1MDB raids: Cash, luxury goods worth $273mn seized

Bloomberg

Malaysia’s police seized about $273 million of items that included Hermes International handbags, Rolex watches and cash in raids linked to former Prime Minister Najib Razak amid investigations into troubled state fund 1MDB.
Luxury goods such as a
6.4 million ringgit diamond necklace, 51.3 million ringgit worth of Hermes bags and more than 200 sunglasses valued at 374,000 ringgit were taken from five residences and an office linked to Najib,
Amar Singh, commercial crime investigation department director at the police, told
reporters.
“I think this is the biggest seizure in Malaysian history,” he said, referring to the more than 12,000 items that were taken in the raids. “So now you can understand why we couldn’t do the counting at the premises itself? Because the numbers were just too huge.”
Breakdown of the items seized by police: Cash in 26 currencies worth 116.7 million ringgit, 12,000 pieces of jewellery worth 442 million ringgit based on value of their raw materials (police estimate market value of 660 million ringgit), 567 handbags, with the value of the Hermes-branded ones at 51.3 million ringgit, 423 watches valued at 78 million ringgit 234 sunglasses worth 374,000 ringgit were found.
The objects were found alongside cash in various currencies when the police searched the properties last month. A spokesman for Najib, who has consistently denied wrongdoing, couldn’t immediately comment after the police briefing.The police had to form eight teams consisting of more than 150 officers to analyse the items for weeks, even working through the Eid al-Fitr holiday, Singh said.
PM Mahathir Mohamad is seeking to recoup $4.5 billion of funds potentially lost through troubled state company 1MDB, which has spawned global probes.
Attorney-General Tommy Thomas is studying investigation papers for possible criminal or civil proceedings, with Mahathir previously saying that Najib would be charged with bribery and embezzlement of public funds.