PUTRAJAYA: Riza Aziz, the stepson of former premier Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, is back at the headquarters of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to be questioned for the third consecutive day.
He arrived at 11.10am on Thursday (July 5).
Riza had already spent two days with graft investigators where he was grilled for hours.
He is believed to have been questioned on the alleged use of 1MDB funds to finance the making of several Hollywood films.
Riza, 48, is the co-founder of Red Granite Pictures, which among others produced the famous profanity-laden The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio (who won the Golden Globe in 2014 for his role).
On March 7, 2018, Reuters reported that Red Granite Pictures has agreed to pay US$60mil (RM243mil) to the US government in order to resolve allegations that it profited from a massive Malaysian corruption scandal.
However, under the agreement, Red Granite does not admit to any wrongdoing.
US prosecutors filed a civil asset forfeiture action against the company in July 2016, as part of a much broader effort to recoup more than US$1bil (RM4.06bil) allegedly embezzled from 1MDB.
The US Justice Department has accused financier Jho Low of masterminding a scheme to steal US$4.5bil (RM18.3) from the fund.
Riza Aziz is a close friend of Low’s. US prosecutors alleged that he used more than US$100mil (RM406mil) taken from 1MDB to finance "The Wolf of Wall Street", "Dumb and Dumber To" and "Daddy's Home".
Riza has claimed that he never "knowingly" used stolen funds for his film projects.
He was also accused of using stolen funds to buy luxury real estate, including a US$35mil (RM142mil) condominium in New York, a US$41.8mil (RM170mil) London townhouse, and a $US17.5mil (RM71mil) mansion in Beverly Hills.
The US government is also seeking to seize those properties.
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