The Department of Justice’s asset recovery efforts linked to the 1MDB scandal has totaled $1.1 billion in value – a record-high.
The latest settlement involved a civil forfeiture case against assets acquired by Khandem al-Qubaisi using funds misappropriated from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB and laundered through financiers in the U.S. Switzerland, Singapore and Luxembourg. Al-Qubaisi, reportedly sentenced to a 15 year of prison last year, was the managing director of Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company which guaranteed bonds for 1MDB in 2012, arranged by Goldman Sachs.
According to a DoJ statement, $49 million was recovered which when totaled with previous 1MDB-related money laundering and bribery cases represented an all-time record of $1.1 billion.
«This represents the largest recovery to date under the department’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative and the largest civil forfeiture ever concluded by the Justice Department,» the statement said.
