In conversation with James Ramsden KC - Scandal in Malaysia

As a story, and a scandal, the looting of Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund had it all. A prime minister on the take, a jet-setting playboy, Hollywood deals, wheelbarrows of cash on Thai beaches – and billions that disappeared, some never to be returned. The Malaysia Development Berhad fund – 1MDB for short – was set up in 2009 by the country’s prime minister Najib Razak to pursue investment and development projects for the benefit of Malaysia and its people. With the help of top banks -including Goldman Sachs - the fund raised billions. But just six years later it emerged that Prime Minister Najib had transferred 681 million dollars into his own bank account. What followed was a massive global hunt for 1MDB’s missing billions, with authorities from Singapore to Switzerland to the US discovering that bankers, politicians, public officials and fraudsters had conspired to launder the funds through a complex web of transactions. The money was then used to buy among other things a mega yacht, priceless works of art, and a vast jewellery collection featuring 14 tiaras. And in a bizarre twist the stolen cash also funded a Hollywood blockbuster: The Wolf of Wall Street.Hear from leading commercial silk and cross-border fraud specialist James Ramsden KC on his central role chasing down the missing billions, how the international financial community missed brazen theft on such a scale, whether the necessary cultural change has occurred to prevent a repeat scenario, and what he learned about the role of the lawyer in special situations.