Malaysia launches sale of yacht linked to graft scandal
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysia's government launched a one-month auction on Monday for a luxury yacht bought with money stolen from the multibillion-dollar looting of a state investment fund.
The sale came nearly three months after Indonesia returned the $250 million yacht, Equanimity, after it was seized off Bali in February in cooperation with the US FBI. The US Justice Department, one of several foreign agencies investigating a massive graft scandal at the 1MDB fund, had listed the yacht among the assets it could seize and sell to recover stolen funds.
US investigators said Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, who the Justice Department alleges was a key figure in the theft and international laundering of $4.5 billion from 1MDB, bought the yacht with proceeds diverted from 1MDB.
