Amicorp Group, a corporate services provider, and its CEO, Toine Knipping, are being sued by Malaysia’s 1MDB on Monday for more than $1 billion for allegedly enabling more than $7 billion in illegal transactions over a five-year period.
The Hong Kong-based Amicorp was accused by the scandal-plagued sovereign wealth fund of using fraudulent transactions and shell corporations.
According to 1MDB, its legal action in the British Virgin Islands was a component of its efforts to retrieve assets that had been stolen.
“We are bringing this action to seek justice for the role we allege Amicorp played in facilitating the laundering and ultimate dissipation of billions of dollars in stolen funds,” it said in a statement.
“There is, in our view, strong evidence to suggest that Amicorp — at the highest levels — knew they were involved in a dishonest and illegal money laundering scheme designed to transfer large sums of cash away from its intended beneficiary — the people of Malaysia.”
It further stated that Amicorp “played a vital role in enabling sovereign wealth fund to be defrauded by facilitating the laundering of over $7 billion in misappropriated funds between 2009 and 2014” .
According to the fund, the projected total value of the legal claims it is pursuing exceeds $1 billion.
The government’s request to prevent PetroSaudi International and its CEO from accessing $340 million linked to 1MDB was granted by a Malaysian court last week.
The Malaysian decision followed the August sentencing of Tarek Obaid, the Swiss-Saudi CEO of the oil exploration and production company, to seven years in prison in Switzerland for embezzling $1.8 billion from 1MDB.
For years, the multibillion-dollar financial scam has prompted criminal investigations in the US, Switzerland, and Singapore, among other countries.
Numerous individuals are accused of stealing billions of dollars from 1MDB, which they then used to purchase everything from superyachts to artwork.
In 2018, the scandal caused the administration of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to collapse.
Due to his involvement in a significant financial scandal at 1MDB, Najib is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for corruption.
A hearing has been scheduled on January 6 in response to his appeal to serve the remainder of his sentence under home arrest.
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