Top Malaysian Politicians Use Offshore Secrecy By Aidila Razak, Kuek Ser Kuang Keng, Wong Teck Chi and Steven Gan Published Online: April 8, 2013 Key members of the Malaysian government, their families, and well-heeled associates are among those owning secretive offshore companies in Singapore and the British Virgin Islands, according to a cache of leaked documents. They InClude former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad’s son Mirzan, Federal Territories and Urban Well-Being Minister Raja Nong Chik Zainal Abidin and Michael Chia, the alleged ‘bagman’ for Sa- bah Chief Minister Musa Aman. The files, which were obtained by the ICIJ and examined by Ma- laysiakini, show more than 1,500 Malaysians owning offshore com- panies in Singapore — dubbed as the new Switzerland — as well as the British Virgin Islands (BVI), an international tax haven. The ICIJ list comprises a curious mix of Forbes-listed tycoons, par- liamentarians, retired politicians, civil servants and their spouses, members of royal families, famous and infamous businesspeople, un- derworld kingpins and even former beauty queens. While some of the offshore com- panies carry out legitimate transac- tions, others are likely to be part of the 871.4 billion ringgit (about $285 billion) estimated by Washington-based financial watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI) to have been lost through illicit out- flows over a 10-year period. In 2010 alone, GFI reported that close to 200 billion ringgit (about $65 billion) of dirty money was si- phoned out of Malaysia, putting the country second only to Asian eco- nomic powerhouse China in global capital flight. The leaked ICIJ files provide se- cret records of offshore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories. “The hoard of documents rep- resents the biggest stockpile of inside information about the off- shore system ever obtained by a media organisation. The total size of the files, measured in gigabytes, is more than 160 times larger than the leak of US State Department documents by Wikileaks in 2010,” says ICIJ. Despite the extensive data, this is not the complete list of all off- shore companies around the world. Indeed, it is only the tip of the ice- berg.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 16:18:06 +0000
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