Clare Rewcastle-Brown's dogged investigation of Malaysian corruption broke open the 1MDB scandal. In an exclusive interview with finews.asia she tells about the next shoe to drop in finance.
Clare Rewcastle-Brown, ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak is standing trial over 1MDB in Malaysia. Has anything new, to you, emerged?
The trial gives people like me the opportunity to actually go through the whole thing forensically. The anatomy of a major financial scandal like no one has seen before lays out so many of the fundamental weaknesses of our financial systems, and our regulations and deliberate negligence when it comes to large sums of money flushing through our professional institutions.
What about the role of the banks?
I think Goldman Sachs is in real trouble. Everyone says they're the masters of the universe, the Teflon bank. U.S. court documents make for devastating reading in showing culpability right to the top. And that puts them into a really difficult situation.
What about individual bankers like Hanspeter Brunner of BSI, who had Jho Low as a client?
One-time Asian banker of the year! I’d thought he'd slunk out but was told recently he's marooned in Singapore. [Brunner's lawyer didn't respond to a request for comment from finews.asia]
Dozens of bankers sanctioned, banned, and even convicted criminally and a former PM in the dock, following your reporting. You must feel gratified.
I can’t feel pleased about being the cause of anyone going to jail, but our job as a journalist is to hold people accountable. The most powerful have to understand that they’re not above the law.
What needs to happen in terms of banks and bankers themselves?
I'd like to see Goldman Sachs lose its license and a couple of bankers go to jail. Tim Leissner [Goldman Sachs’ former head of southeast Asia] is looking at a potential jail sentence.
What’s the shoe that hasn’t dropped yet in 1MDB?
What has happened to the Swiss investigation against Petrosaudi directors themselves, mainly Tarek Obaid, who lives in Geneva as a Saudi-Swiss citizen?
«If banks are guilty, then what about Petrosaudi directors?»
The crimes for which he is being investigated are not just financial. They are very serious crimes of false imprisonment, blackmail, and conspiring to get someone jailed by bribing foreign officials.
You’re referring to Xavier Justo, the Swiss whistleblower who sat in a jail in Bangkok for 18 months.
Yes. Petrosaudi’s representatives are still sitting on a lot of money – stolen, and I want to know what the Swiss are going do about it. If the banks have been found guilty of money laundering, then what is the delay here?
You’re an investigative journalist who began looking into this nearly ten years ago. How did you end up here?
It's been a fascinating journey. Some big media companies should have been doing this – but they weren't. I could see there was a humongous global story. I thought, ‘Well, nobody else seems to be doing their job, and one person is better than nobody, I guess.’
You began reporting on corruption in Malaysia.
I started my blog and discovered the power of the internet. You can find out so much in front of your computer, with a glass of wine at one in the morning after the kids have gone to bed (laughs).
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