According to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal, companies connected with ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba received $66m (£50.6m, €57.7m) from offshore accounts that contained money belonging to 1MDB.
Leaked emails from Otaiba reportedly include descriptions of meetings between an Abu Dhabi-based business partner of his, Shaher Awartani, and Jho Low, the Malaysian businessman believed to be a key figure in the scandal that saw $4.5bn misappropriated from the fund.
The US Department of Justice is currently investigating Low and his connection to the wealth fund.
Low’s former girlfriend, Australian model Miranda Kerr, has handed over more than $8m worth of jewellery to US authorities as part of its investigation.
Payments
According to the WSJ, in addition to the meetings between Awartani and Low, a criminal case against a Swiss banker in Singapore uncovered $50m of payments made to the companies connected to Otaiba.
The companies are called Densmore Investments Ltd, based in the British Virgin Islands, and Silver Coast Construction & Boring in the UAE.
In separate documents reviewed by the WSJ related to the Singapore investigation into 1MDB, authorities describe Densmore as being controlled by Otaiba and Awartani.
Those documents also describe a separate $16m payments to Densmore in the form of loans from a company connected to the alleged fraud.
Email hack
A group of hackers that calls itself Global Leaks began leaking emails from Otaiba’s email account earlier this month.
They reportedly show communications between Otaiba, Awartani and Low.
According to the WSJ, on 5 May 2015, a Dubai-based finance executive working at a company controlled by Otaiba and Awartani told Otaiba in an email that Low had instructed the men to close their accounts at BSI Bank.
Investigators in the US, Switzerland and Singapore believe the private Swiss bank played an instrumental role in the 1MDB fraud.
Densmore also held an account at BSI.
BSI Bank in Singapore was shut down by the country’s regulator in May 2016 in what was described as the “worst case of control lapses and gross misconduct seen in the Singapore financial sector”.
Orchestrated dossiers
When contacted by the Wall Street Journal, Otaiba declined to comment.
However, a spokeswoman for the UAE embassy told the newspaper that the embassy “has noted the existence of numerous orchestrated dossiers that have been prepared […] targeting the ambassador and which are purported to contain hacked emails”.
She linked the leaked emails to the ongoing regional dispute between the UAE and the “suspension of diplomatic and economic relations with the state of Qatar”.
