Kuala Lumpur: Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker Roger Ng has been extradited from Malaysia to the US to face charges linked to 1MDB, The Edge newspaper reported.
Ng left for the US on Friday and is now under the watch of the US Justice Department, the Kuala Lumpur-based newspaper said, citing a person familiar with the matter. It’s unclear how Ng was approved to leave for the US despite Malaysia’s Minister of Home Affairs Muhyiddin Yassin earlier stating that any extradition would be delayed in order to prioritise the separate Malaysian case against Ng.
A representative at the home affairs ministry didn’t immediately comment.
Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad lauded the return of millions of dollars of 1MDB funds from the US and Singapore, saying it showed close cooperation between the countries. Previously, the delay to Ng’s extradition risked raising questions over Malaysian authorities’ willingness to cooperate with other jurisdictions in getting to the bottom of the global scandal.
Prosecutors in both the US and Malaysia have charged Ng in relation to his role in $6.5 billion (Dh23.87 billion) of 1MDB bond sales that Goldman arranged. Ng was deputy to Goldman’s former south-east Asia chairman Tim Leissner, who has pleaded guilty to US charges including conspiring to launder money.
Malaysia has also charged the New York-based bank with misleading investors when it helped 1MDB raise $6.5 billion through bond deals in 2012 and 2013, while allegedly knowing that the funds would be misappropriated.
At a hearing in Ng’s case in March, prosecution lawyers said they were awaiting documents from an unidentified Singapore investment firm. They also said they were seeking cooperation from authorities in the US, UK and Hong Kong to provide documents relating to the case.
