Nobody Thought Anything Was Odd About Not Being Allowed To Send Malaysian Prime Minister’s Credit Card Bills To His House

Or letting people at the bank know about his bank accounts. Or using Gmail for official communication.

“No no no,” Mr. Low wrote, according to transcripts of BlackBerry messages reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Super sensitive.” He instead had someone collect the statements by hand.

And when the Mayalsian prime minister’s buddy says “no no no,” you say “no problem,” even when (especially when?) you are Goldman Sachs. Or else.

It couldn’t have happened without the cooperation of a handful of bankers and the failure of a host of financial institutions and regulators to detect the alleged fraud, investigators believe. Mr. Low and his cohorts for years eluded detection or interference by at least eight banks, big accounting firms, a central bank and various government regulators, according to the Justice Department, investigative documents from other countries and people familiar with the affair….

His cohorts inside and outside the fund pressured bank compliance officers, relied on close relationships with others and got help from people inside governments, according to the complaint and other documents. When some accountants raised questions, they were fired.

Behind the 1MDB Scandal: Banks That Missed Clues and Bowed to Pressure [WSJ]