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1MDB Files $1 Billion Claim Against Amicorp to Recover Assets

1MDB branding. Photographer: Manan Vatsyayana/Getty Images (Manan Vatsyayana/Photographer: Manan Vatsyayana/A)

(Bloomberg) -- Malaysia’s troubled state wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd. has filed a $1 billion claim against a Hong Kong-based corporate services provider to recover its stolen assets. 

The legal action, which is also being pursued by the liquidators of 1MDB and its subsidiaries, was filed on Dec. 20 in the British Virgin islands against eight entities of Amicorp Group and its Chief Executive Officer Toine Knipping, according to the fund in a statement on Monday. 

1MDB said that Amicorp facilitated fraudulent transactions worth over $7 billion, and “played a vital role” in enabling 1MDB to be defrauded. Amicorp did not respond to a request for comment. 

“There is, in our view, strong evidence to suggest that Amicorp – at the highest levels – knew they were involved in a dishonest and illegal money laundering scheme designed to transfer large sums of cash away from its intended beneficiary - the people of Malaysia,” a spokesperson for the 1MDB board said in the statement. 

1MDB’s multibillion dollar scandal has spanned multiple criminal probes around the world, including in the US. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak - who founded 1MDB - is in jail for graft over his role in the scandal. 

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