NEW YORK: It’s been nearly three years since Roger Ng (pic), a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker, landed in the United States from South-East Asia to face federal charges over his alleged role in a scheme to loot billions from 1Malaysia Development Bhd.
Now, at long last, he is about to get his day in court – as the only person in all of Goldman Sachs to stand trial in the United States for a scandal that stretched from Singapore to Hollywood to Wall Street and beyond.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Free on a US$20mil (RM80mil) bond, Ng, 49, has been largely confined to his apartment.
His trial, delayed for two years because of the pandemic, finally began with jury selection yesterday and is expected to last at least five weeks. He faces up to 30 years in prison.
His defence team has cast him as a deputy to star Goldman banker Tim Leissner and the first to warn compliance about Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.
Ng, the former head of investment banking in Malaysia, is charged with helping Low and Leissner launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB and violating US anti-bribery laws.
Low, the alleged mastermind of the fraud, has denied wrongdoing and remains at large.
Leissner secretly pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiring to violate US anti-bribery laws, as well as to engaging in a money-laundering conspiracy.
Ng has said he was the first to inform Goldman Sachs compliance about Low, sending “red flag warnings” not to do business with him. He was arrested in Malaysia in late 2018 and agreed to come to the United States the next year.
Even if he prevails here, he still faces a separate trial in Malaysia. — Bloomberg
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