1MDB scandal (2012): Goldman bonds

The U.S. Department of Justice, through its Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, filed civil forfeiture complaints from 2016 alleging that more than $3.5 billion -- later described as on the order of $4.5 billion -- had been diverted from 1MDB. Those complaints named Hollywood financing (including Red Granite Pictures and The Wolf of Wall Street), yachts, jewelry, and real estate as alleged proceeds. Goldman Sachs later paid about $2.9 billion in 2020 to resolve U.S. and other government actions; former Goldman partner Tim Leissner pleaded guilty in 2018.

In Malaysia, the High Court convicted Najib on 28 July 2020 on seven counts in the SRC International case (a 1MDB-related unit), including abuse of power and money laundering, and imposed twelve years' imprisonment and a fine. The Federal Court upheld the conviction on 23 August 2022. Jho Low remained a fugitive in the public record into the mid-2020s. Later Malaysian pardon and house-arrest developments changed custody conditions; they did not erase the 2020 judgment as a recorded conviction.

The DOJ forfeiture complaints, the Goldman resolutions, the Leissner plea, and the Malaysian SRC judgment are the primary public sources. They describe a multi-jurisdiction theft-and-laundering case, not a single missing invoice. 1MDB raised money, including through Goldman-arranged dollar bonds in 2012 and 2013, for a development-fund story. Journalists and later prosecutors described a parallel story: large transfers to shell companies and to people around Jho Low.