The recent revelations that Jho Low has once again sought to negotiate a pardon from both Malaysia and the United States revives concerns about how this fugitive managed to escape to China with so much of his stolen Malaysian loot apparently still available for him to access.When his name appeared on a notorious ‘‘250 pardons for 250 years’ list that the US president Donald Trump purportedly mulled signing on July 4th, there were even reports Jho had offered key intermediaries at least a billion dollars to arrange the favour.Sarawak Report simultaneously learned the fugitive was separately negotiating a similar pardon from Malaysia as part of a settlement designed to draw a veil over China’s damning role in the criminal cover-up of 1MDB.This is not the first but the third recorded episode of pardon seeking by Jho, who plainly desperately longs to escape from China The previous round in July 2022 was confirmed by the intermediary, ex-AG Apandi Ali, during which RM1.5bn ($370m) was reported to have been offered by Jho’s US lawyers to the Malaysian authorities to wipe his slate clean.How the fugitive retained such enormous levels of ready cash and where it is being managed and protected is therefore a question of considerable interest to the people of Malaysia to whom the money actually belongs.Did ‘Swiss Banking Secrecy’ Protect Jho’s Stash?It is now a decade since the devastating press conference at the Department of Justice in July 2016 which initiated the US action against the Malaysian fraudster.The then Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, and her colleagues described 1MDB as the world’s largest recorded theft, conducted on behalf of Jho’s political master, the now-jailed former PM Najib Razak, who is still facing a recovery action through the civil court.Many of the stolen assets were subsequently confiscated and returned, but the evidence suggests by no means all. Malaysia remains burdened by the crippling costs of the original $5.6 billion dollar theft and then the further theft of similar sums incurred during the later attempts to cover it all up [for the full details of this cover up refer to SR’s upcoming book The China Contract]However, during the course of this subsequent decade the various investigations, law suits and official disclosures have bit by bit revealed more, not only about how the money was stolen but about how it was laundered and where it ended up.In particular, details from regulatory actions taken against employees of Rothschild Bank and affiliated Rothschild trust in Switzerland, which came to light in 2023, raise a number of questions that Sarawak Report has now put to the Rothschild group about how much of the stolen wealth they managed on behalf of Jho and the Low family was surrendered to the authorities at the time they were revealed to be fraudsters, as opposed to being quietly moved elsewhere at a later date?Top Customer It first came to light that Jho Low was a client of the Swiss based Rothschild Bank SA (and of its subsidiary Rothschild Trust SA) in 2017, after FBI investigators traced the ownership of Jho Low’s assets in the US to a series of BVI companies placed under a separate New Zealand based trusts which had been incorporated and were being managed by the Rothschild group in Switzerland.These included his Beverley Hills mansion, New York apartments, his private Bombardier jet, flats and buildings in London and Paris, a super-yacht, company shares in EMI, shares in the New York Park Lane and L’Hermitage hotel groups, incorporated under 23 named companies each held by these separate trusts.Rothschild dutifully surrendered its control of these contested assets to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and a major court battle ensued whereby the Low family, together with Jho, sought to remove the bank from its formal control as trustees in order to appoint another management outfit called FFP in the Cayman Islands that was willing to resist the US seizure orders.In early 2017 the Low family won an initial victory in the New Zealand court which agreed they could appoint the new managers, thereby side-lining Rothschild. Reporting on the litigation Reuters and others put a value on the trusts at stake of $260 million. These were transferred to the management of FFP which then continued to support the family in their legal battle with the DOJ.Eventually, in October 2019, the Low family reached a ‘global settlement’ with the DOJ surrendering those assets, including ownership of Jho’s share of the Park Lane Hotel (earlier off-loaded to Greenland Properties in Hong Kong), which the US press release of the time claimed now represented a total value of $700 million.The US court’s relevant confiscation order named the 23 trusts that were involved in that settlement and the asset each represented. At which point it was widely assumed that Rothschild Bank’s relationship with Jho Low, which had by then been denounced by the Swiss regulator FINMA as a ‘serious breach’ of compliance rules, was over.Indeed, FINMA had stated at the time that this admonishment of Rothschild, which took place earlier in July 2018, represented the ‘conclusion of its final 1MDB proceedings‘, leading observers to logically conclude that there was no more stolen Malaysia money in the Rothschild banking group – nor indeed any Swiss bank subject to FINMA regulation.No financial or other penalties were exerted against the bank itself over these blatant institutional failings on the basis that a new monitoring process had been agreed and implemented by FINMA to supervise future activities by Rothschild Swiss and its subsidiary, Rothschild Trust.The CEO of the group, the British banker Nigel Higgins (who had spent 36 years at the bank) departed shortly after to take up a new position as the Chairman of Barclays in the UK, where he remains in situ.However, a full four years later and barely remarked by wider media, further proceedings prosecuted by Switzerland’s Federal Department of Finance against a relatively lowly compliance officer and the former CEO of the Rothschild trust management subsidiary revealed some startling new information, which slipped out into the financial press in 2023.Those proceedings took place in German and were covered primarily only by specialist finance platforms, such as the French language site Gotham City which memorably described the charges laid against the former chief compliance officer as reading “like a horror novel when it comes to banking supervision”.The officer pled guilty to failings in his reporting obligations with respect to blatantly suspicious dealings and money-laundering, and was fined CHF 40,000, even though it was acknowledged that he was only acting according to the views of his superiors at the bank.Indeed, the prosecution papers clearly show that the senior personnel of the back had been regularly consulted on the thorny issues surrounding their most lucrative client and consistently decided over the course of more than five years not to report him.Of these, only the Trust company CEO was prosecuted. He was found guilty and fined CHF 185,000, but has appealed.Thus it is established that the hierarchy at Rothschild Swiss and its wider group successfully decided to ignore red flags for over five years, despite evidence presented that shows Jho Low failed numerous due diligence investigations and reports by independent consultancies who concluded they were ‘unable to verify many of the business activities described in [Jho’s company’s] annual report’ or indeed ‘any significant professional activity since he left university’.The same reports also pointed to the dire news coverage that followed the young man’s mysterious ostentation, but Rothschild didn’t flinch. The reason is clear from an email sent by the CEO of the trust company to board members of Rothschild Global in January 2015: ‘As you know, our largest client relationship in terms of revenues is a Malaysian family. We manage and oversee assets worth $500m and bill around CHF 3m a year (the relationship has been with us for over five years now). The family runs a business in third generation and is estimated between $2 and 3 bn. The family are extraordinarily connected across the globe and we belief [sic] there is more scope for us to offer Rothschild services if we get things right’.Indeed, insiders have confided to Sarawak Report there was a whole department at the trust management division dedicated to Jho Low’s affairs.Thus it was that the bank had chosen not to report blatantly suspicious transactions till as late as November 2015, months after the exposure of the role of Jho Low’s Good Star Limited account at Coutts Bank in Zurich during the initial heist from 1MDB. Good Star was the source of hundreds of millions of dollars funnelled into Rothschild, according to the complaint by the regulators at the Swiss Federal Finance Department (FFD), yet Rosthschild still said nothing.Jho Low’s 130 Rothschild TrustsThe detail to emerge from the FFD submissions regarding the “Over $500 million” Rothschild managed by 2015 is even more pertinent to the questions surrounding Jho Low’s evident remaining wealth.The regulator reveals that Rothschild’s mystery client had been introduced to the bank by none other than a Swiss wealth manager at Goldman Sachs, the bank with whom Jho Low and Najib had connected with in 2008 to advise on the Terengganu Investment Authority and which later colluded in raising of 6.5 billion dollars in bonds for 1MDB, much of which was stolen.That introduction took place as early as October 2009, days after Jho Low had made his first $700 million windfall from the bogus 1MDB joint venture with PetroSaudi (money that was paid into Good Star Limited in Zurich).The wealth manager had tipped off Rothschild that even Goldman Sachs had decided Jho Low was too hot to touch in terms of a personal account. He nonetheless performed an introduction for Jho Low, accompanied by his brother and father, to Rothschild bankers at the Goldman Sachs offices in Zurich in full knowledge of those concerns.Rothschild had proceeded to onboard Jho and his family, and just over a year later the Goldman banker who had made the original introduction moved over to become the CEO of the Rothschild Trust subsidiary.These are not the only facts that stick out from the belated indictments. For the first time, the case revealed that there had, in fact, been no less than 130 trusts with 130 matching bank accounts held on behalf of the Low family by this one bank by the time the matter was brought to the attention of the Swiss authorities.According to the 97 page FFD ‘criminal order’, the amount of money that had entered this network of cash and assets totalled $613 million by the time of the DOJ crackdown in 2015. As of August 2015, there remained $80 million in cash plus the 130 trusts curating assets purchased with that inflow. $313 million had entered from Good Star Limited 2009-2011, after which just under $300 million was later added from other sources connected to Jho Low.Those figures, which only became available in 2023, are in considerable excess of what was published at the time of the DOJ settlement in 2019, which named 23 trusts representing a reported investment of $260 million (according to the media reports on the court case).Neither did the 2019 DOJ settlement make mention of any surrender of the $80 million in cash now known to have been held by Rothschild on behalf of Jho Low.It appears that $350 million worth of cash and assets may have therefore remained, undeclared, in the Rothschild accounts – assets that could be now worth many times more with the benefit of expert investment.Hong Kong Hideout?Sarawak Report repeatedly asked Rothschild Bank to confirm whether all of Jho Low’s accounts were surrendered to the authorities at the time of the US asset seizure in 2016. If not, we asked the bank to explain what happened to the $350 million that appears not to have been accounted for?Rothschild responded that “Rothschild & Co has fully cooperated in the 1MDB matter with the relevant law enforcement authorities since 2016 and provided full transparency …. Rothschild & Co has no remaining role in the management of Jho Low’s wealth“.When asked for clarification as to whether the remaining hundred plus trusts and accounts that were not surrendered to the DOJ in 2016 contained any assets, the spokesman declined to comment further, saying “The previous statement provides our full response on this matter“.It was not till over one year after that date that FINMA announced its conclusion, in July 2018, that Rothschild had been in “serious breach” of suspicious transactions and money laundering reporting requirements, placing the bank and trust company under special monitoring. The announcement did not state whether any assets remained within the bank belonging to Jho Low or his family.However, enquiries by Sarawak Report have confirmed that US investigators faced considerable hurdles during their original investigations relating to Swiss banking secrecy. The burden remained on the FBI to present its own findings to the bank in order to gain the cooperation and surrender of the trusts they had identified as purchased by the Low family through the money laundering of stolen assets.There was no commitment made by the bank to reveal further details about their client and at no point did Rothschild offer to open up the Low family portfolio to reveal what other assets were being curated by the bank.This, despite the fact that Jho Low had been unmasked as a fugitive from justice who had stolen billions from Malaysia and had no legitimate independent wealth. Sarawak Report has written to FINMA to enquire if it investigated whether any of Jho’s wealth remained at the bank or had been transferred elsewhere; so far, we have received no response.In November 2018, just months after the reprimand from FINMA, Rothschild SA facilitated a management buy-out of its trust subsidiary, enabled by a loan provided by the bank to its former staff. This now ‘independent’ operation was named Sequent and appears as a result of the ‘sell off’ to have no longer been subject to the enhanced monitoring put in place against Rothschild as a penalty by FINMA.Responding to questions on this matter Rothschild has replied “The sale of the trust business in 2018 was unrelated and a consequence of a strategic review of the entire Wealth Management business of Rothschild & Co.”It was more than another two years before the Swiss FFD completed its investigations into the funds that entered Rothschild and brought the case to trial in 2022.Meanwhile, shortly after the Low family’s October 2019 settlement with the US Department of Justice, another development took place in Hong Kong (from where the Low family based their businesses and had worked with local Rothschild investment managers prior to the scandal breaking out). In early 2020, a senior and well-connected former member of that Rothschild team announced the setting up of a private investment fund valued at well over half a billion US dollars.Sarawak has received information that the fund is believed to represent wealth beneficially owned by Jho Low and his family members: Rothschild itself is a substantial minority shareholder in the relevant fund management company.The fund management company has failed to respond to questions. However, Rothschild’s spokesman has told Sarawak Report that, as a minority shareholder, the bank does not have direct access to the investors’ ownership details, however the bank has “received assurance in writing … that none of its investors , nor any of the ultimate beneficial owners of its investors, are connected to Jho Low.”The fund has advertised minimal activity, supporting just three named investments during the past five years. One investment in a European tech company was originally purchased by a Rothschild trust vehicle for $200 million in 2017 then divested for a staggering $1.3 billion in 2022 into a separate Rothschild Trust vehicle alongside the fund and another private equity partner.A second investment is likewise linked to a Rothschild-related earlier investment and the third was divested following bankruptcy proceedings. In response to questions as to whether Jho Low or his family did at any point retain a beneficial interest in these investments Rothschild have answered “we have checked our investor records, including the anti-money laundering and Know-your-customer records of … the indicated transaction. According to these records, that are kept in line with our regulatory obligations, we did not identify Jho Low as one of the investors“.What appears clear therefore, is that barring further investigation or the release of further information from the bank, a sum of over $350 million identified as having been invested in some 100 of 130 trusts prior to 2015 remain inadequately accounted for following the surrender of Jho Low’s identified US assets to the DOJ.There appears to have been little oversight of those trusts or the bank over much of the relevant period, during which the later heavily criticised institution was free to manage the accounts and assets as it chose.If this wealth were to have been transferred to Hong Kong, by 2020 it would have come under the aegis of an increasingly opaque financial centre by then controlled by China, which has chosen to harbour and protect this global fugitive who carried out numerous missions on behalf of the Chinese government in Malaysia, the Gulf and United States.Most recently, in July, Sarawak Report reported the fraudster’s key engagement in the negotiations to settle outstanding 1MDB related debts still owed by Malaysia to China.However, as all Malaysians know, any assets remaining under his beneficial ownership are theirs, and that assisting in their transfer post 2016 would have amounted to aiding and abetting a known criminal.As for those pardon offers, given the level of profit realised from other investments by 1MDB looters (for example, Tarek Obaid’s Palantir shares, bought for $2 million, are now worth $468 million) the $353 million apparently unaccounted for in 2016 could very well represent billions now – certainly enough to fund the pardon offers Jho Low is reputed as having made.