No funds from 1MDb were laundered in Seychelles’ |23 July 2016

Following widespread reports in the international media, the Seychelles Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) confirmed in April that it had been helping an international investigation into the troubled state fund 1Malaysia Development berhad (1MDb).

The fund was set up by the Malaysian government in 2009 to boost the Malaysian economy.

The fund is at the centre of ongoing corruption and money laundering investigations in jurisdictions that include the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates.

On Wednesday the US Justice Department filed lawsuits to seize assets that it said were the result of $3.5 billion that was misappropriated from the fund.

The Seychelles FIU, working with the regulators, has been playing a proactive role in the investigation and has identified eleven offshore  companies registered in Seychelles which it believes may be linked to this matter.

All of the companies were incorporated by an offshore company incorporations office managed by a local company service provider (CSP). The incorporation requests originated from an intermediary in Singapore.

No funds or assets linked to the 1MDb investigation have been found in Seychelles to date. The FIU believes that while the non-financial services sector was abused, the anti-money laundering framework in Seychelles was robust and protective enough to have deterred the abuse of our financial system in this instance.

This is one of a number of international corruption investigations with which the Seychelles is cooperating. In May a man was convicted in a London court for the bribery of a Nigerian official using an offshore company and bank account in Seychelles.

Contributed by the FIU