284 Luxury Bags Seized in Malaysian Ex-PM Corruption Probe
BEIJING–Malaysian police have confiscated five trucks-worth of designer handbags, jewelry, watches, cash and other valuables in a corruption and money-laundering investigation into the country’s former prime minister, Najib Razak.
The raids carried out in the early hours of Friday morning yielded 284 designer handbags, many of which appear to be Hermes Birkin bags, according to local media reports.
Rosmah Mansor, Razak’s wife, is known for her love of Birkins. Many orange boxes were labeled with pictures of different Birkin bags and had accompanying descriptions for the material and color. One read “blue with diamante crocodile skin”.
It’s a discovery that recalls Imelda Marcos when a corruption investigation revealed the then Phillippines’ first lady owned more than 3,000 designer shoes.
Speaking to the Singaporean paper Straits Times, Amar Singh, Malaysian director of police commercial crime investigations, said, “The total sum worth of items cannot be ascertained now. We’ll be counting and will know by tomorrow.”
He also added: “The number of jewelry is rather big.”
Razak, who served as prime minister from 2009 to 2018, is under investigation by at least six countries for embezzling money–$4.5 billion according to U.S. investigators–from the sovereign state fund 1MDB.
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