Malaysia 1MDB scandal: Switzerland begins fraud trial of Saudi oil executives linked to sovereign wealth fund

Swiss prosecutors said the PetroSaudi managers were indicted on charges of commercial fraud, aggravated criminal mismanagement and aggravated money laundering, based on events that took place over at least six years.

The attorney general’s office, in a filing last year, said the managers sought to enrich themselves and others by misappropriating at least US$1.8 billion that was transferred to the state-owned investment fund.

The indictments are the first of their kind in Switzerland, where some financial institutions were ensnared in the far-reaching scandal.

After the deal was signed, about US$700 million from 1MDB was transferred to a Swiss bank account linked to a Malaysian investor for whom the defendants had allegedly been working, and tens of millions ended up in the hands of the defendants and PetroSaudi, without serving the joint venture, it said.

Swiss prosecutors say the defendants also hatched other plots that aimed to cause the 1MDB board to transfer US$830 million as part of an “lslamic loan” that followed the joint venture over the next two years.

Those funds were also diverted, the court said.

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The legacy of Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal on politics and corruption-fighting

More than US$700 million landed in Najib’s bank accounts. He was sent to prison in Malaysia in August 2022 to serve a 12-year sentence for graft. 1MDB was a development fund that he set up shortly after taking power in 2009.

The Swiss attorney general’s office noted last year that “the US Department of Justice described the affair as ‘the largest kleptocracy case to date.’”

The three-judge panel in Bellinzona, which is home to the Swiss federal criminal court, is to hear arguments in the case through the end of April.