(New York) The trial of a former Goldman Sachs banker, accused of having played a role in the resounding scandal of the looting of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB and of having withdrawn millions, began Monday in New York.
Posted yesterday at 2:47 p.m.
Roger Ng, also known as Ng Chong Hwa, “saw the opportunity ‘to get rich’ and he took it,” prosecutor Brent Wible said at the start of a hearing presided over by Judge Margo Brodie.
He is accused of violating US corruption laws, laundering money and circumventing internal control rules at Goldman Sachs. All to recover $ 35 million in the process, said Mr. Wible.
Former head of the investment bank at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Ng pleads not guilty, his lawyer ensuring that he is “100% innocent” and transferring the fault to his former boss, Tim Leissner.
Considered one of the main instigators of the scam, the latter pleaded guilty and should be a key witness during the trial.
The scandal revolves around the 1MDB fund, officially created to contribute to the economic development of Malaysia.
The Goldman Sachs subsidiary in the country organized bond issues on its behalf totaling $6.5 billion in 2012 and 2013, in exchange for $600 million in commission.
She admitted in 2020 to having thus assisted in vast embezzlement, with much of the bonds having in fact been redistributed to political and financial leaders in the form of kickbacks and having financed lavish expenses.
According to the prosecution, Messrs. Ng and Leissner got in touch with a young Malaysian government adviser, Jho Low, and together devised a scheme for Goldman Sachs to be entrusted with organizing the bond issue, and recovering their shares in the process. .
They then sought to “cover their tracks using bank accounts in the name of fictitious companies”, also asserted the prosecutor.
Mr. Ng did not pay any money to any government official, retorted his lawyer Marc Agnifilo.
The 1MDB scandal “is a massive fraud, involving many culprits, but Roger is not one of them,” he told the jurors, describing his client as a man who respected the procedures.
Mr. Ng was only a “small pawn in the gigantic machine that is Goldman Sachs”, the lawyer said.
And if he and his wife have received several million dollars from the accounts of Tim Leissner and his ex-wife, it was to settle affairs between the two women, he said.
The Malaysian financier Jho Low, also called Low Taek Jho and prosecuted in this case, remains at large.