How Jho & Najib would curse to see the Equanimity now - would 1MDB thefts be just as easy to cover 5 years on?
KUALA LUMPUR (politicsnowmy.blogspot.com) - Jho Low, the infamous villain in Malaysia's epic 1MDB corruption debacle, is back in the news and with a vengeance.
Not only has the whereabouts of the chubby-faced financial scammer come under new scrutiny, his prized yacht has also been sold - and at nearly three times the price the Malaysian government, which seized it, had to auction it off for!
"Wherever he is, Jho Low must be cursing like mad. If only Najib and Umno hadn't lost the election in 2018, he might be a trillionaire today," mocked an analyst, who spoke to PoliticsNow Malaysia on the condition of anonymity.
Obviously, 'trillionaire' would be overstating Jho and his benefactor - the disgraced ex-prime minister Najib Razak's capabilities. But let's not underestimate either of their greed or propensity for corruption, cautioned the analyst.
"Put it this way, if Najib had stayed on as PM and Umno was still the ruling party, with inflation and the way prices have leapt, chances are Jho would have struck dozens more sure-fire deals - more than enough to cover up the gaping holes in 1MDB," said the analyst.
But what about the wreckage left in their wake as the duo rampaged through the world financial markets, abusing almost with contempt the global systems as they sewed their fraudulent deals? Also what about the foreign governments, including the US, Singapore and Switzerland, that screamed for blood after the 1MDB carnage led to the closure of one bank after another? Would they not have demanded 'justice'?
"We live in a capitalist world. Money can buy as well as settle almost everything under the sky. So long as Najib still headed the Malaysian government, even if there is a foreign arrest warrant out for him, he can still dodge it just like Russian president Vladimir Putin who is wanted over the Ukraine conflict. Of course, Putin and Najib are two very different cases. But yes, I believe so long as Najib had held onto power, he could negotiate, counter-offer, even strike deals to get himself and Jho off the hook. Even the US didn't directly name him or his wife Rosmah Mansor when they charged Jho and Najib's step son Riza Aziz," the analyst elaborated.
JHO STILL AT LARGE, NAJIB IN JAIL, UMNO STILL UNREPENTANT
Sadly for the duo and gladly for the rest of the world, Malaysian voters were not as gullible as thought.
Outraged at the 1MDB scandal that saw billions of dollars stolen and siphoned out of the country, they booted out Najib and Umno, in the process also bringing down the six-decades old hegemonic Umno government.
Najib, who has always denied guilt, is now in jail serving a reduced six-year jail sentence and lobbying to be placed under house detention, where he can still tug at the levers of top power while reposing in the plush comfort of his palatial home.
Umno, just as unrepentant, has managed to find its way back to the government although only as a reduced partner and is said to be still trying to strike secret deals with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to secure their ex-president Najib's freedom.
As for Jho, he has been a fugitive since the fateful 2018 general election. Now 43 years old, Jho's whereabouts remain a mystery to this day although the latest unconfirmed rumor is that he is now in Myanmar and speculation has always been rife that he had undergone facial surgery to escape detection.
5 YEARS ON, EQUANIMITY SELLS FOR 3 TIMES WHAT AUCTION COULD GET
Many in Malaysia will remember how proud Jho had been of the Equanimity as well as the news reports about how he took his mother to the shipyard to view it when it was in the final stages of commission. The 364-ft (111-metre) superyacht was valued at US$250 million (RM1.1 billion) when it was completed in 2014.
Mahathir Mohamad, the legendary ex-prime minister whose government had overthrown Najib and Umno, had seized Jho's prized ship and renamed it the Tranquility. Then still very much tarnished by the 1MDB scandal, there were few takers and Mahathir was forced to sell the Tranquility to the Genting Group for a discounted price of US$126 million (RM514 million) in 2019.
A shrewd politician and also one with a mischievous side, Mahathir had docked the Tranquility at Port Klang, allowing thousands Malaysians to catch a glimpse of the superyacht - a symbol of the ultra luxury that they could only dream of and which many could not even begin to imagine ever owning.
Able accommodate up to 26 guests and 31 crew members, pictures that were made public by the Mahathir administration showed the plushest of interiors, with inches-deep velvet carpeting and wood paneling of the finest quality, not to mention fixtures and fittings fit for the grandest of palaces.
Since 2021 and 2023, the Tranquility has undergone several refits and is now called the Draak, which is Dutch for “dragon”. It is now valued at US$335 million, which is nearly three times what Mahathir was forced to take five years ago and about 34% higher than Jho's original cost..
REALLY MYANMAR?
Living it up - but on stolen money?
Malaysian police insist they are still looking for Jho and have put out a notice with Interpol. But most people in the country, where politics and bribery often overtake professionalism and truth, take the claims with a pinch of salt.So far, the best guess was that Jho was hiding in China, but Beijing has repeatedly denied this. And it looks like the Chinese authorities may not be wrong.
According to Najib's lawyer, Jho is not there but very much closer by to home - in neighboring Myanmar, where he is allegedly being protected by the junta or the military regime that governs the Southeast Asian country. The lawyer, Shafee Abdullah, made this surmise after cross-examining another key witness Jasmine Loo in the ongoing trial against the ex-premier.
Najib, now 71, is still facing four charges of abusing his position to obtain RM2.3 billion from state-owned fund 1MDB, and another 21 money laundering charges involving the same amount. At the start, Najib was dogged in his insistence that he didn't know or had ever met Jho but as the dirt continued to emerge, that narrative has changed to one where apparently he was misled and duped by Jho.
Although Najib recently apologized for the scandal that plunged Malaysia into the hall of infamy as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, he did not admit guilt.
No surprises then that most Malaysians, other than his die-hard supporters and his Umno party, poured scorn on the apology - accusing him of hypocrisy and harboring ulterior motives such as trying to win home detention from Anwar or perhaps even a discharge from his court trials.
His relationship with Jho, who is a close friend of his stepson Riza Aziz, has soured since their heydays, where each lived life to the fullest, savoring the very best of the best that the man-made world could offer thanks to the plundering and looting that went on behind the scenes.
Written by Wong Choon Mei, PoliticsNow Malaysia
https://politicsnowmy.blogspot.com/
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