Roger Ng, 46, a Malaysian former banker, has gone to the United States to face charges connected to the multi-billion-dollar scandal that involved 1Malaysia Development Berhad, the Government fund. He has been charged with breaking the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 1977.

Ng, whose real name is Ng Chong Hwa, stands accused of conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB, the investment development fund, by paying bribes to government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi and circumventing the internal accounting controls of a financial institution in New York. Both conspiracies represent breaches of the FCPA.

In a three-count indictment unsealed last year, the US Department of Justice charged Ng with crimes that he allegedly committed while employed as a managing director at the financial institution, which underwrote more than US$6 billion in bonds issued by 1MDB in three separate bond offerings in 2012 and 2013. Ng was arrested in Malaysia on 1 November last year and has made his first appearance in a magistrate's court in New York.

As alleged in the indictment, between approximately 2009 and 2014 Ng conspired with others to wash billions of dollars misappropriated and fraudulently diverted from 1MDB, including funds that 1MDB raised in 2012 and 2013 through three bond transactions. As part of these efforts, Ng and others conspired to bribe government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi to obtain and retain lucrative business for the financial institution, including the bond deals of 2012 and 2013. They also conspired to launder the proceeds of their criminal conduct through the US financial system.

Court filings further allege that Ng, Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, used his close relationships with high-ranking government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi to obtain and retain business for the financial institution through the promise and payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes. In total, more than $2.7 billion was misappropriated from the 1MDB bond proceeds. Low remains at large.