The Malaysian investment fund scandal gets stinkier and stinkier. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
In the waning months of his administration, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was desperate to stave off the bankruptcy of1MDB, the sovereign wealth fund that Razak and members of his inner circle looted (allegedly with the help of Goldman Sachs). So, he turned to an unlikely source of funding to bail out the fund – signing away rights to some of his country’s most valuable resources in the process.
The source? China. Employing financier Jho Low as an intermediary, Razak worked out an arrangement with the Chinese government whereby Razak’s government would grant state-owned Chinese enterprises lucrative stakes in Malaysian railway and pipelines projects in exchange for $34 billion – more than enough to clear the shortfall in 1MDB, and then some.
By 2016, Mr. Najib was in a bind because the fund had borrowed $13 billion it couldn’t repay. He turned to Jho Low—a Malaysian financier the U.S. Justice Department has alleged was the mastermind of a multibillion-dollar theft of 1MDB funds—to negotiate with China to resolve the crisis, according to current and former Malaysian officials.
Mr. Najib also embarked on secret talks with China’s leadership to let Chinese navy ships dock at two Malaysian ports, say two people familiar with the discussions. Such permission would have been a significant concession to Beijing, which seeks greater influence across contested waters of the South China Sea, but it didn’t come to pass.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 