US Justice Department Returns More Than $1 Billion in Stolen Malaysian Funds   

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday it has returned an additional $452 million stolen from Malaysia’s investment fund known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), bringing the total amount of money repatriated to the Malaysian government in the last five years to at least $1.2 billion.

The funds had been laundered through international financial institutions in the United States, Switzerland, Singapore and Luxembourg, the Justice Department said in a statement. 1MDB was created in 2009 to raise billions of dollars through global partnerships and foreign direct investment to “improve the well-being of the Malaysian people,” according to the Justice Department. Instead, senior 1MDB officials, associates and businessman Low Taek Jho, known as Jho Low, are accused of embezzling more than $4.5 billion from the fund between 2009 and 2015, according to the Justice Department.