Prosecutors in the United States made a surprise move to open new criminal proceedings against unidentified parties related to 1MDB yesterday. The sum represents profits made in Venezuela from invested funds that were originally stolen from 1MDB. Laying out their grounds the DOJ lawyers made clear that Tarek Obaid and Patrick Mahony, already convicted by the Swiss courts (and awaiting an appeal) would be treated as key witnesses in the new criminal case. However, the deposition states, “this was a lie—the assets were not worth anything near $2.7 billion and were not even owned by PetroSaudi. A number of banks were instrumental in transferring huge questionable sums of 1MDB’s stolen money to facilitate these fraudulent transactions.