Calls in Malaysia to expand the new government’s
anti-corruption campaign to the province of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, are
echoing across the Pacific to the small and insular commercial real estate
community in Ottawa, Canada.
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| Jamilah Taib and Andrew Leslie, MP for Orléans |
Abdul Taib Mahmud is a “politically exposed person” (PEP) as defined by Canada’s Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Regulations (PCMLTFR).
Jamilah Taib started her career in real estate in Ottawa with a financial gift from her father. The amount of that gift has never been revealed, though Abdul Taib Mahmud, a career public servant of humble origins, has claimed that the source of the money was a gratuity from the federal government of Malaysia.
Jamilah Taib started her career in real estate in Ottawa with a financial gift from her father. The amount of that gift has never been revealed, though Abdul Taib Mahmud, a career public servant of humble origins, has claimed that the source of the money was a gratuity from the federal government of Malaysia.
Abdul Taib Mahmud himself is a multi-billionaire. Given that
his only income is as a public servant, there has been widespread speculation
that the Sarawak governor is one of the world’s most accomplished kleptocrats, allegedly
siphoning billions of dollars from the timber trade.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) probed
Taib’s wealth before the current prime minister, Pakatan Harapan, came to power.
The investigation lapsed, largely due to lack of political will.
But now Kelvin Yii, a member of parliament in Bandar Kuching, Sarawak, is asking that the MACC release its findings. There have also
been calls from numerous sources within Malaysia for Taib Mahmud to declare his assets. This follows on the unprecedented move on the part of the new Malaysian
government to charge former Prime Minister Najib Razak with money laundering.
During Abdul Taib Mahmud’s multi-decade tenure, over 90% of
the rainforest in Sarawak was decimated, with the local population left in
poverty. Coincidentally, during this timeline Jamilah Taib and her Canadian
husband, Sean Murray, also miraculously built a real estate empire in Canada
and the United Kingdom worth many hundreds of millions of dollars.
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| Jamilah Taib's father, Abdul Taib Mahmud, and his wife |
To this day the Ottawa socialites, who are active in political and philanthropic circles, sit atop a dizzying array of real estate
assets, including Ridgeford Properties and W1 Developments in London, England.
To date, no rational explanation has been provided as to how
a real estate juggernaut of this magnitude could have grown organically. However,
a report by the Swiss NGO Bruno Manser Funds titled Safe Haven Canada has provided detailed evidence of close financial
links of Sakto Corporation to Taib family interests.
The Canadian side of the story begins in 1983 – only two
years after Abdul Taib Mahmud became first minister of Sarawak – when his
daughter, the 23-year-old Jamilah Taib, at the time an unemployed student,
incorporated Sakto Corporation. Jamilah Taib’s uncle Uncle Onn Bin Mahmud and
two other family members were also registered shareholders. The purpose, as
stated by Sean Murray to Paul Clarke of the Toronto Star, in June 2014, was “to
acquire, develop and operate real estate.”
However, no clear explanation has been given by Sean Murray
or Jamilah Taib as to where the acquisition funds originated from, or how much
was invested in Sakto. Jamilah Taib told Kathrin May of the Ottawa Citizen in
January, 1989, that all of Sakto’s shareholders were “from the Pacific Rim –
Australia, Hong Kong and Malaysia – and rarely come to Ottawa – except the
chairman who flies in from Malaysia twice a year for meetings.”
Wherever the funds came from, over the next few years they
helped Sakto build an impressive portfolio, mostly in residential properties. Then,
starting in the late 1980s, Sakto shifted gears to focus on commercial real
estate, specifically the construction of four large buildings at Preston Square
in Ottawa, which were completed in four phases between 1988 and 2007, for a
cumulative value of over $146 million.
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| Preston Square in Ottawa |
Sean Murray’s ambitions soon outgrew Ottawa. The real estate
whiz kid was on the hunt for a more lucrative market, a place where big,
incomprehensible investments would hardly raise an eyebrow. He found it in one
of the most expensive places on the planet to set up shop. In 1996 Ridgeford Properties was established by Sean and his cousin Chris Murray in London,
England, a city where vast fortunes are regularly laundered in an inflated,
recession-proof real estate market.
But this jaw-dropping growth didn’t escape scrutiny. The
media inquired as to Ridgeford’s ownership structure. The result was a story
that changed – and still doesn’t add up.
First, Christopher Murray on his personal Wikipedia entry
falsely stated that “Ridgeford is the sister company to the Murray family’s
property company, Sakto Corporation, which started out in Ottawa”. He repeated
this claim in an interview with Sarawak Report. However, Sakto isn’t and never
was a “Murray family property”, insofar as the Murray family apparently neither
invested money nor controlled the share structure of the firm.
On his blog, which has since been taken down, Sean Murray
also claimed that Ridgeford was an autonomous Murray-owned business, writing
that the UK enterprise was “owned by Sean Murray (Chairman) and Chris Murray
(Managing Director)”. However, Ridgeford appears to have had limited
capital investment on the part of the Murrays, despite their ownership claims.
Why this mysterious and contradictory story? Sean and
Christopher’s fathers were brothers, and successful architects in Ottawa. But
they didn’t have that kind of money. The simple answer appears to be that the
majority-stake owners – whoever they are – would rather not be identified.
But bucketloads of money are coming from somewhere. Over the
past two decades Ridgeford’s portfolio has exploded. It now includes the only “newbuild whole city-block development opportunity in Marylebone, W1.” The value of this 0.75 acre lot in downtown London is astronomical. It is mathematically
impossible for it to have been financed by profits generated by Sakto’s
investments in Ottawa.
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| One of Ridgeford's developments: a full city block in London |
Just as difficult to explain is W1 Developments, which is now building a 50-storey tower in London.
The company was founded in 2013, with Christopher Murray referring to
himself as the sole founder and managing director.
Given that Sean and Christopher Murray have no independent
access to such abundant sources of capital, and given Jamilah’s status as the
eldest daughter of a PEP, it’s possible that the Murrays are fronting ownership
for politically exposed “ghost” investors who are putting up the money and
assuming a majority stake. This would make sense, given that Ridgeford Properties
has received £17 million in unsecured loans from an offshore trust in the
British Virgin Islands named Tess Investments Ltd.
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| W1's golden "Principal Tower" dominates the London skyline |
This is, in fact, how the ownership of Sakto itself
functions. Though Sean Murray is President and CEO, it is his wife Jamilah Taib
who acts as Chairman, and who is the major shareholder and true owner. Ownership
is a critical factor here, and it is why Jamilah Taib, as the daughter of a
Politically Exposed Person, would be of interest to law enforcement officials
investigating money laundering.
To date, efforts by the Canadian government, including law
enforcement, have been stymied by the lack of cooperation from Malaysia: it’s
clear that nothing will happen without movement on the part of Malaysian
authorities. But now it also appears that Abdul Taib Mahmud and his family are
about to lose their political cover. If Malaysia does act, Canadian law
enforcement would then be in a position to investigate and potentially answer
many questions with regard to the extent of the wealth transfer from Abdul Taib Mahmud to his daughter Jamilah.
In Canada and elsewhere, the law doesn’t allow for public
access to the financial data of private corporations. As a result, a legal
challenge by Bruno Manser Funds to seek financial records from RBC, TD Bank,
Manulife Financial, and Deloitte – all of whom have done business with Sakto
Corporation – was thrown out of an Ontario court in February of this year.
At the time, much was made of this decision by Sakto’s
lawyer, Duncan Fraser of noticia LLP, who told the Financial Post that “foreign
‘vigilante citizens’ groups” (sic) are not allowed to “get access to private
records where they don’t have evidence any crime was committed.”
However, the judge in his dismissal didn’t weigh in on the allegations
themselves, which have not been tested in court – the decision only referenced
the proposed disclosure order. The court challenge itself was odd, given that Abdul
Taib Mahmud and his daughter Jamilah have not been found guilty of any crimes. But
it did have one important purpose, in that it allowed Bruno Manser Funds to
introduce hundreds of pages of evidence, which is now part of the public
record.
And that record is devastating. It establishes how ludicrous
it is to believe that Jamilah Taib – a graduate of Algonquin College of Applied
Arts and Technology in Ottawa who, it would appear, has never been employed by
anyone other than herself – could create a real estate corporation in a
relatively short period of time that had sufficient assets to secure over $100
million in third party loans. These include $8.2 million from the Toronto
Dominion Bank (1986), $20 million from the Royal Bank of Canada (1989-95), and
$73 million from Manulife (since 2003).
Assuming that Sakto was initially financed by the PEP Abdul
Taib Mahmud, as he himself has admitted, the question remains: how much money
came to Canada to support his daughter’s real estate venture, and what was its
origin?
To date, there has been limited action to ascertain whether
or not profiteering off of environmental devastation and human suffering has
helped fuel Sakto’s remarkable growth. But judging by the changes afoot in
Malaysia, it looks like that may soon change.
(Got a tip? Email it
to lapoliticaeslapolitica[at]gmail[dot]com)
ENDNOTE
Manulife has defended its loans to Sakto Group. In the
report Safe Haven Canada, Stephen Sigurdson, Executive Vice-President &
General Counsel, Manulife, stated in May, 2014 that:
“Our commitment to
responsibility extends to all Anti-Money Laundering requirements, including
those relating to Politically Exposed Foreign Persons. (...) We also check
third parties in whom or with whom we invest against commercially available
lists of Politically Exposed Foreign Persons (PEFP). Those on the list appear
not for any wrongdoing, but affirmative matches require a higher level of due
diligence and confirmation, which becomes part of the investment evaluation
process.”
A year later in March, 2015, Mr. Sigurdson further stated:
“Various public
reports…indicate that you have referred the Taib family to law enforcement
entities for investigation. They will have investigative tools at their [hands]
that are not available to entities such as Bruno Manser Fonds and Manulife. I
respectfully suggest your concerns [be] handled by law enforcement.”
However, as of June 17, 2017, things have changed. The Proceeds
of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Regulations (PCMLTFR) have
put in place much higher expectations when it comes to monitoring high risk
clients such as the family members of politically exposed persons.
The Canadian government has made it clear that it’s fully
aware of how family members are used for the purposes of money laundering.
Below is an excerpt from the Regulations:
It is critical to
consider family members or close associates of PEPs and HIOs as part of your
PCMLTFA obligations. It is an established trend that criminals carrying out, or
directing, criminal activity will distance themselves from the proceeds of that
crime as much as possible until they have laundered the money. FINTRAC [e.g. Financial
Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada] has observed that many
criminals rely on family members or other personal relationships to conduct
transactions on their behalf in order to create this distance until they can
establish a safe way to spend these assets.
As well, the Regulations make it clear that:
On a periodic basis
you must take reasonable measures to determine if an existing account holder is
a foreign PEP, a domestic PEP, a HIO, a family member of one of these people,
or a close associate of a foreign PEP.
Which is to say that Jamilah Taib is on the radar as never
before. According to the PCMLTFR, “Foreign PEPs, their family members and their
close associates must automatically be treated as high-risk clients.” Jamilah
Taib and Sakto Corporation are therefore now subject to the policies and procedures
for high-risk clients, including a risk assessment.
PCMLTFA obligations are also clear that, when dealing with
the family member of a PEP, measures need to be taken to establish the source
of the funds deposited or expected to be deposited into an account. Senior
management approval is also required in order to keep an account open.
As well, the PCMLTFR regulations now flag electronic fun
transfers (EFTs) of $100,000 or more. In
effect, FINTRAC requires that all EFTs of $100,000 or more to or from Jamilah
Taib, or entities controlled by her, are to be monitored. That said, it’s
unclear whether or not her husband, Sean Murray, or other members of the Murray
family, would be considered high risk clients and subject to the Regulations.
La politica has written extensively on this topic, and will continue to do so. Below is a list of related posts:
Jamilah Taib Murray continues campaign against Swiss NGO (June 3, 2019)
Ashbury alumnus and son of Taib Mahmud ordered to pay $9.4 million to ex wife (October 16, 2018).
Malaysian fugitive Jho Low takes a leaf from Jamilah Taib’s playbook (September 17, 2018).
Jamilah Taib, Chair of Ottawa’s Sakto Corp, May Soon be of Interest to Authorities in Malaysia and Canada (August 9, 2018).
Lady Luck Keeps Shining on Ottawa’s Sakto Corporation (May 18, 2018).
Tips are always welcome at lapoliticaeslapolitica[at]gmail[dot]com.
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