahmud) granted millions of hectares of timber licences to the six crony companies that still wield  undue influence in the state, was ‘Development’. Obituaries to the above ex-Governor have chimed on about this alleged benefit and modernisation, brought thanks to roads constructed by the likes of Samling, Shin Yan, Rimbunan Hijab, Ta Ann, KTS and WTK in order to strip out native lands (and destroy the world class natural heritage and cause climate change to boot). The lucky natives now have roads and have moved ..read more

Sarawak’s leadership is pushing for ‘greater autonomy’ and flagging up its own sovereign wealth.  In the process it must tighten up on governance and be rid of graft. For a high income country with a tiny population, enjoying enormous resources, the poverty of Sarawak’s indigenous populations is a continuing embarrassment to be urgently addressed. Inaccessibility is an issue inland, but it is not the main reason why support and development has failed to bring the prosperity of Sarawak’s resources back to the most vulnerable groups from whose lands the wealth derives. The reasons are graft ..read more

Yet another case of ‘banking blindness’ has emerged involving the transfer of 1MDB stolen money with the recently reported enforcement by the Swiss Federal Department of Finance of a CH40,000 (RM213,572) penalty against Pictet & Cie. The private bank was penalised for deciding against reporting suspicious activity through an account in the name of a wealthy Malaysian, one Renganathan (aka Ravi) Ponniah, which later turned out to have involved money purloined from 1MDB. Ponniah, who is also registered as a British citizen in filings in the UK’s Companies House, has emerged as a substantial ..read more