Najib’s credit cards used for RM3.36m bill at Swiss jewellers De Grisogono’s Italian outlet in 2014
KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — Two credit cards registered under Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s name were used for to pay a whopping RM3.36 million in 10 transactions at the Swiss jeweller De Grisogono’s Italian outlet in 2014.
The payments, all transacted on August 8 that year, were done by way of two Visa and eight MasterCard transactions for amounts ranging from €3,500 (RM15,432.50) to €100,000 (RM440,928.71).
Information on each of these transactions was verified and revealed in court today by Yeoh Eng Leong during his examination in chief by Deputy Public Prosecutor Budiman Lutfi Mohamed.
Yeoh is the prosecution’s 47th witness in Najib’s RM42 million SRC International Sdn Bhd trial.
Yeoh, currently Ambank’s Senior Vice President of Credit Card Authorisation and Fraud Management, had also revealed the two platinum credit cards under Najib’s name had an accumulative credit limit of RM3 million.
He said the limit was applied for the AmBank Visa Platinum card bearing the number 4585818000005496, and the Mastercard Platinum credit card bearing the number 5289438000038961.
Budiman: Looking at these credit card statements, can you tell the expenditure limit from these credit card statements?
Yeoh: Yes, the combined limit for both cards is RM3 million.
Yeoh then read through bank statements detailing of the card’s transactions from the August 2014 spending spree.
He first detailed two payments made on August 8 with the Visa credit card at the De Grisogono outlet, one for €100,000 (RM440,928.71) and another for €3,500 (RM15,432.50).
“On the same day, also at the same place, this time using the Mastercard, at the De Grisogono merchant in Italy, the first was a payment of €100,000 (RM433,986.28), and then another at the same outlet also for €100,000 (RM433,986.28), and the third also at the same merchant for €50,000 (RM216,993.28),” he said.
Yeoh read then read out the following three transactions, all of which were for €100,000 (RM433,986.28) each, and then the last transaction of €10,000 (RM43,988.62) at the Swiss jeweller.
Malay Mail’s calculation for the total amount spent during the one-day spending spree was at €763,500 or equivalent to RM3.364,670,65 using conversion rates from 2015.
Yeoh, as part of reading out the same bank statement, said on 13 August that year, two payments of RM2,833,147.21 and RM449,586.95 was paid from Najib’s AmBank account ending-880 into the Mastercard’s and Visa’s account.
Malay Mail’s calculations showed that despite having paid RM3,282,734.16, the credit cards were still owed some RM81,936.49 in repayments, using conversion rates from 2015.
A previous witness had testified that an amount of almost RM3.3 million was diverted from one of Najib’s AmBank accounts, to a Visa Platinum and Mastercard Platinum credit cards.
The witness had testified that an entire sum of almost RM3.3 million was to be split into two accounts, namely RM449,586.95 to a Visa Platinum credit card and the remaining RM2,833,147.21 to a Mastercard Platinum credit card.
However, the proceedings then had not revealed the owners of the credit cards, until Yeoh’s testimony today.
Najib is on trial for seven charges of abuse of position, criminal breach of trust and money-laundering over RM42 million of SRC International’s funds.
During the course of the trial, witnesses have testified the Retirement Fund (Incorporated) (KWAP) granted a total of RM4 billion in loans in August 2011 and March 2012 to SRC International, with money allegedly flowing through other companies before being transferred into Najib’s accounts.
The trial before High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali resumes tomorrow.
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