Ten years ago in 2005, then-deputy prime minister Najib Razak mooted the concept of “Glokal”, a term derived from “global” and “lokal (local)” for the Malaysian ethnic-Malay community. Najib Razak, now the prime minister of Malaysia, was extremely proud when his “invention” was greeted with thunderous applause and cheers at a 2005 UMNO assembly.

While everyone was talking about “globalisation”, the wizard future-prime-minister Najib seemed to have created the best invention since sliced bread – “glokalisation”. It was a cool concept because ethnic-Malay would not only become merely village champions, but also able to compete globally and become the best of the best.

 

Ten years later today, not only there isn’t much talk about “glokalisation”, the concept was somehow fine tuned to mean something else, at least to the UMNO-Malays. Six years after the idea was mooted, UMNO Women Chief, Shahrizat Jalil, was exposed in a RM250 Million CowGate Scandal involving taxpayers money.

Not only there were no cows for the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) project, Shahrizat and her family members had actually siphoned the money for expensive cars, RM10 million luxury condominium, Farmhouse Supermarkets chain, exotic Brawn Steakhouse and Senor Santos restaurants – in Singapore. Not bad for a simple case study of “glokalisation” (*grin*).

PM Najib Razak himself went “glokal” when New York Times exposed how Jho Low, closely connected to Najib family, had went into real estate shopping spree in New York, on behalf of Najib’s stepson, Riza Aziz. Apparently, billionaire Jho Low’s fortune came from Mr Najib’s 1MDB pet project, which was later exposed to have accumulated a whopping RM42 billion in debt.

Najib’s second son, Nazifuddin, was allegedly linked to uFun Ponzi Scheme in Thailand, whereby the uFun Store has allegedly swindled 120,000 people involving at least 38 billion baht (US$1.13 billion, £720 million, RM4 billion). If indeed the Najib junior was involved in the scheme, he has indeed learned well from daddy the true meaning of “glokalisation”.

 

Today, some UMNO-linked politicians have done the country proud again. Australia claims Melbourne’s booming property market was due to corrupt Malaysian top officials. The two “elite” Malay businessmen who hold “Dato titles” – Yusof Gani and Ahmad Yom Azizi – had laundered AUS$4.75 million (US$3.66 million; RM13.7 million) from Australia back to Malaysia.

An apartment block in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield – Dudley International House – was sold for AUS$22.5 million to a Malaysian government agency called MARA in 2013. But the Australian developers had agreed to sell it for only AUS$17.8 million. The extra AUS$4.75 million was “paid to grease palms to get the deal done”.

The Dudley House, which is very close to Monash University Caulfield campus, is charging AUS$300 – AUS$450 per week (minimum stay of six months) in rental for its accommodation. Nearby, there are Chadstone Shopping Centre, Caulfield Train Station, and other facilities.

Ahmad Yom Azizi’s two sons – Erwin and “Porsche-loving” Erwan – had facilitated the deal via a network of contacts connected to MARA through a subsidiary that had been taken over by several Malaysian officials, including former politician turned MARA Investment Chairman, Dato Mohammad Lan Allani, and a MARA chief executive, Dato Halim Rahman.

Erwan Azizi is the Executive Director of Optimus Capital Sdn Bhd, Director of Newlake Development Sdn Bhd, Non Executive Director of Biosis Group Berhad (KLSE: BIOSIS, stock-code 7193) and Managing Director of Tronoh Malay Palm Oil Sdn Bhd. He studied at Alice Smith School Kuala Lumpur, before continues his studies at United World College S.E.A and Regents Business School.

On the other hand, brother Erwin Azizi is the CEO of Midwest Equity Sdn Bhd, as well as Investment Manager of Malaysian Ventures Management Inc. (a subsidiary of Ambank Group) and FreeMarket Global (UK) Ltd. Erwin is also the Deputy Director for Porsche Club Malaysia.

 

It would have been another corruption and money laundering case goes un-noticed, if not for the project’s Australian contracted window-maker, John Bond who raised the alarm after not being paid for jobs done, fearing he and 150 others may not be paid after the Australian developer Mills and Dimitriou appointed an administrator to liquidate their assets.

Mr Bond went to the Victorian Supreme Court, where financial analyst Odie Henzel was assigned to the case. Soon, Henzel discovered an email which stated that in return for the Malaysian government agency MARA buying Dudley House, a payment of AUS$4,785,000 in form of introduction and consultancy fees would have to be wired to a mysterious Singapore shelf company.

 

Amusingly, the shelf company was found to be a cake shop, with the director being Hanna Kamruddin, who revealed she had been appointed to the directorship when her brother Hishan Kamruddin introduced her to three Malaysian men who wanted an offshore company and bank account set up. She was paid US$1,000 for her effort.

Besides using this cake house to camouflage money laundering, apparently MARA have other shelf companies in Singapore, not to mention a British Virgin Islands-based Thrushcross company. MARA had bought AUS$23.5 million property on Swanston Street and other properties along Queen and Exhibition Street in Melbourne, worth AUS$40 million.

 

Three companies based in Damansara and Bukit Kiara, believed to be related to Ahmad Aziz and his two sons had sent invoices purportedly for “professional advice” and “consultancy and advisory fees” mentioned above. Of course, these professional services were non-existent, similar to PM Najib Razak’s purchase of Scorpene submarine.

If last year’s New Zealand diplomat Rizalman rape scandal is any indicator, one can only expect Malaysian government to do nothing but create more lies and drag their feet on this Dudley House corruption scandal. After all, the corruption involved a pathetic amount of merely AUS$4.75 million (US$3.66 million; RM13.7 million), not worth the time to even discuss about it (*grin*).

Nonetheless, Emperor Najib Razak’s suggestion for the Malay to go “Glokal” has been answered by UMNO-Malay, overwhelmingly. From United States to Cayman Islands to Australia and back to Malaysia via Singapore, the trails of corruptions and money laundering are everywhere. Now, the international communities realise the power of “Glokalisation”.

 

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June 24th, 2015 by financetwitter

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