After being found guilty of aiding in the theft of millions of dollars from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng was given a 10-year prison term on Thursday.
Last April, a federal jury in Brooklyn found Ng, Goldman’s former head of investment banking in Malaysia, guilty of assisting his former employer Tim Leissner in embezzling funds, laundering the proceeds, and bribing government officials to secure business.
Ex-Goldman Banker Sentenced To 10 Years
The allegations come from $6.5 billion in bonds sold by Goldman in 2012 and 2013 on behalf of 1MDB, which was formed to finance Malaysian development projects.
According to US authorities, $4.5 billion of that amount was embezzled by politicians, bankers, and their allies in one of the greatest Wall Street scams in history.
Goldman was the lead lender on a series of bond sales that produced more than $6.5 billion for 1MDB funds that were ostensibly intended to fund Malaysian public works projects.
Nevertheless, investigators claim that Jho Low, a Malaysian financier and suspected mastermind of the scheme, and his accomplices misappropriated much of that money in order to pay $1.6 billion in bribes to more than a dozen government officials. Low and his accomplices’ luxurious lives were also supported by the diverted funds.
Federal prosecutors have claimed that other people, including the family of the late Malaysian prime leader Najib Razak and Abu Dhabi government officials, received hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for authorizing Goldman as the primary underwriter on the bond sales.
After being removed from office, Najib was found guilty by a Malaysian court and given a 12-year maximum term.
Read more: Israel West Bank: 6 Palestinian suspects were slain, including a suspected Hamas gunman
1MDB Bribery Scandal
The 1MDB bribery scandal dealt one of Wall Street’s most illustrious investment banks a severe reputational blow. Global regulators and federal prosecutors will receive $5 billion in fines from Goldman’s Malaysian affiliate after it entered a guilty plea to allegations of international bribery.
On a comparable accusation, the parent corporation of the bank signed a three-year arrangement for deferred prosecution.
Ng had entered a plea of not guilty, claiming that the $35 million in bribe payments he was suspected of receiving were actually the profit from an investment his wife had made.
Leissner oversaw operations in Southeast Asia for Goldman. As part of a cooperation arrangement, he admitted guilt and gave false testimony against Ng. He hasn’t yet received a sentence.
Indicted alongside Ng in 2018 but still at large is Malaysian banker Jho Low, who is thought to be the scheme’s architect. Low is allegedly in China, a claim Beijing refutes according to Malaysian officials.
Goldman agreed to pay $2.9 billion in October 2020 and its Malaysian division admitted admission to an allegation of wrongdoing.
Read more: Toblerone to remove Matterhorn peak from chocolate packaging logo
