By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-07 01:31:43 | Updated at 2025-03-09 01:55:08
2 days ago
Shock reverberated around Malaysia when news broke earlier this week that former prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob was named a suspect in a corruption investigation linked to 170 million ringgit (US$38.6 million) in cash, gold and other items seized at alleged safe houses run by his senior aides.
The uproar came not so much from Ismail Sabri being named a suspect, but the sheer amount of cash found along with 16 gold bars and luxury Hublot watches.
The fact that Ismail Sabri was named a suspect by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was less of a surprise for Malaysians, many of whom gleefully took the opportunity to lampoon the country’s shortest-serving leader on social media.
The MACC’s announcement on Monday makes Ismail Sabri the third former prime minister in Malaysia to face a corruption investigation, following in the footsteps of his immediate predecessor Muhyiddin Yassin and the now-jailed Najib Razak.
Muhyiddin was charged two years ago with abuse of power and money laundering involving 232.5 million ringgit (US$52.8 million) in bribes allegedly procured during his 17-month stint as prime minister between March 2020 and August 2021.
Najib is serving a six-year reduced jail sentence for similar offences linked to 42 million ringgit (US$9.5 million) in funds siphoned out of SRC International, a former unit of scandal-tainted state fund 1MDB.
