EXCLUSIVE An undercover investigation by an international NGO has revealed video evidence of how Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's family members and business associates abuse logging licences to enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary Sarawakians.
Two of Taib's first cousins, a family member of Taib's key business partner and a lawyer who represented the cousins have been caught on video explaining the mechanisms of circumventing existing laws to profit from the scheme.
The video was discreetly recorded by an investigator with Global Witness, a London-based NGO that investigates and campaigns against environmental and human rights abuses.
The undercover investigator was sent to Sarawak last year posing as a "foreign investor" looking to buy land to set up oil palm plantations.
The investigator approached the Regional Corridor Development Authority (Recoda), the state government body charged with handling foreign investments, and was immediately directed to certain members of Taib's family who were selling companies licensed to log and clear land for plantations in Sarawak.
These licences were issued by Sarawak's Ministry of Resource Planning and Environment, which is headed by Taib...