Sarawak's timber has been shipped out over the past 30 years
- has the money been shipped in to Taib-linked bank accounts?Corrupt Barisan Nasional : MACC Investigators have a headache in store for themwhen they turn to Hong Kong, such is the tangled web of Taib family shareholdings.
However, delving into thesebusiness concerns will throw upsome intriguing coincidences, as Sarawak Reports own researches can already demonstrate.
We can also demonstrate how a number of Taib-linkedcompanies are now owned or being managed out of the BVI by one of the Philippines top bankers Franciso C Sebastian, who started his career as a Financial Advisor in Hong Kong.We suggest that investigations in Hong Kong hold the key to tracing the early development of Taibs international web of global investments as the profits from felling Sarawaks rainforests escaped abroad.
The Shea Kin Kwok connection
The first job that needs doing is to interviewMr Shea Kin Kwok. Shea was longregarded as a mysterious businessman with several links to Taib family companies.However, Sarawak Reporthas now confirmed that he was in factthe paid secretary to Taibs brother Onn Mahmud. Hisjobwas to manage Achi Jaya company affairs out of Hong Kong,in particularto controlthe Achi Jaya linked companies into which payments were being made.
The Hong Kong Company Register shows a number of companies, including Regent Star listed under the ownership of Shea Kin ! Kwok and a fellow employee Kho Eng Beng
This activity became public in April 2007, when the shipping kickbacks scandal broke after the Japanese tax authorities prosecuted timber exportersfor not declaring millions of dollars paid to Regent Star Company Ltd, which wasone of the companies directed by Shea Kin Kwok out of his office in Connaught Road. The Japanese timber exporters explained theyhad beenforced to pay thekickbacks to Regent Star in order to get their shipping licences.
The links wereglaring. Taib had put his brother Onns Achi Jaya Corporation in charge of issuing export licences for timber from Sarawak and another company Regent Star, run by Onns secretary, was receiving the kickbacks in Hong Kong.
Web of companies
Regent Star had beenincorporated in 1983 (the same year Achi Jaya was set up by Onn in Sarawak). Regent Starwas50% owned by Shea and 50% by another employee, Kho Eng Beng and we have identifieda number ofother related Hong Kong companies owned and directed by the same pair: Grand Will Limited (incorporated 1984), Grand ShineTrading (incorporated 1983), Herolite investment(incorporated 1983), Natalite (incorporated 1983) and Wittaker Company Ltd (incorporated 1985).Shea also became listed as one of the major shareholders in Sarawak Oil Palm, a privatised State venture which inherited huge tracts of state lands.
Richfold - 4,998 shares for Onn and just 1 share for secretary Shea Kin Kwok!
Another company, Richfold Investment Ltd, was especially interesting, because it wasincorporated on the same day and registered at the same office as Regent Star and again Shea was a Director and Shareholder. But the other shareholder in this particular company was Onn Mahmud himself. Shea had just one share in the company. and Onn had the remaining 49,99! 8 !
So many coincidences
After the kickback scandal broke an awful lot of coincidences occurred. Grand Will Limited and Regent Star Company Ltd were both dissolved on the same day, 9th November 2007. On the other hand, Richfold stayed active for another few months, until it too was closed 9th May 2008.
Meanwhile, coincidentally, Grand Will and Regent Starhad both re-openedon the very same day just a month later,under different Directors and Shareholders. Sarawak Report notes that also on that very same day, 21st December 2007,a brandnew company wasopened in Hong Kong called TESS Limited HK.
TESS Limited HKhas a very similar name to TESS Investments (BVI), the company based atPO Box 438in theBritish Virgin Islands that has been funding Taib family investments in the UKthrough Ridgeford Properites Ltd.
TESS Investments BVI, the company that has been giving millions of pounds in interest free loans to Ridgeford Properties
Indeed,TESS Investments (BVI)was incorporated 23rd October 1996just the day before the multi-million pound Ridgeford Properties was incorporated in the UK. Ridgefordis run by Sean Murray, Taibs son-in-law, who has numerous involvements in Taib familyproperty companiesworldwide and ithasbenefited for yearsfrom multi-million, interest-free, open-ended loans from TESS Investments (BVI).
Is the Astar Properties which has investments in the Taib family's Adelaide Hilton the same Astar Properites based in the BVI which started Ridgeford Properties in the UK?
Another company registered at the samePO BOX 438address in BVIis theoriginal ! sharehol der of Ridgeford Properties,Astar Properties, which was itselfalso incorporated in October1996, just days before TESS Investments and Ridgeford Properties. In yet another coincidental twist, Astar Properties is also the name of one of theshareholdersof the Taib family company in Australia, Sitehost Pty, which owns the Adelaide Hilton (although this Astar Properties is misleadingly registered at a non-existent address in Guernsey).
CMS connection
It is worth pointing out yet another relatedcoincidence, which is that the Taib family companyCMS owns atrust Company whichis also based at the verysamePO Box 438address inBVI as TESS Investments(BVI)and AstarProperties -an address managed bythe trustee company Equity Trust.
Furthermore, at the risk of boggling readers minds with coincidences, we would further draw their attention to the ownership of the new Hong Kong company, TESS Limited HK,that we mentioned opened on the same daythat Regent Star Limitedand Grand Will Limitedre-opened, 21st December 2007.
Theregistered shareholder of TESS Limited HK isa company called TOA Services (BVI). Our investigationsshow, however,that there is no actual company ofthat name in BVI. On the other hand,the address listed for the non-existent TOA Services (BVI)is the samePO Box 438address shared by CMS, TESS Investments and Astar Properties!
TESS Limited HK shares the same address as TESS Investments BVI, which funds Ridgeford Properties
Questions to answer
Therefore, since Taib Mahmud is currently making statements and denials,Sarawak Reportasks if he is prepared tocategorically denythat there is anypath or connectionbetween money taken in by Richfold Investments Ltd in Hong Kong and money paid out to Ridgeford Properties Ltd in the United Kingdo! m viaPO Box 438BVI?
Is he also prepared todeny that thevast kickbacks handed to his brother Onns secretarythrough Regent StarLimited did not find its way into the sister company Richfold Investments, directlyowned by Onn?
One of Ridgeford Properties' investments is this prestige building next to the Bank of England
Finally, is he prepared to explain to the State Assembly in detail why he thinks it is fitting to hand control over shipping licences to his own brothers company and then arrogantlydeny allwrong-doing when millions in shipping kickbacks are discovered to have been extracted by another company owned by his brothers secretary?
Surely Taibs dismissive denials can onlyincrease suspicion overhis guilt? If he was genuinely free from involvement and concerned about corruption he would long since have rushed to investigate the matter fully and openly (and also have resigned, which is the only honourable course after allowing such appalling graft to take place).
Other companies owned by Shea and a secondtangled web that also leads to the BVI
Shea Kin Kwokwasoriginally the Director and 50% Shareholder (once moretogether with Kho Eng Beng) of two separate Mahmud-linked companies,Grand Shine TradingandHerolite Investment Limited, which both hold 5% of the shares in Achi Jaya, Onn Mahmuds vast shipping and plantation company. Likewise they owned a sister company Natalite. All of these companies are based in Hong Kong.
Taib proxy? Onn Mahmud was involved in numerous business dealings with the Taibs in the 1980s, but has since fallen out of favour
Given that Sarawak Report has learnt from insiders that Onns cut from t! he busin esses that he ran as a nominee for his brother, the Chief Minister Taib Mahmud, was 10%, we require some more denials to avoid reaching some obvious conclusions. CanTaibdenythat the 10% of Achi Jaya that belonged to Grand Shine and Herolite andwere put in the hands of Onns employees, were not indeed his brothers 10% of the company ? Can he deny that the remaining 90% of the company secretly belongs to him?
Interestingly, in 2004 a series of fiendish manoeuvres were embarked upon to remove these two companies from the formal ownership of Shea and Kho and to place them safely and anonymously in the hands of bankers, yet againin the tax free haven of the British Virgin Islands.
Our researches have traced how Grand Shine and Herolite were firsttaken over by the companies YieldCourt andCitifull Company respectively. Yield Court in turn belongedto Cooperheat Overseas ServicesLtd. Allthree of these companies are yetin turnowned by two shareholder companies called Bona Co Ltd and Fidico Ltd and every one ofthese fivecompanies aremanaged by Intercorp Services, 11th Floor Dah Sing Life Building, 99 Voeux Rd, Hong Kong.
The shareholders of Bona Co and Fidicoturn out to beyet another two companies called Penryn Ltd and Peckham Ltd (both incorporated 12thJune 1984 and also managed by Intercorp Services).
Penryn Ltdis a shareholder of Peckam Ltd andPekham Ltd is a shareholder of Penryn Ltd.
However, the othershareholder of both companies is yet another company Integrated Financial Services, which is againalso based at the same office as IntercorpServices in Hong Kong.
Integrated Financial Services is in fact the owner of Intercorp and is therefore now the ultimate owner ofGrand Shineand Herolite, which used to belong to Onns office managers and which still own a 10% share of Achi Jaya Holdings.
Francisco C Sebastian, Chairman of First Metro in the Philippines
So who owns Integrated Financial Services? Company records show that the shareholders are Integrated Financial Services Holdings, basedin the BVI and also Francisco C Sebastianatop banker in a Philippines, who originally worked as a financial advisor in Hong Kong.
By yet another coincidence of names, Integrated Financial Services also owned Richford Management Ltd, another Hong Kong Company. Sarawak Report would like to know whether Mr Sebastian has indeedbought up the Achi Jaya shares by this circuitous route, or was he just acting as an advisor and trustee for Onn Mahmud as he attempted to secretly move his shares out of the hands of his secretary and into a safe tax haven?
Time for transparency
Given the glaring potential for the abuse of political influence surrounding the roles and activities of the AchiJayaGroup of companies it is only correct that the ChiefMinister and his family should be utterly transparent and open about such matters and answer the questions that Sarawak Report and others have been raising. Otherwise onlookers will be entitled to come to their own conclusions and demand that the MACCmakes a full investigationinto the Taib familybusiness activities in Hong Kong.
Even if investigators are guaranteed a headache as they wade through the devious and complicated paths of company ownership.
