KUALA LUMPUR — The US Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Trump administration has disbanded the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, which had investigated 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) fraud and successfully helped Malaysia recover millions of dollars in misappropriated funds.
The shutdown of the DOJ’s Kleptocracy initiative was reported by investigative journalist Bradley Hope on X, citing sources and verification by new US Attorney-General Pam Bondi n an email.
“Trump’s DOJ just killed its elite anti-corruption unit, our sources say.
“The Kleptocracy Initiative – famous for seizing Russian oligarchs’ yachts and prosecuting the $4.5B 1MDB fraud – was quietly disbanded last night,” Hope said on X.
“In an email sent at 7:30PM yesterday, AG Pam Bondi announced the immediate closure of both the Kleptocracy Initiative and Task Force KleptoCapture. The units recovered billions in stolen assets since 2010,” added the journalist who co-wrote Billion Dollar Whale with Tom Wright exposing Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho’s role in the 1MDB scandal.
The Kleptocracy initiative was set up by DOJ in 2010 to work in partnership with federal law enforcement agencies to forfeit proceeds of foreign official corruption.
It was also mandated to return illicit proceeds to the people of the country stolen from.
Hope said Bondi in her email stated the resources from the disbanded initiative would be spent on other law enforcement purposes.
Just before Donald Trump took office as US president on Jan 20, the DOJ on Jan 17 announced that it had reached an agreement to rover an addition US$20 million funds misappropriated from 1MDB.
The US$20 million had been recovered from DuSable Capital Management LLC (DuSable), which according to the DOJ, had performed “political activities” for the government of Malaysia, “including lobbying the U.S. government to provide non-financial support for a solar project in Malaysia”.
As of June 2024, the DOJ had recovered and returned to Malaysia approximately US$1.4 billion related to 1MDB. – February 7, 2025