Clare Rewcastle-Brown's dogged investigation of Malaysian corruption broke open isthe 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?
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).
Sarawak Report undoubtedly helped topple Najib. What needs to happen now that that’s happened?
The first thing that would stabilize the situation is getting Najib into jail. He’s used all his power, influence, and the weaknesses of the Malaysian system to delay over and over again. Seeing him convicted and imprisoned will end a lot of the uncertainty.
Najib Razak is still very much a force to be reckoned with in Malaysia.
Yes, he’s just been the key personality in a major by-election defeat for the government. He pontificates in parliament, he goes around politicking in localities, attacking the government. He has massive PR support and he's still a very wealthy man. He’s still posing as the boss.
What about Rosmah, his notoriously spendthrift wife, who allegedly commanded «cakes» – or bribes?
She and Najib had a Bonnie-and-Clyde modus operandi. The analogy made by one of their closest courtiers is, ‘It's not him. It's not her; it's a joint thing.’
How would it work, specifically?
The way it would work is you go to Najib, and when you asked for government investment in your enterprise, he would say, ‘Okay. Go see Rosmah.’ So people used to go to the house, carrying bags of cash. She and Najib were taking their cut.
Where is Rosmah Mansour now?
She is kept out of sight as she's such an unpopular figure. Her plastic surgeon reportedly fled the country, so her face has collapsed without regular fillers, and her previous facial procedures and implants are visible. The whole of Malaysia's just mesmerized by her.
Jho Low is still AWOL, but he recently cut a deal in the U.S.
Jho’s basically given up on trying to defend the money, but he's not been let off the criminal charges. He's still saying he's innocent. China's protecting him, and they won’t release him. He has far too much embarrassing information on what they did and how they participated in the corruption.
What else needs to happen to stabilize Malaysia?
A transition of power: this old man (PM Mohamad Mahathir, who is 95) needs to hand over. He's right not to do so until Najib is in jail. Mahathir has the moral authority and the cohesive power in the country that can stand up to Najib.
What’s been the most challenging element for you since Sarawak Report started in 2010?
The legal pushback. I have one possession, which is my house. I was running up bills with nearly half a million pounds this time last year.
If I'd lost, it would have been my home and I have two kids who live in it. So that's a personal strain. Compared to being a journalist trying to live in a regime like Malaysia’s previous one, it's nothing.
What are you working on now?
The purpose of this was always to try and draw attention to the destruction of our rainforests – something that matters to everyone on the planet. What we can save, we should, after this resource grab by criminals.
I have a new NGO, Forest Southeast Asia, advocating the development of policy and the channeling of global funds into reforesting particularly the Malaysian-Borneo rainforest.
Clare Rewcastle-Brown is the founder of «Sarawak Report,» a blog that unearthed the $4.5 billion 1MDB scandal. The U.S. attorney general called the graft «kleptocracy at its worst,» and a six-nation investigation laid bare the dealings of Swiss and other banks with 1MDB funds. Rewcastle-Brown, who is British, was born and grew up in the Sarawak/Sabah region.
The 60-year-old began her career at the BBC's world news arm before becoming an investigative reporter. She began blogging in 2010 following a break to raise her children. Rewcastle-Brown recently founded Forest Southeast Asia, a non-profit organization devoted to reforesting in the region. She graduated with a master's degree in international relations from the London School of Economics.
Finews.asia.- Monday, 2 December 2019 10:50
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