I refer to the latest development that even Hans Christian Andersen could not have concocted any better.

I have working knowledge of due diligence for takeovers and joint ventures and would like to add my sense of outrage at the fairy tales being concocted.

It is common in the business world, well proper business world, not the one where retired and failed politician helms companies clueless of business and financial ways, no one pays a different party to that specified in an agreement and if there was a request to pay a third party, this would have started the alarm bell ringing and would not have been done without any letter of indemnity from the parties to the agreement.

This is common and business 101. Unless off course all parties were colluding from the word go.

It is also not difficult to confirm ownership of companies or otherwise as a company search in any jurisdiction will show shareholders and directors of any company, even if the shareholdings were done by a proxy or a trust company.

Please don’t be taken in by the hype of Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and similar so-called offshore entities companies. These jurisdictions do not have the same level of due care as even the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) does. As an example, in Malaysia, to appoint new directors, the proposed directors must sign a declaration which must be certified before a commissioner of oaths and a copy of NRIC or passport must be attached.

These offshore jurisdictions are ‘cowboy’ country as I term it, for a payment of a fee anything is possible and it is all about fees and fees and fees, and they are not cheap either. Lawyers especially love to advise clients to set up entities in offshore places for so-called tax minimisation and liability capping but believe me, most of it is hogwash. The inconvenience and lack of diligence sometimes far outweigh the benefits peddled.

In a project I was working on where the parties jumped the gun and set up two Cayman entities, the Cayman company secretaries were able to set up the companies by relying on directors’ names submitted by the promoters without any consent from the directors, and worse still one of the directors named did not even know anything about it ever.

Like I said, cowboy land. This is what attracts so-called business people to set up companies all over these offshore havens. Not for tax minimisation or liability capping but the ability to do anything you want with a payment of a fee.

Likely causes

Coming back to 1MDB’s ‘missing’ US$3.5b ‘songlapped’ by these fraudsters at BVI, in my opinion these are the likely causes:

1. All parties were in cahoots and it was a scheme to defraud Malaysia of this monies for use of whatever purpose and the culprits would not have counted on the Wall Street Journal ( WSJ ) and Sarawak Report exposes as well as the sacking of two senior personnel from IPIC.

If this was the real reason, then the lack of due care , the ease of payment to a third party not named in the agreement with IPIC as well as no follow-up action when this was first exposed last September when it was mentioned that IPIC accounts does not show these receipts/deposits from 1MDB, makes a whole lot of sense.

2. Same as above but only the personnel/officers involved in the transaction is guilty and 1MDB has no knowledge of this shenanigans.

3. Both the officers of IPIC, since suspended, brilliantly conned Malaysia out of US$3.5 billion by pretending all along that Aabar BVI belongs to IPIC and forged documents to show these which is why 1MDB due diligence failed to pick this up. No personnel or management from 1MDB was aware and if guilty was just guilty of negligence and incompetence of the highest order.

4. This was an elaborate scheme set up by the Zionist Jews working with the racist DAP and the white imperialist supremacist group to bring down a legitimately-elected minority government in Malaysia.

Time will definitely conclude which of the above is true. The one thing about money transfers, whether international or local, is that it would have left a trail. Even if you hide and burn your bank statements and hard delete your hard drive, there is always a copy somewhere else. You can never escape. This is why a clever Malaysian decided to just move the monies in his suitcase .