Azmin pengkhianat Ali betrayed by his crony?

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Was the political pengkhianat (traitor) betrayed by his crony?

Azmin pengkhianat Ali betrayed by his crony?

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 16, 2024: When are safe houses of dirty politicians no longer safe?

That is the question raised by Finance Twitter in an article titled “Azmin’s Crony Betrayed & Exposed His “Safe Houses” – So Greedy & Corrupted That He And His Associates Had Over RM300 Million Stashed Overseas”.

No News Is Bad News reproduces below the Finance Twitter report that was reposted by The Coverage:

News

Azmin’s Crony Betrayed & Exposed His “Safe Houses” – So Greedy & Corrupted That He And His Associates Had Over RM300 Million Stashed Overseas

16 October, 2024

According to Finance Twitter , when is a safe house no longer safe? Well, when it’s been exposed and discovered by the enemies. The concept of safe house has been widely featured in spies or criminals movies. It is used by criminals hiding from the police, or used by a spy to stay undetected. It can be used for legal or illegal purposes. For crooks, safe house is also a place to hide dirty money, especially cash.

On the night of May 17, 2018, police raided three luxury Pavilion Residences condominiums in Kuala Lumpur owned by Najib Razak’s children. Besides RM117 million cash and RM1 billion worth of 12,000 pieces of jewellery, an eye-popping 567 handbags consisted of luxury handbags from 37 different designers – including Chanel, Prada, Hermes and ultra-luxury Bijan – were confiscated.

That was the biggest safe house ever raided in Malaysia, as far as ill-gotten money and valuables are concerned. Disgraced former Prime Minister Najib’s biggest mistake was hiding his corruption money in not one, not two, but three safe houses owned by his own jobless children, whose jobs were to help themselves every day to the mountain of cash.

Najib’s safe house became unsafe after he lost power in the May 2018 General Election. Likewise, when the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) raided a safe house on Saturday (October 12) in Kuala Lumpur, it has raised eyebrows over the actual owner of the RM5 million cash (approximately S$1,529,000 Singapore dollar notes) discovered in that apartment unit.

The location and existence of the safe house was exposed just two days after the detention of two individuals, including a former senior executive of Mentri Besar Selangor Incorporated (MBI), on Thursday (Oct 10) in connection with a corruption case related to a sand mining concession. The MACC also froze 15 bank accounts owned by several individuals and companies.

It was only after one of the suspects caved under interrogations that the information about the safe house was revealed. It was rented by a businessman as a storage place for the proceeds of corruption – under the instruction of a politician once held significant influence in Selangor. But it was just the tip of the iceberg. Yesterday, the MACC raided two more safe houses and seized RM321,000 in foreign and local currency.

MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki said that the investigation under Section 16 of the MACC Act is still in the early stages. Crucially, a total of four individuals – three men and one woman – has been arrested. One is connected to a company director, another is a former MBI employee whilst the third person was a finance officer and the fourth was a driver.

So far, the authorities have 15 witnesses. However, as hinted by the MACC, the former powerful Selangor politician has yet to be grilled. Since the investigation is in its infancy, it’s not rocket science that those arrested so far are merely small fries, with at least one of them has become a prosecution witness after spilling the beans about the whereabouts of the safe houses.

Connecting the dots, it’s no brainer that Azmin Ali was the so-called prominent politician, whose tenure as Selangor Menteri Besar (Chief Minister) from 2014 to 2018 made him the most powerful and influential politician in the state. The legend has it that he was so greedy and corrupted that he and his associates had over RM300 million stashed overseas during his 4 years running Selangor.

And his trusted errand boy cum crony was none other than former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Menteri Besar Incorporated (MBI), Soffan Affendi Aminudin. Unlike the idiotic Najib, however, Azmin was extremely clever in hiding all the fingerprints that could be traced back to him. Hence, he deliberately used crony Soffan as the runner to do all the dirty works.

Soffan, appointed as COO of the investment arm of the most developed and richest state in December 2014, attracted investigation as early as 2015 when he established Selangor’s new investment firm called Darul Ehsan Investment Group (DEIG). Not only DEIG was shrouded in secrecy, lacking accountability and transparency, but it had also applied for a RM500 million loan – before it even commences operation.

Trying to transfer assets worth a staggering RM30 billion from MBI to DEIG so that Azmin could steal money under the pretext of corporate social responsibility (CSR) – the same method used by Najib in the infamous 1MDB scandal – was just one of many corruptions committed by the crooks. They had even tried to scam maintenance work at Universiti Selangor (Unisel).

Offices of MBI, private contractor Jana Niaga Sdn Bhd and Unisel were raided by the MACC in 2017 in a RM16 million scandal where MBI had paid Jana Niaga (two transactions of RM10 million and RM6 million in 2015 and 2016 respectively) even though its contract had been terminated by Unisel. Worse, the payments were made even though Jana Niaga had failed to fulfil the contractual requirements for work done in Unisel earlier in 2012.

As Azmin’s primary bag carrier, Soffan’s job was to use his powerful position to facilitate dubious deals on behalf of the Selangor Menteri Besar, as Azmin had learned from Najib, who was then struggling with the 1MDB scandal, to stay clear of potential allegations of scandals or corruptions. The most lucrative cash cow which Azmin had been milking was illegal sand mining in the state.

In 2017, Mohd Nuzul Fadli Mohd Noriyual, a nephew of Azmin Ali, was arrested for mining sand illegally and bribing the authorities to turn a blind eye to such activity. Having gotten filthy rich from stealing sand in Kajang since 2014, the scandal was triggered after 34-year-old Mohd Nuzul was seen flaunting his wealth despite being unemployed – living a life of luxury, driving flashy cars and buying a big house.

To grant approvals to companies or contractors to steal sand from Selangor and transport it to Singapore for land reclamation (hence money in Singapore denomination notes found in safe houses), Azmin appointed his nephew as the toll-keeper (known as one of the “higher authorities”). Such practice has become so toxic that last month alone, eight lorries carrying 60 tonnes of sand each (worth RM1 million in totals) were seized.

However, Azmin, the former deputy president of PKR (People’s Justice Party) who had betrayed his own party when he and 10 PKR MPs switched sides in a political coup known as the “Sheraton Move” in 2020, which led to the collapse of the democratically elected Pakatan Harapan government, did not expect to be betrayed by his own crony – Soffan Affendi Aminudin.

Yes, 45-year-old Soffan was apparently singing like a canary after he was arrested and grilled by the MACC last week. In order to protect himself, he had no choice but to betray his boss. Make no mistake – the RM5 million cash (in crisp, unmarked bills to prevent tracing) confiscated was just some loose change to Azmin Ali. Most of his larger chunk of fortune is stashed overseas.

Not only Azmin had learned not to repeat Najib’s mistake of storing money and documents in children’s safe house, but he had also learnednot to put all eggs in one basket.It was a clever plan to split and hide corruption money in dozens of safe houses in case things go south. MACC’s challenge, therefore, is to show its ability to follow the money trail and establish a clear link between the seized money and Azmin Ali.

But even during its investigations, the MACC could freeze – or even seize – Azmin’s assets and bank accounts, just like how it has seized two bank accounts belonging to Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), which were frozen in January 2023 in relation to investigation and charges against Bersatu president and former backdoor Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

The anti-graft agency has the power to do so in accordance with Section 50 of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001. This means Azmin would be in serious trouble, having all his bank accounts frozen and inaccessible. This also may explain why he was not interested in the Bersatu elections.

Rumour mill is in overdrive that traitor Azmin has sent a desperate message to his former boss Anwar Ibrahim – begging to rejoin PKR, his former party which he had abandoned and betrayed. Like it or not, his best bet to stay out of prison is to be part of the government. But there is one problem – after losing his parliament seat, he has no value to the unity government, which already has the super majority in the Lower House.

Source : Finance Twitter