1MDB trial: Ex-Goldman boss met Malaysia’s Najib Razak to get his children jobs, jury told

In return for a lucrative deal, the bank was to give Najib’s three children jobs, Goldman’s ex-Southeast Asia chairman Tim Leissner told the jury

Meanwhile, Leissner during the trial also testified he was blackmailed by his Malaysian lover into buying US$10 million home

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Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Photo: Bernama/dpa

Published: 11:00am, 23 Feb 2022Updated: 3:30pm, 23 Feb 2022

The star witness in the bribery trial of former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng testified that ex-Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein in 2009 met former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak ahead of US$6.5 billion in bond deals for the country’s wealth fund – and that the meeting came with an agenda.

In return for the lucrative business, Goldman was to get Najib’s three children jobs at the bank, former Southeast Asia chairman Tim Leissner told the jury on Tuesday about the 1MDB scheme.

Leissner, 52, was describing the lengths he said he and his subordinate Ng went to in helping Malaysian financier Jho Low loot billions of dollars from the Malaysian fund.

Tim Leissner, former chairman of Southeast Asia for Goldman Sachs. File photo: Bloomberg

“Just met PM’s three children with Jho at his apartment,” Leissner read to the jurors, in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, from an email Ng sent him. “We’ll work on getting them to join GS.”

Leissner replied to Ng: “Sounds good my friend. Get them in.”

In the end, he told the jury, he just helped get Najib’s daughter a job at TPG.

It was Leissner’s second day of testimony in the trial of Ng, the bank’s former head of investment banking in Malaysia.