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Zurich — Swiss prosecutors said on Tuesday they were investigating two officials of energy group PetroSaudi International as part of a wider inquiry into the suspected theft of assets from Malaysia’s 1MDB state fund.
PetroSaudi said on Tuesday it was not the subject of any criminal investigations, denied any wrongdoing linked to its joint venture with the Malaysian fund and said none of its officials had been involved in misappropriating any funds.
The news of the Swiss investigations is piling pressure on Malaysia’s government in the build-up to May 9 national elections. 1MDB is at the centre of money-laundering investigations in at least six countries, including Switzerland, the US and Singapore. A total of $4.5bn was misappropriated by high-level officials of the fund and their associates, according to civil lawsuits filed by the US department of justice.
The Swiss attorney-general’s office said on Tuesday it had launched investigations into two officials from PetroSaudi, which ran an energy joint venture with 1MDB from 2009 to 2012.
The investigations, launched in November 2017, were linked to “suspicions of criminal mismanagement, fraud, bribery of foreign public officials, aggravated money laundering and misconduct in public office,” the office said. “One of the two suspects is also suspected of document forgery,” it added, without identifying either suspect.
The office kept the inquiries under wraps to avoid jeopardising the investigation.
Reuters
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