Saturday, November 4, 2017

UPDATE : 1MDB asset seizures: Enter Prince Mohamad Bin Salman ,Najib & Rosmah's Prince Turki arrested for corruption

UPDATE 


Who's who in Saudi anti-corruption probe

  • Reuters
  • e
THE LIST OF PRINCES, BUSINESSMEN, CURRENT AND FORMER MINISTERS DETAINED IN A PROBE BY SAUDI ARABIA'S NEW ANTI-CORRUPTION BODY INCLUDES:
* Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, chairman of Kingdom Holding
* Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, minister of the National Guard
* Prince Turki bin Abdullah, former governor of Riyadh province
* Khalid al-Tuwaijri, former chief of the Royal Court
* Adel Fakeih, Minister of Economy and Planning
* Ibrahim al-Assaf, former finance minister
* Abdullah al-Sultan, commander of the Saudi navy
* Bakr bin Laden, chairman of Saudi Binladin Group
* Mohammad al-Tobaishi, former head of protocol at the royal court
* Amr al-Dabbagh, former governor of Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority
* Alwaleed al-Ibrahim, owner of television network MBC
* Khalid al-Mulheim, former director-general at Saudi Arabian Airlines
* Saoud al-Daweesh, former chief executive of Saudi Telecom
* Prince Turki bin Nasser, former head of the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment
* Prince Fahad bin Abdullah bin Mohammad al-Saud, former deputy defence minister
* Saleh Kamel, businessman
* Mohammad al-Amoudi, businessman


EN D








by Ganesh Sahathevan

 The New York Times and others have  reported:

Saudi Arabia announced the arrest on Saturday night of the prominent billionaire 
investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, plus at least 10 other princes, four ministers and 
tens of former ministers.


The announcement of the arrests was made over Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned 
satellite network whose broadcasts are officially approved.


The king (Salman) had decreed the creation of a powerful new anti-corruption 
committee, headed by the crown prince(Mohamad Bin Salman), only hours before 
the committee ordered the arrests.


Al Arabiya said that the anticorruption committee has the right to investigate, 
arrest, ban from travel, or freeze the assets of anyone it deems corrupt.

 It is hard to imagine how ,or why, the Saudis would not freeze assets at home and abroad connected to the 1MDB theft, especially when the Kingdom and at least one prince are said to be central to the theft. 

"Innocent Owner" Riza Aziz Attended Yacht Meeting Before Good Star Heist - EXCLUSIVE


left to right - Tarek Obaid, Prince Turki and Najib Razak - the three named Shareholders of the 1MDB PetroSaudi Joint Venture meeting a month before the deal on the yacht Tatoosh.
left to right – Tarek Obaid, Prince Turki and Najib Razak – the three named Shareholders of the 1MDB PetroSaudi Joint Venture meeting a month before the deal on the yacht Tatoosh.
(PHOTOS FROM SARAWAK REPORT-SEE STORY BELOW)




END


References 



Saudi Arabia Arrests 11 Princes, Including Billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK





Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the world’s richest men, was reportedly arrested in Saudi Arabia on Saturday. Ishara S.Kodikara/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

LONDON — Saudi Arabia announced the arrest on Saturday night of the prominent billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, plus at least 10 other princes, four ministers and tens of former ministers.
The announcement of the arrests was made over Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned satellite network whose broadcasts are officially approved.
The reports in Al Arabiya and from other sources that Prince Alwaleed was among those arrested were sure to send shock waves both through the Kingdom and the world’s major financial centers.
Prince Alwaleed, who controls the investment firm Kingdom Holding and is one of the world’s richest men, has major stakes in News Corp, Time Warner, Citigroup, Twitter, Apple, Motorola and many other well-known companies. He also controls satellite television networks watched across the Arab world.
The sweeping campaign of arrests appears to be the latest move to consolidate the power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the favorite son and top adviser of King Salman.
At 32, the crown prince is already the dominant voice in Saudi military, foreign, economic and social policies, stirring murmurs of discontent in the royal family that he has amassed too much personal power, and at a remarkably young age.
The king had decreed the creation of a powerful new anti-corruption committee, headed by the crown prince, only hours before the committee ordered the arrests.
Al Arabiya said that the anticorruption committee has the right to investigate, arrest, ban from travel, or freeze the assets of anyone it deems corrupt.
The Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh, the de facto royal hotel, was evacuated on Saturday, stirring rumors that it would be used to house detained royals. The airport for private planes was closed, arousing speculation that the crown prince was seeking to block rich businessmen from fleeing before more arrests.
Prince Alwaleed was giving interviews to the Western news media as recently as late last month about subjects like so-called crypto currencies and Saudi Arabia’s plans for a public offering of shares in its state oil company, Aramco.



At 32, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is already the dominant voice in Saudi military, foreign, economic and social policies.Fayez Nureldine/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

He has also recently sparred publicly with President Donald J. Trump. The prince was part of a group of investors who bought control of the Plaza Hotel in New York from Mr. Trump, and he also bought an expensive yacht from him as well. But in a twitter message in 2015 the prince called Mr. Trump “a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America.”



Mr. Trump fired back, also on Twitter, that “Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money.”



As president, Mr. Trump has developed a warm, mutually supportive relationship with the ascendant crown prince.
At least three senior White House officials, including the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were reportedly in Saudi Arabia last month for meetings that were undisclosed at the time.
Before sparring with Mr. Trump, Prince Alwaleed was publicly rebuffed by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who rejected his $10 million donation for the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York because the prince had also criticized American foreign policy.
As powerful as the billionaire is, he is something of an outsider within the royal family — not a dissident, but an unusually outspoken figure on a variety of issues. He openly supported women driving long before the kingdom said it would grant them the right to do so, and he has long employed women in his orbit.
In 2015 he pledged to donate his fortune of $32 billion to charity after his death. It was unclear Saturday whether Saudi Arabia’s corruption committee might seek to confiscate any of his assets.
Saudi Arabia is an executive monarchy without a written Constitution or independent government institutions like a Parliament or courts, so accusations of corruption are difficult to evaluate. The boundaries between the public funds and the wealth of the royal family are murky at best, and corruption, as other countries would describe it, is believed to be widespread.
The arrests came a few hours after the king replaced the minister in charge of the Saudi national guard, Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, who controlled the last of the three Saudi armed forces not yet considered to be under control of Crown Prince Mohammed.
The king named Crown Prince Mohammed the minister of defense in 2015. Earlier this year, the king removed Prince Mohammed bin Nayef as head of the interior ministry, placing him under house arrest and extending the crown prince’s influence over the interior ministry’s troops, which act as a second armed force.
Rumors have swirled since then that King Salman and his favorite son would soon move against Prince Mutaib, commander of the third armed force and himself a former contender for the crown.


Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on November 5, 2017, on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Saudi Arabia Arrests Princes and Others. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe


SARAWAK REPORT 



"Innocent Owner" Riza Aziz Attended Yacht Meeting Before Good Star Heist - EXCLUSIVE

"Innocent Owner" Riza Aziz Attended Yacht Meeting Before Good Star Heist - EXCLUSIVE

Last week in California the Prime Minister’s step-son, Riza Aziz, filed a notice to dismiss the US Department of Justice’s seizure of his properties on the grounds that he was the “innocent owner” and could not be held responsible for the fact the money was stolen from 1MDB.
Motion to dismiss by Riza's lawyers
Motion to dismiss by Riza’s lawyers
Those properties include a Beverly Hills mansion, the film production company Red Granite’s future earnings from Wolf of Wall Street, a London Belgravia town house and a New York penthouse.
What this defence contends is that Riza had simply no idea that the hundreds of millions that suddenly started coming his way was not stolen, but thought it was a gift. For this reason he reckons he should be allowed to hang on to all the items bought with Malaysia’s stolen development money (money which the Malaysian tax payer is now faced with paying back to the original lenders at high interest rates).
Yet Sarawak Report has established new evidence that Riza was in from the very start on the 1MDB heist, in that he was invited to attend the meeting where the first ‘joint venture’ was cooked up between Jho Low, the Prime Minister and company PetroSaudi on the super-yacht Tatoosh in August 2009.
A trip manifest reveals that the jaunt, which took place between 15-20th August, was organised by a “high-end boutique concierge company” named Baroque, of which Jho Low was a member. According to the note made by the representative for Baroque, Sahle Ghebreyesus, the trip was in fact commissioned by his client Jho Low (whom he describes on the manifest as “my guy”). In March the following year Tarek Obaid also joined Baroque, which is an agency designed to pamper the super-rich:
high-end
High-end boutique concierge company that organised the rental of Tatoosh
Photographs later obtained by Sarawak Report show the main players behind the theft of the first billion from 1MDB through the PetroSaudi ‘joint venture’, which was strategised during this super-yacht meeting.
However, we can now confirm that Riza Aziz also joined the party, along with Najib’s key financial cronies Bustari Yusof and Robin Tan.  Robin Tan is the son of Vincent Tan, long associated with BN political funding, and Bustari is the Sarawak PPB party treasurer cum billionaire, who was handed the ‘turnkey contract’ for the Pan Borneo Highway project and whose brother Fadillah has now been appointed Minister for Public Works.
This gives the Bustari brothers control over all the big contracts handed out by the Government, in Malaysia’s notoriously corrupted procurement process and Bustari has rarely strayed from Najib’s side in recent months.
'My guy" Jho Low fixed the trip. "innocent owner" Riza Aziz was also on board
‘My guy” Jho Low fixed the trip. “innocent owner” Riza Aziz was also on board
Did Riza have simply no idea what was going on as these guys did the business which was soon to send money streaming his way?
It was just a few short months later that he went on to launch his production company Red Granite Pictures at the most lavish launch party ever seen at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010.
And over the next two years Jho Low was at Riza’s side at every major film event involving Red Granite Pictures, including Wolf of Wall Street, which was funded by yet more money stolen from 1MDB, thanks to the later ‘Power Purchase Loan’ manoeuvres also organised by Jho Low.
According to the New York Times, Low was furthermore directly involved in the purchase of both of Riza’s US properties in Hollywood and New York. Did Riza simply fail to realise what was going on?
There can only be two conclusions. Either Riza is lying and he did know or Riza is a sad and stupid creature, who was merely used as a front and proxy by the players behind the scandal, which included his friend Jho Low and step-dad Najib.
He is therefore EITHER innocent OR the owner.  He cannot be the “innocent owner”!
left to right - Tarek Obaid, Prince Turki and Najib Razak - the three named Shareholders of the 1MDB PetroSaudi Joint Venture meeting a month before the deal on the yacht Tatoosh.
left to right – Tarek Obaid, Prince Turki and Najib Razak – the three named Shareholders of the 1MDB PetroSaudi Joint Venture meeting a month before the deal on the yacht Tatoosh.
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