Ex-Goldman Banker in 1MDB Case Yields on U.S. Extradition -- Update
February 16 2019 - 12:52AM
Dow Jones News
By Yantoultra Ngui
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia--A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker
has agreed to be extradited to the U.S. from Malaysia to contest
charges over one of the world's largest financial scandals, his
lawyer said.
Malaysian citizen Roger Ng is accused of aiding his boss, Tim
Leissner--then Goldman's head of Southeast Asia--in siphoning off
billions of dollars from Malaysian state investment fund 1Malaysia
Development Bhd., or 1MDB. Mr. Leissner pleaded guilty in the U.S.
last year to conspiring to launder money and violate laws against
bribery of foreign officials.
"As we have said all along, we are outraged that any employee of
the firm would undertake the actions detailed in the government's
charges," a Goldman spokesman said Friday.
In early November U.S. prosecutors indicted Mr. Ng and another
Malaysian, the financier Jho Low-- alleged mastermind of the 1MDB
fraud--on three counts of conspiring to violate foreign-antibribery
laws and launder money. Mr. Ng, who is 51 years old, was later
arrested at the request of U.S. authorities, and is in custody.
Mr. Ng has fought extradition, but in a routine session in a
Kuala Lumpur court on Friday, his lawyer, Tan Hock Chuan, said his
client had agreed to go to the U.S. to be tried in federal court in
the Eastern District of New York.
Mr. Tan said it is up to Malaysia's attorney general to decide
whether to allow the extradition or to try Mr. Ng first on the four
criminal charges against him in Malaysia over his role in three
bond sales underwritten and arranged by Goldman. He has pleaded not
guilty to charges of omitting material information and publishing
untrue statements. The sales raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB--much of
which has gone missing.
The attorney general's office didn't respond to a request for
comment.
Mr. Ng's legal team said that an agreement had been reached with
the U.S. Justice Department on bail and other terms, and that Mr.
Ng requested to be sent to the U.S. within 30 days. They declined
to give more details. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Nicole
Navas Oxman, said in an email that the department "generally does
not comment on extradition-related matters until a defendant is in
the U.S."
Speaking to reporters after the court session, Mr. Tan said that
he wasn't sure why Mr. Ng had changed his mind. Legal experts had
said from the outset that he had little chance of avoiding
extradition.
The financial scandals at 1MDB, a fund created by then-Prime
Minister Najib Razak in 2009 to boost the country's economy, have
sparked investigations in a number of nations, including
Switzerland and the U.S. Public anger over the scandals played a
major role in Mr. Najib's stunning election defeat last year. Mr.
Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has pleaded not
guilty to all the 42 charges made against him in Malaysia related
to 1MDB and a former 1MDB unit called SRC. Trial dates haven't been
set.
Malaysia's new government is trying to recover billions of
dollars of 1MDB-related losses. In December authorities there filed
criminal charges against three Goldman Sachs units, but last month
the finance minister said the country would consider dropping them
if Goldman compensated it for the full amount raised.
Goldman said it would fight the allegations. It has blamed rogue
employees, and has said it was misled by the Malaysian government
and 1MDB about the use of proceeds from the transactions.
Write to Yantoultra Ngui at yantoultra.ngui@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 16, 2019 00:37 ET (05:37 GMT)
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