Malaysia reports $81 million from Deloitte in 1MDB settlement

Bangkok, Jun 3 (EFE).- Malaysia has received 336 million ringgits ($81 million) from audit firm Deloitte as part of a settlement related to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, authorities reported Thursday.

The country has so far received 16.386 billion ringgits ($3.9 billion) of seized and repatriated 1MDB funds, the finance ministry added in a statement.

Negotiations are also currently ongoing with KPMG, it said.

The 1MDB fund was the investment arm of the Malaysian state, but was declared insolvent as a result of the scandals and huge losses.

So far, the authorities have paid almost 40 percent of the 42 billion ringgits in debts accumulated by 1MDB and its subsidiaries.

Deloitte was fined in 2019 for failing to comply with its obligations to immediately declare irregularities during the 2015 and 2016 audit of a real estate company under the 1MDB umbrella.

Former prime minister Najib Razak created 1MDB in 2009 as a state tool dedicated to attracting investment and development projects beneficial to the country, but it ended up accumulating billions in losses.

The corruption plot came to light in 2015 when media reported that some 2.6 billion ringgits from 1MDB had ended up in private accounts of Najib, who went on to lose the 2018 election.

Last July, the former president, who defends his innocence, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after being found guilty of several crimes of corruption in the first of a series of macro-process trials related to the embezzlement of the state fund.

The United States Department of Justice estimates that some $4.5 billion were diverted from 1MDB, of which about $1 billion would have been laundered in the US.

The Malaysian businessman Jho Low, a former adviser to Najib, has been accused by Najib of being the ringleader of the corruption scheme and is on the run. EFE

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