Malaysia issues warrant for Jho Low

Malaysia has issued an arrest warrant for financier Low Taek Jho, who is wanted for questioning in a graft probe involving former prime minister Najib Razak and state fund 1MDB, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Malaysian authorities are also apparently preparing warrants for two more individuals, including a former Goldman Sachs Group banker, Roger Ng, Bloomberg added.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has issued an arrest warrant for Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, a director of SRC International, a former unit of 1Malaysia Development Berhad, and is preparing warrants for the fund’s former chief, Shahrol Halmi, Bloomberg said.

The antigraft agency, a lawyer for Low — or Jho Low, as the financier is popularly known — and Shahrol did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A representative of the MACC declined to give comment to Bloomberg.

Reuters was unable to reach Ng and Nik Faisal immediately.

Bloomberg said the four individuals had not been charged with wrongdoing, and it was not clear what suspicions underpinned the warrants.

On Thursday, the MACC issued a notice for Low and Nik Faisal to contact it immediately to help in its investigation. Low, through his lawyers, said he would co-operate.

Empowered by a new government elected in May, the anticorruption agency has relaunched a probe into why $10.6m from SRC was transferred into Najib’s bank account.

Antigraft agents have questioned both Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, following his shock election defeat in May to former mentor-turned-foe Mahathir Mohamad.

Low was regarded as close to Najib and his family and is seen as a central figure in the 1MDB affair, having allegedly advised on investments and negotiated deals, although he never held any official position in the fund.

The US justice department of has alleged that more than $4.5bn was misappropriated from 1MDB, and about $700m of that went to Najib’s personal bank accounts.

Najib, who founded 1MDB in 2009, has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Goldman Sachs had helped 1MDB raise $6.5bn in three bond sales in 2012 and 2013 to invest in energy projects and real estate to help boost the Malaysian economy.

Instead, more than $2.5bn raised from those bonds was misappropriated and used to buy artworks, luxury properties in New York and London and to pay off gambling debts in Las Vegas, the US justice department has alleged.

The bank said in November it had received requests from “various government bodies” and was co-operating, Bloomberg said.