By Jeff Ooi,
Does the name Abdul Kayum Syed Ahmad ring a bell? How about Aksavest Sdn Bhd?
Or is this a re-enactment of the Pakistani Express that rocked Scomi in an alleged black-market link to nuclear arms brokers in 2004?
Friends in Australia alerted me to a story in two Fairfax-owned dailies today -- The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald -- that said Austrade, the Australian Federal Government's trade agency, had warned the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) about using a Kuala Lumpur arms broker to help win currency printing deals in Malaysia.
The Malaysian businessman was identified as Abdul Kayum Syed Ahmad, who is said to have been a broker for a Pakistani weapons operation suspected of playing a key role in that country's nuclear arms program.
According to The Age, an Austrade background check on Abdul Kayum was done in July 2007. Its findings prompted the Reserve Bank to audit all foreign agents used by two of its currency suppliers, Securency and Note Printing Australia (NPA).
By late 2007, the Reserve Bank had ordered NPA to sever ties with Abdul Kayum and its other overseas middlemen due to integrity concerns.
However, Securency is believed to have continued its association with Abdul Kayum for some time after NPA stopped dealing with him.
NPA is wholly owned by the Reserve Bank while Securency is a 50-50 partnership with a British private equity firm. Both companies are chaired by RBA assistant governor Bob Rankin.
The Age said the two Australian companies had won currency printing contracts in Malaysia in 1998 and 2004.
High-level political connections
Abdul Kayum's former business associates had told The Age that the man claimed to have high-level political connections in Malaysia that he could use to help strike deals for foreign companies.
Securency and NPA engaged Abdul Kayum in the late 1990s to lobby Malaysian government and banking officials to adopt the Australian-made polymer banknotes.
The Sydney-based daily also said Abdul Kayum was the second arms trader to be used as an agent by one or both of the mentioned RBA's currency firms.
The Age disclosed that Abdul Kayum's Kuala Lumpur investment company Aksavest is alleged to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions from Securency and NPA. Quote:
Sources aware of the RBA companies' dealings in Malaysia have told The Age that the commissions paid to Mr Ahmad were exceptionally high. They also said the deals with Malaysia's central bank could have been done without the involvement of a middleman.
Earlier last month, The Age exposed Securency's use of an arms dealer suspected of supplying guns to Latin American drug gangs as its agent in Paraguay.
RELATED STORIES:
- Agents for cash printer were sacked after audit
THE company that prints Australia's money abruptly dismissed all its foreign agents in 2007 after a Reserve Bank of Australia audit raised probity fears. - Auditors look into transactions by note printer
THE Reserve Bank of Australia has called in external auditors to investigate multimillion-dollar transactions between its banknote-making subsidiary and foreign middlemen. - Inquiry into banknote deals
THE Australian Federal Police is launching a full-scale investigation into allegations that a Reserve Bank of Australia subsidiary engaged in improper business dealings overseas to win banknote deals.
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