Standard Chartered Bank Hit With $2,700,000,000 Lawsuit Over Alleged Role in Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund Fraud

Liquidators are reportedly suing the Singapore arm of Standard Chartered over allegations the British banking giant enabled fraud that caused more than $2.7 billion in losses.

The allegations are tied to the $4.5 billion embezzlement conspiracy carried out against the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, known as the 1MDB scandal, which began back in 2009.

Standard Chartered “emphatically rejected” the claims made in the new Singapore lawsuit, according to a new Reuters report.

Liquidators from the financial services giant Kroll filed the suit, claiming that the British bank enabled the 1MDB fraud.

Standard Chartered allegedly ignored red flags and processed more than 100 intrabank transfers between 2009 and 2013, which contributed to hiding the 1MDB funds, according to three companies in liquidation associated with the scandal.

Explain the liquidators,

“According to this lawsuit, the transfers demonstrate serious breaches and control failings which ultimately enabled the theft of public funds by people operating at the highest levels of the Malaysian government during that period.”

Standard Chartered told Reuters any claims made by the companies were “without merit.”

Earlier this year, former Goldman Sachs employee Tim Leissner was sentenced to two years behind bars for playing a part in the multibillion-dollar heist.

Prosecutors say that Leissner and others who worked for the banking giant aided Malaysia in raising $6.5 billion for the nation’s investment fund through bond sales.

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