KUALA LUMPUR : Police investigating the 1Malaysia Development Bhd's (1MDB) misappropriation of the state investment fund took three days to count and verify the authenticity of the 35 bags of cash.
The cash were in various denominations and was finally valued at RM114 million and were found in one of the 12 locations police raided in connection with the 1MDB investigation since May 16.
Federal Commercial Crime Department chief, Datuk Seri Amar Singh Ishar Singh said the hard cash was recovered from one of the three apartment units at Pavilion Residence in the heart of the city which was registered under a Datuk’s name.
He said police had to seek help from the country’s banking authority, Bank Negara Malaysia to count, convert and calculate the cash recovered.
“We got Bank Negara Malaysia and Bank Islam to help with the calculation of the money we seized during the raid and 21 bank officers from Foreign Currencies Operation and Exchange division of BNM and Bank Islam had assisted us in counting the cash.
“The counting started on May 21 and was only completed on May 23 and the conversion rate used in the process is according to May 24’s rate,” he said.
Police had used 11counting machines from BNM to count the notes.
Amar said the seized cash is currently kept in Bank Negara’s safe and only two people had access to it, of which one of them is Amar himself.
“The other valuable items seized such as watches, handbags and jewellery are kept under lock and key in a safe at Bukit Aman where only one person has the key and thats me,” he said.
Amar said police had maintained extreme professionalism in carrying out the raids and had also advised his team to do so.
Meanwhile on the search at Najib’s family residence in Jalan Langgak Duta which lasted almost 24 hours, Amar said police only found RM500,000 cash there.
“There was only RM500,000 and all are in the Malaysian ringgit,” he said.
Additonal reporting by : Faris Fuad