Yak Yew Chee, probably the most prominent and surely best paid employee at Swiss BSI Bank in Singapore, left the company in February, according to the firm. He had been the relationship manager for the opaque 1MDB government fund of Malaysia.
Yak Yew Chee's accounts were frozen by Singapore authorities in September 2015 and he has been questioned as part of the city-state's 1MDB inquiry in connection with possible money-laundering.
Yak, a senior vice president at BSI, was until recently paid a monthly salary of about S$82,554, according to court papers published last week. «He is no longer employed by BSI,» a spokeswoman at the Switzerland-based bank said in response to queries by news agency «Bloomberg».
A «Large Number» of Bank Accounts
Yak had been a relationship manager for 1MDB Global Investments, a unit of 1Malaysia Development Berhad, whose advisory board is headed by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. 1MDB has been the subject of investigations stretching from the U.S. to Singapore amid allegations of financial irregularities.
There are also inquieries on-going by the Swiss financial authorities, Finma, as finews.ch reported earlier. And Singapore's authorities have seized «a large number» of bank accounts due to the suspicion of possible money-laundering.
First High Profile Victim
Yak was placed on leave from May to September in 2015 while BSI conducted investigations, according to court papers.
Last Monday, finews.asia was first to report that BSI Asia CEO Hanspeter Brunner was to retire in the coming weeks. The almost 64-year old Swiss banker has been under pressure as some of the irregularities appear to have occurred during his tenure.
BSI Bank has recently been sold by the Brasilian BTG Pactual Group to Swiss private bank EFG International, as finews.asia also reported.
