Wednesday 25 July 2012

HSBC’S MONEY-LAUNDERING SCANDAL




As HSBC’s Global Head of Compliance  resigned in disgrace yesterday, acknowledging the bank had turned a blind eye to a staggering $38 trillian dollars’ of suspect transactions, thoughts in Sabah will have returned to the financial affairs of their Chief Minister, Musa Aman.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) report into timber kickbacks (a case described by Najib Razak as being 'linked to Musa Aman') contains a great deal of information about HSBC’s involvement in processing the millions of dollars that ended up in Musa’s bank accounts.

Likewise, Sarawak Report has exposed detailed information about a series of HSBC accounts linked to Musa, which were eventually closed in 2006.

So, no surprise that the US Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security has reported that in the period 2006-2010 the HSBC facilitated international money-laundering on a gigantic scale for drug gangs, terrorists and rogue nations, shunting the suspicious funds between offshore branches, the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere.

Sarawak Report’s own extensive dossier on Musa Aman makes clear that the proceeds of Malaysian timber corruption should be added to this shameful list!

Timber corruption

The victims of this multi-billion dollar racket include the indigenous people of Sabah, who have been deprived of their native lands and hunting grounds; the taxpayers of Sabah, from whom vast revenues have been stolen and honest businesses, which have been exploited by this criminal corruption.

Meanwhile, the consequences of this crime have included the wanton destruction of one of the most precious remaining environments on our planet – which till recently comprised the world’s oldest and most bio-diverse area of remaining rainforest.

Countless species of plants and animals have been wiped out in an orgy of preventable greed over just the last decade alone.

In the past days Musa has once again unwisely attempted to deny all the evidence that has piled up against him.  Likewise the Speaker of the Sabah Assembly refused to allow a motion of no confidence to be put to the vote – a desperate measure that plainly undermined the democratic process.

There have even been attempts to suggest that Musa has now acknowledged the millions that were passed into his Swiss bank accounts, but that he told the MACC that he was merely holding them as a nominee for his political party UMNO and his boss the PM Najib Razak!

Even if this unlikely scenario was true, do Musa’s defenders really believe this would somehow make him innocent of the criminal looting of his country’s wealth?  Because if Najib and Musa were in this together then they are both equally guilty!

The role played by banks like HSBC and UBS in the looting of Borneo’s resources.

Over the last decade, as the dwindling forests of Sabah have started to run out entirely, Musa Aman has continued to licence formerly protected areas and steep hillsides to be stripped bare of timber by his cronies.

His greed has completed the destruction of Sabah in the same way that Taib’s obsessive greed has felled the once magnificent jungles of Sarawak.

And as we have demonstrated in close detail over the past weeks, Musa’s cronies have in return paid him tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks via his known nominees, including his 'middleman', Michael Chia.

It is thanks to the blind eye turned by Singapore and Hong Kong branches of two global banks, HSBC and UBS that Musa Aman and Chia have then been able to launder this money and funnel it, as we have demonstrated, through a series of off-shore accounts into Musa’s own Zurich bank account.


On numerous counts the manner in which first HSBC and then UBS have handled the millions of US, Singapore and Australian dollars sloshing around in Chia’s accounts, breached the rules of compliance that banks are supposed to abide by to prevent money-laundering.

Both banks should be thoroughly investigated on this matter and held to account, and prosecutors in Switzerland and the environment NGO Bruno Manser Fund have this week taken further action to ensure that just such an investigation will take place.

This week Bruno Manser Fund issued letters of complaint to the two major regulatory bodies of Singapore, the Monetary Authority and the Financial Investigation Division to alert them to the behaviour of UBS bank and HSBC in their conduct of the Musa Aman-linked accounts in Singapore.

These complaints cannot be ignored in the light of the fact that The Swiss Federal Attorney General’s Office has also in the past few days announced that it has now formally opened its investigations with relation to UBS, following the receipt of Sarawak Report’s dossier of evidence.

That case will have been further informed by the extensive information provided to the Swiss by the Hong Kong authorities, who originally arrested Michael Chia in possession of $16million dollars back in 2008.

Even, Malaysia’s own authorities have also been forced to at last acknowledge what other countries have long been investigating. Each day that now passes raises further questions as to why the Attorney General (Musa’s relative by marriage) has failed to act on the dossier on Musa that Prime Minister Najib Razak has confirmed in on his desk.

Compliance

Because, even if Malaysia does nothing in this case, the truth will surely come out as these beleaguered banks come under international pressure  to own up to their part in this affair.

Key to Musa’s ability to siphon nearly a hundred million dollars of stolen money out of Sabah has been the willingness of banks like HSBC to turn a blind eye and to break basic rules on compliance (the very fault that will now result in multi-million dollar fines for that bank in other parts of the world).

These rules demand that accounts linked to politically exposed persons and accounts that take receipt of large lump sums of money should be fully scrutinised and accounted for.

The accounts run by Michael Chia, a known associate of Musa, who then passed on these sums to Musa Aman himself and provided income for Musa’s two sons, were clearly top targets for such scrutiny on both counts.

However, both HSBC and UBS failed to do so, preferring to continue to handle transactions on millions of dollars of kickback income.

In 2006 HSBC did finally close down Michael Chia’s accounts, but in a manner that raises even more questions over compliance. A series of cashier orders amounting to some $20 million were handed over to Chia in order to clean out his accounts.

Chia used these cash orders to open his new accounts at UBS in Singapore, thus providing him with a complete break in the chain of transactions, whereby millions in kickback money had travelled from the accounts of Sabah based logging companies into Musa Aman’s Zurich bank accounts!

Equally questionable was UBS Singapore’s own willingness to accept these cash orders to open Chia’s new accounts. This completed the laundering of Sabah’s dirty timber money.

There are no secrets left in these transactions. Our dossiers are already with the authorities.

So since this is the time for confessions and apologies, HSBC and UBS should spare further time and public money and come clean on their dealings with Musa Aman as well as all the other misdeeds revealed by the US Senate Committee. (SarawakReport)

28 comments:

  1. belum ada bukti pun ia benar. selagi belum terbukti jgnlah mudah percaya.

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    1. hence the saying, innocent till proven guilty.

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  2. laporan dari sarawak report tidak boleh dipercaya, Sarawak report media berat sebelah.

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    1. let the authority handle this matter. I'm sure with a proper investigation, we will know the truth.

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    2. Sarawak Report ni nampak berat sebelah kerana tidak pula berani mengupas isu berkaitan kes pemimpin pembangkang.

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  3. Alat politik saja ni untuk menghangatkan PRU. recycle2 dari isu lama.

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    1. in the end of the day, no one really bother about this matter.

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    2. ya, isu seperti ini hanya muncul ketika pru semakin hampir untuk kepentingan politik pihak tertentu.

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    3. Sama ada ini permainan isu untuk tujuan politik atau benarnya Musa terlibat, serahkan kepada pihak berkuasa untuk membuat siasatan.

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  4. Sarawak Report patut keluarkan skandal rasuah Taib Mahmud bukannya Musa Aman.

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    1. that's what i thought too. Sarawak report should investigate on Sarawak matter. Why the sudden interest on Sabah's matter. Taib is the king of all corruption and yet Sarawak report didn't go all out to get him. Where is the sense in that?

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    2. Siasat juga repot dari Sarawak Report sejauh mana kebenaran bukti yang dikemukakan.

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    3. byk jg skandal pemimpin lain, tidak sarawak report dedahkan.

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  5. Till now, i still don't get why Micheal Chia is known as Mr. Underwear.

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    1. Chia digelar Mr. Underwear kerana Chia pernah mendakwa underwear dia berharga RM 2 ribu.

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  6. ada saja yang ditimbulkan, tapi sampai sekarang tiada bukti kukuh pun yang ditunjukkan.

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  7. isu ini sengaja dikitar semula untuk jejaskan imej Musa walaupun tiada bukti.

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  8. ISu ini masih belum dijatuhkan hukuman.

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  9. Jika ada bukti, tidak perlu promosi dan hantar terus ke mahkamah.

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  10. Jika Musa tidak terlibat, tidak mungkin pembangkang boleh mengambil kesempatan.

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  11. Penyiasatan masih perlu berusaha lagi untuk mengesan lebih banyak bukti.

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  12. Sering Musa dikaitkan kes rasuah, memang menjejas imej baik beliau. Harapkan pihak berkuasa dapat membuktikan kebenaran.

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    1. Anwar tu yang menyimpan banyak akaun asset apa cerita pula..

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  13. Michael Chia tidak boleh dipercayai, dia akan cakap apa saja untuk melepaskan diri.

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  14. Sebelum ini yang mana SR adalah portal yang cuba untuk tidak berpihak kepada mana-mana namun sekarang telah berubah.

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  15. If we intelligent and thinking for this issues. I thought nothing evidence and truth fact that corruption. So why need we believing it if we don't see with our self the fact. If media picture fact I guess is still not the strong fact because can edit the picture. So please think carefully.

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  16. an we imagine the past story that YS have not enough money to pay contractors because state reserves down to RM168m. So this mean the situation that time is to bad. But different right now that YS can stand and changed dramatically with Musa Aman held the state goverment. Musa Aman changed the image of YS and make the excellent business operation and financial. He make the contractor or componies not only highly profitable, but well-respected internationally. Good Job Datuk Musa Aman and other members party. So BN can do the best under Datuk Musa Aman.

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  17. abah adalah antara negeri yang pesat membangun di Malaysia pada masa sekarang. Maka kita dapat lihat sendiri apa yang berlaku kepada Sabah iaitu satu perubahan kemajuan dan ekonomi negeri itu sendiri dibawah pentadbiran Datuk Musa Aman dan Kerajaan BN yang lain. Ini memberikan petanda yang positif kepada penduduk Sabah. Sebab itulah keluarnya pelbagai isu khabar angin, dan fitnah yang bukan-bukan mengenai beliau.

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