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KUALA LUMPUR (May 6): Former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng has been sent to the United States to face charges over 1MDB-related offences in a deal worked out between Malaysian investigators and the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
The US had asked for Ng, a Malaysian, to be extradited. Ng initially fought the extradition in a Malaysian court but later changed his mind and volunteered to go. However, Malaysian investigators objected, as Ng was already charged here for similar 1MDB offences.
But an agreement was finally worked out between the two authorities last week.
"I can confirm that he left last Friday and is now in the US under the watch of the DOJ," a source told theedgemarkets.com.
Ng was deputy to Tim Leissner, who ran the 1MDB transactions for Goldman, which raised US$6.5 billion for the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. The US DOJ and Malaysian investigators have alleged that as much as US$4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB between 2009 and 2014 in what has been called the world's biggest ever kleptocracy fraud.
Leissner has pleaded guilty in the US to 1MDB-related charges and is awaiting sentencing.
Both men worked out of Goldman's office in Singapore.
Bloomberg reported last week that Singapore authorities had sent back to Malaysia US$35 million that was seized from Ng and his family. The money is said to have been illegal payments related to 1MDB transactions.
Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has been slapped with 42 1MDB-related criminal charges while fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, the central figure in the scam, has gone into hiding.
