KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia on Friday charged one of the “Wolf of Wall Street” film producers, and stepson of former prime minister Najib Razak, with money laundering, alleging he misappropriated $248 million linked to state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Riza Aziz, a co-founder of Hollywood production firm Red Granite Pictures that was behind the Oscar-nominated film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” was charged with five counts of money laundering.
Prosecutors alleged Riza received a total of $248 million as a result of misappropriation of 1MDB funds.
Riza pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Each charge carries a financial penalty of up to five million ringgit ($1.21 million), a maximum jail term of five years, or both.
The court granted Riza bail at one million ringgit and asked him to surrender his passports.
After unexpectedly losing an election to Mahathir Mohamad in May last year, Najib has been slapped with a series of corruption charges, mostly tied to losses at now-defunct 1MDB.
Najib, who founded 1MDB in 2009, faces 42 criminal charges related to huge losses at the fund and other state entities. He has pleaded not guilty and has consistently denied wrongdoing.
The US Justice Department has estimated that a total of $4.5 billion was misappropriated by high-level officials at 1MDB and their associates between 2009 and 2014.
1MDB is being investigated in at least six countries for alleged money laundering and graft.
US prosecutors have said Red Granite had financed three films using funds they suspect were stolen from 1MDB.
Red Granite paid the US government $60 million in September 2017 to settle a civil forfeiture claim over the rights to “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
‘Wolf of Wall Street’ producer charged with 1MDB money laundering in Malaysia
‘Wolf of Wall Street’ producer charged with 1MDB money laundering in Malaysia
- Riza Aziz, a co-founder of Hollywood production firm Red Granite Pictures, is the stepson of former prime minister Najib Razak
- He is accused of misappropriated $248 million linked to state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)
Russia says foreign forces in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate targets’
- Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries
MOSCOW: Russia would regard the deployment of any foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine as foreign intervention and treat those forces as legitimate targets, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday, citing Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The ministry’s comment, one of many it said were in response to questions put to Lavrov, also praised US President Donald Trump’s efforts at working for a resolution of the war and said he understood the fundamental reasons behind the conflict.
“The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be regarded as foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security,” the ministry said on its website.
It said Western countries — which have discussed a possible deployment to Ukraine to help secure any peace deal — had to understand “that all foreign military contingents, including German ones, if deployed in Ukraine, will become legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces.”
The United States has spearheaded efforts to hold talks aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine and a second three-sided meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives is to take place this week in the United Arab Emirates.
The issue of ceding internationally recognized Ukrainian territory to Russia remains a major stumbling block. Kyiv rejects Russian calls for it to give up all of its Donbas region, including territory Moscow’s forces have not captured.
Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries.
The ministry said Moscow valued the “purposeful efforts” of the Trump administration in working toward a resolution and understanding Russia’s long-running concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and its overtures to Ukraine.
It described Trump as “one of the few Western politicians who not only immediately refused to advance meaningless and destructive preconditions for starting a substantive dialogue with Moscow on the Ukrainian crisis, but also publicly spoke about its root causes.”
