Tim Leissner | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 31, 1971 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Investment banker |
| Known for | 1MDB Fraud |
| Title | Chairman of Southeast Asia and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs |
| Spouse | Kimora Lee Simmons |
| Children | 2 |
Tim Leissner (born October 31, 1971) is a German-born investment banker and convicted felon. As managing director at Goldman Sachs and chairman of the bank's Southeast Asia division [1] Leissner helped orchestrate the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, one of the biggest financial scandals in history, in which billions of dollars were stolen. He was arrested in June 2018 in Washington, D.C., forced to pay a $43 million fine. As of 2020 he faced up to 25 years in prison but due to his cooperation has avoided spending any time in jail.
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Tim Leissner was born in Germany as son of a Volkswagen executive, he studied at the University of Siegen. In 1992, he earned an MBA from the University of Hartford in Connecticut. [2]
From 1998 to 2016 Leissner was employed by Goldman Sachs as investment banker. He became partner in 2006 and in 2014 chairman of the bank's Southeast Asia division. [2] He retired in January 2016 after an internal review found he sent a fake letter to Banque Havilland on behalf of Jho Low.[ citation needed ]
He was arrested in June 2018 in Washington, D.C.. In 2018 he pled guilty to charges he personally stole $200 million from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and that he broke the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by paying bribes to corrupt Malaysian and Emirati offices to get Goldman Sachs business. [3] [4]
Leissner was banned for life by the Securities and Exchange Commission and forced to pay a $43 million fine. As of 2020 he faced up to 25 years in prison. [5] [6] but due to his cooperation has avoided spending any time in jail. [7]
In 2020 Goldman paid a record fine (over $5 billion) to the Malaysian and U.S. authorities over the scandal. [8] [9] In 2022, Bloomberg called Leissner "Goldman's most notorious banker." [10] He testified against his former deputy Roger Ng in a 2022 trial. [11] As of 2022, Leissner has been free on bail of $20 million. [2]
In 2014, Leissner married Kimora Lee Simmons. They have one child together, a son, born in 2015. [12] [13] [14] In February 2022, it was revealed that Leissner and Simmons were estranged from each other, though it is not exactly clear when the couple split. [15]
At the time Leissner married Simmons, he was still married to his ex-wife, Judy Chan. Leissner gave Simmons photoshopped documents showing that he was divorced from Chan, and created an email address in Chan's name to convince Simmons that the couple had divorced. He continued the correspondence for over a year and continued using the email account for several years. [16]
Leissner is portrayed in the book Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope of The Wall Street Journal, which focuses on Jho Low, the purported mastermind behind the 1MDB scheme. The book was published in September 2018.
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1Malaysia Development Berhad is an insolvent Malaysian strategic development company, wholly owned by the Minister of Finance (Incorporated).
Clare Rewcastle Brown is a British environmental and anti-corruption journalist and activist who uncovered the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. Born in the former British Crown Colony of Sarawak, she is the founder and operator of the Sarawak Report blog and Radio Free Sarawak which have exposed corruption driving deforestation and human rights violations in that state along with failures in the global financial systems which facilitate kleptocracy. In 2015 she shifted her focus to the federal government of Malaysia and the country's prime minister, Najib Razak. Her blog Sarawak Report gained widespread recognition for its original and early exposure of the 1MDB scandal, which contributed to widespread disillusionment with Najib's Barisan Nasional government, culminating in its loss in the 2018 elections.
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The 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, often referred to as the 1MDB scandal or just 1MDB, is an ongoing corruption, bribery and money laundering conspiracy in which the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was systematically embezzled, with assets diverted globally by the perpetrators of the scheme. Although it began in 2009 in Malaysia, the scandal's global scope implicated institutions and individuals in politics, banking, and entertainment, and led to criminal investigations in a number of nations. The 1MDB scandal has been described as "one of the world's greatest financial scandals" and declared by the United States Department of Justice as the "largest kleptocracy case to date" in 2016.
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Low Taek Jho, often called Jho Low, is a Malaysian businessman and international fugitive, wanted by authorities in connection with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal. He has been named the mastermind of the massive fraud, which prosecutors allege was a scheme to siphon US$4.5 billion from 1MDB into Low's personal accounts. He is the beneficiary of numerous discretionary trust assets said by the US government to originate from payments out of the Malaysian 1MDB fund. Low has maintained his innocence and contends that Malaysian authorities are engaging in a campaign of harassment and political persecution due to his prior support of former Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose part in the 1MDB scandal had led to Najib being convicted on seven counts of abuse of power, money laundering and criminal breach of trust.
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The 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal is an ongoing political scandal in Malaysia, in which then-Prime Minister Najib Razak was accused of channeling over RM 2.67 billion into his personal bank accounts from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a government-run strategic development company. 1MDB was overseen by Najib as head of its advisory board. Following repeated calls for resignation by the public, Najib lost power in the 2018 Malaysian general election, and is currently on trial along with several key figures involved.
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