The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was created to champion integrity and combat graft in public and private sectors.
Yet a Bloomberg investigation published on February 11, 2026 alleges that elements within MACC may have been complicit in helping certain business figures exert undue influence over corporate control, using intimidation and legal leverage to pressure executives into selling or surrendering their shareholdings.
This controversy echoes an earlier episode that first surfaced in The Corporate Secret blog throughout 2023, centered around Dato’ Sri Andy Lim Kok Han, widely known in corporate and criminal circles as Dato’ Teleng.
In that saga, Lim emerged as a substantial shareholder in GIIB Holdings Bhd, later being implicated in a highly publicized altercation where he allegedly brandished a pistol and issued threats to then-CEO Tai Boon Wee to force board appointments — an incident that spurred police reports and raised questions about the intersection of enforcement agencies, shareholder activism and corporate power struggles in Malaysia.
Together, these narratives paint a troubling picture of how enforcement mechanisms, corporate ambition, and allegations of impropriety can intersect, challenging perceptions of transparency and fairness in both regulatory institutions and the boardroom.
Yesterday's Bloomberg news on Tan Sri Azam Baki is but mere teaser to what unfolded today. His short-term holding in Velocity Capital Berhad and Awanbiru Berhad is just prequel to the real target, the Corporate Mafia syndicate.
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Who’s Watching Malaysia’s Anti-Corruption Watchdog?
A commission set up to fight graft is allegedly helping a group of businessmen seize control of companies. Questions about its conduct go all the way to the top.
Illustration: Chris W. Kim
By Tom Redmond and Niki Koswanage
February 12, 2026 at 6:00 AM GMT+8
In the country of 1MDB, where billions of dollars were looted from a state fund and spent on a luxury yacht and Hollywood movies, the attempted takeover of a $12 million company sounds like no big deal. But when it’s carried out by a man brandishing a gun, and allegedly backed by the government agency that’s supposed to prevent graft, it shows that corruption persists in Malaysia — often upending people’s lives.
For Tai Boon Wee, who founded the small rubber products maker, things took a dark turn on a June afternoon in 2023. He had just been questioned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, which was investigating accounting issues at his company, when he got an unexpected message. Andy Lim, a new shareholder, wanted to meet later that day at the Social, a restaurant in a Kuala Lumpur suburb that shows soccer matches on big TVs and serves fried noodles and chicken wings. Sitting at a table in a section in the back, Lim made his demand: He wanted two board seats at Tai’s GIIB Holdings Bhd.
As he talked, Lim raised his arms above his head and leaned back, revealing the pistol tucked in his trousers, CCTV footage seen by Bloomberg News shows. He said Tai was lucky he hadn’t already shot him dead, according to a report Tai filed to the police.
Lim, who has described the incident as an introductory meeting, is one of a number of businessmen, most of them ethnic Chinese, who have attempted to oust founders of Malaysian companies and sometimes seize control, according to court filings, police records, confidential documents and interviews with more than 20 people who have seen or learned about aspects of their operations. Their tactics, including alleged intimidation of executives, have earned the men the nickname “the corporate mafia,” a characterization many of them strongly deny. (Lim didn’t respond to requests for comment. Tai declined to comment.)
The documents and interviews, including first-hand accounts from seven eyewitnesses, all of whom requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, contain allegations that the businessmen have a surprising partner: the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, known as the MACC. Officials at the agency are allegedly being used to support the interests of private citizens by threatening, arresting and detaining executives, sometimes recommending charges against them.
A loosely knit group of about half a dozen men work from the same playbook. They operate independently but sometimes join forces. One or more of them appear on the scene, often buying a stake in the target company. Then, the MACC starts an investigation of the founders. Their bank accounts are frozen. Often, the executives are suspended from management positions and removed from the board. In some cases, they just quit and sell their shares.
Watch: Corruption as Cancer
MACC officials worked with the businessmen with little fear of consequences, according to the eyewitnesses, including two agency employees. They alleged that some of the men, or their associates, were present inside MACC headquarters when executives were taken in for questioning. In two cases, anti-corruption officials took instructions from the businessmen or people associated with them while interviewing executives, according to three of the people. Sometimes the officials proposed that the executives sell their shares to the businessmen at knockdown prices in return for investigations being stopped. In one case, the associates met executives in an interrogation room to discuss a settlement.
“MACC rejects any suggestion that its investigations are influenced by private interests,” a spokesman for the agency said in an email. “All investigations are conducted in accordance with the law, guided by evidence, and subject to prosecutorial discretion and judicial oversight.” The spokesman, who said he was responding on behalf of the agency and its officers, didn’t respond to a list of questions about specific allegations raised in this story. Azam Baki, the MACC’s chief commissioner, didn’t respond to requests for an interview.
“There is a clear reputational problem and a trust deficit. There are all these issues that have happened that have been unresolved.”
Malaysia, a country of about 34 million people, is known for its Petronas Twin Towers, a vibrant mix of cultures and cuisines and one of the biggest corruption scandals in history, the plundering of state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., known as 1MDB. The case shocked people around the world when it was exposed in 2015, brought down a government that had ruled for six decades and ultimately ushered into power a prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, who said he would wage war against Malaysia’s ubiquitous graft.
Three years later, Anwar has come under fire from civil-society and opposition groups for allegedly exonerating his friends and using the anti-corruption agency against his political foes. Bloomberg’s reporting shows the allegations of MACC impropriety go beyond politics. Some details of the agency’s alleged ties with the businessmen have appeared in Malay-language blogs. But this is the first in-depth account of how that relationship played out in recent cases. It depicts a stock market tainted by complaints of criminal behavior and an agency that, instead of probing for wrongdoing, has allegedly taken part in it. The companies are typically penny stocks, and the amounts of money aren’t huge. But the consequences are significant.
“It’s really problematic, because then there is no recourse,” said Meredith Weiss, a professor of political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, whose work focuses on Malaysia. “The agency that you would turn to, if that becomes known to be itself so much part of the problem, then that encourages brain drain. It certainly encourages investor flight.”
Also problematic: Questions about the agency’s conduct go all the way to the top.
The Anti-Corruption Agency
Corruption has been around for millennia. Anti-corruption agencies are a more recent development. In Asia, they emerged after World War II as some countries came to see bribery, cronyism and abuse of power as hindrances to economic growth. Some of the agencies are independent forces with the power to investigate anyone, including government ministers and even the police.
When they function well, they can transform societies. Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau helped turn a shady port city into what Transparency International ranks as one of the least corrupt nations in the world. Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption cracked down on widespread graft in the then-British colony’s police force. But when they don’t work, their unchecked powers can make them prone to the very corruption they’re supposed to fight.
Malaysia set up its Anti-Corruption Agency in 1967, a decade after it won independence from Britain. It got its current name in a 2009 overhaul. The reborn commission has many of the trappings of good governance, including oversight by five bodies. But critics say it lacks autonomy because its chief commissioner is chosen on the advice of the prime minister. The MACC has mostly pursued low-level officials, its annual reports show. Many are road transport, immigration and customs officers accused of taking petty bribes. When the agency does go after bigger targets, they’re usually in the political opposition or out of power.
Najib Razak
Former Prime Minister Najib Razak outside a courthouse in Kuala Lumpur in October 2018 after being charged in connection with the 1MDB scandal.Photographer: Joshua Paul/Bloomberg
One exception was the embezzlement of at least $4.5 billion from 1MDB. The MACC started investigating a sitting prime minister, Najib Razak, as allegations of his involvement mounted. But in August 2015 the agency announced that the $681 million that ended up in Najib’s personal bank account was a donation, which the attorney general later said came from the Saudi royal family. No charges were filed against Najib until he lost power in 2018. (He was convicted and sent to prison. In December, he was sentenced to an additional 15 years and fined about $2.8 billion on other l 1MDB-related charges. He has denied doing anything wrong.)
The agency has made headlines for other reasons. Teoh Beng Hock, an aide to a state assemblyman, was found dead on a fifth-floor landing of an MACC building in 2009 after falling from a window on the 14th floor, where he was being questioned. An appeals court, overturning a finding by the coroner, said that Teoh’s death was caused by unknown people including MACC officers. Nobody was charged, but his family received damages as part of the settlement of a civil suit in 2015. The MACC apologized last year and offered to give money to support his child. His family refused.
Illustration to represent the death of Teoh Beng Hock with officers standing and pointing up
Illustration: Chris W. Kim
In 2011, a customs official being questioned in an investigation was found dead on a badminton court on the first floor of an MACC building in Kuala Lumpur. He had fallen from a window overlooking the court, according to a forensic pathology report. A coroner’s inquest ruled the death an accident. His family was awarded damages after a civil suit found it was the result of MACC negligence.
And last year, a woman named Pamela Ling was kidnapped on her way to MACC headquarters by people wearing what appeared to be police gear two days after she filed a lawsuit accusing the agency of colluding with her husband to pressure her into settling a messy divorce. The MACC has denied it was involved in her disappearance.
“There is a clear reputational problem and a trust deficit,” said Aira Azhari, chief executive officer of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, a Kuala Lumpur research organization that focuses on public policy issues. “There are all these issues that have happened that have been unresolved.”
The MACC is headquartered in Putrajaya, the seat of government, where witnesses are now interviewed on the ground floor — a move the agency has said was in response to Teoh’s death. The building features three curved glass towers on stilt-like columns. It was inaugurated in 2017 by Najib, who said it was a manifestation of Malaysia’s fight against corruption. Today, the agency employs more than 3,000 people, about 2,400 of them enforcement officers.
exterior of The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission headquarters
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission headquarters in Putrajaya.Photographer: Ian Teh/Bloomberg
A penthouse office on the 22nd floor of the tallest tower is occupied by Azam, the chief commissioner. A graduate in electrical engineering, he joined the MACC’s predecessor institution in 1984, when many young Malays saw the civil service as their best shot at upward mobility. Azam steadily climbed the ranks, making his name in the 2000s pioneering undercover operations. He became director of the intelligence division in 2013 and deputy chief commissioner in 2016. People who know him say he’s politically savvy, a smooth talker with a penchant for doing deals.
Azam got the top job in 2020. He has stayed in the role, serving under three prime ministers, despite protests calling for his arrest in 2022 after reports alleged he had shareholdings that breached stock-ownership rules for public officials. Anwar extended his term in 2023, when Azam reached the mandatory retirement age of 60, and then twice more. His current term is set to expire in May.
Azam Baki, chief commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, left, and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim at an MACC dinner in February 2025.
Azam Baki, chief commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, left, and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim at an MACC dinner in February 2025.Photographer: Zulfadhli Zulkifli/Bernama
Under Azam, the MACC has started investigations of at least four of Anwar’s adversaries, including three former prime ministers. Anwar’s office, which didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story, and the MACC have denied that Anwar issued directives or interfered in MACC investigations.
Azam “loves being in the MACC — I think that’s all that he knows,” Latheefa Koya, Azam’s predecessor as chief commissioner, said in an interview. But “the person you give responsibility or power cannot hold on or love the position too much. That’s the beginning of a problem.”
Latheefa Koya, former head of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, in October 2025.Photographer: Ian Teh/Bloomberg
The ‘Corporate Mafia’
The term “corporate mafia” first appeared in a Malay-language blog, the Corporate Secret, in early 2023. The blog described a network of businessmen, including investor Victor Chin, that targeted companies for takeover. It said the men worked with MACC officials who would carry out investigations when asked. “The modus operandi is the same,” the anonymous blogger or bloggers wrote. It is “to make a report to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and other authorities before taking over the companies.”
The Royal Malaysia Police issued a statement four days later that referred to the blog post’s headline, which included the phrase “corporate mafia.” Malaysian television stations picked it up, drawing national attention to Chin and his associates.
“I am not the leader of any group, nor do I control or coordinate the individuals referred to, all of whom are independent businessmen and corporate leaders in their own right,” Chin said in an email to Bloomberg. “They do not work for me, and I do not direct their actions.” He also denied any connection to the MACC, other than making complaints through formal channels, which any person can do.
The characterization by the Corporate Secret blog, which says it has been blocked repeatedly by authorities in Malaysia, was misleading. The businessmen aren’t mafia in the traditional sense. Those who’ve seen them in action say there’s no rigid hierarchy as in Italian or American crime groups, no code of conduct, no godfather at the top issuing orders to lieutenants. Each person operates independently, according to four people familiar with their operations, and sometimes they work together when it suits their interests.
While Chin denies being the leader, he is the common link with the others. Now 57, he made his money at Plaza Low Yat, a Kuala Lumpur electronics mall where he controlled several businesses, according to a person who knows him and requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. He later shifted focus to the stock market, the person and several others familiar with Chin’s career said.
Chin has a home in a leafy gated community of mock Tudor mansions near a golf course outside Kuala Lumpur, according to three people who have been to the house in recent years. On one floor was a wine cellar, coffee bar and kitchen area with full-time chefs serving Chinese and Indian food. On another floor was a room with about 15 traders. There was also an area where Chin conducts business, often holding several meetings at the same time. The cars parked under porches outside included a Ferrari and a bulletproof Toyota SUV.
A 2021 Malaysian tax agency letter seen by Bloomberg linked Chin, whose Chinese name is Chin Boon Long, to money laundering. The letter, addressed to Chin, said an audit of him and a company called MMAG Holdings Bhd. found he created special purpose vehicles to launder money and invest it in Malaysian shares. The entities were registered under the name of a former Chin employee, and more than 500 million ringgit ($127 million) linked to organized crime and other “dubious financial sources” was deposited into their bank accounts, the letter said, mentioning it detected “at least four money laundering schemes.”
An official at the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia who asked not to be identified discussing confidential matters confirmed the letter’s authenticity. An agreement was reached to pay back taxes, the official said, and the agency, which had frozen the money, released most of it to Chin. No charges were filed against him.
Chin said in his email that the allegations about creating special purpose vehicles to launder money are “untrue and incorrect.” He said he had “addressed and explained each of the alleged points or matters raised in that letter to the IRB, and the explanations provided were accepted by the authorities.” The agency declined to comment, saying it is bound by secrecy provisions.
Unusual aspects of Chin’s business practices surfaced in a trial of five police officers accused of stealing 6.5 million ringgit from his office in a luxury condominium in Kuala Lumpur. A 2024 judgment in the case cited Chin’s testimony that he received the money — packed in five letter-size boxes — from a Chinese investor to deploy in the stock market. Chin, who was the complainant in the case and not accused of wrongdoing, told the court he had no written agreement with the Chinese investor, and a police official testified that Chin had declined to fully identify the investor. Testimony from another police official that Chin was a stock manipulator was dismissed as irrelevant by the judge. Some of the money was returned to him. The officers were acquitted after the prosecution failed to secure the attendance of a witness.
Chin and other businessmen in the group sometimes engaged the services or worked with a former prosecutor and Securities Commission officer named Chong Loong Men. A LinkedIn profile describes him as providing legal counsel in securities and commercial disputes, as well as for “capital market manipulation, insider trading, corruption and breach of trust.” He attended meetings with executives and has allegedly communicated demands, according to accounts in court documents and police reports.
Chong was present when Tai met Andy Lim at the Social, according to Tai’s police report. A lawyer for Chong said allegations that he’s part of a group of businessmen enlisting the MACC to help take over companies are “entirely false.” The lawyer said Chong couldn’t comment about the meeting with Tai because it’s the subject of legal proceedings.
Malaysia MACC Story
The Social, a restaurant and bar in an upscale shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, where Tai Boon Wee met with Andy Lim in June 2023.Photographer: Ian Teh/Bloomberg
Francis Leong is another one of the businessmen. He worked at an electronics retailer where Chin was managing director and rose to become group chief operating officer, according to an online biography. Leong, whose Chinese name is Leong Seng Wui, was a shareholder or director of at least three companies that were allegedly targeted. In a statement to Bloomberg, Leong said he’s not aware of the existence of a so-called corporate mafia and allegations of his involvement are “wholly false.”
And then there’s Andy Lim, who allegedly flashed the gun at the Social.
Close Friends
An internal MACC memo seen by Bloomberg describes Lim, whose Chinese name is Lim Kok Han, as a close friend of the agency’s chief commissioner, as well as other current and former senior agency officials. The memo was written around 2020 by officials in the MACC intelligence division, according to a person who shared the document and asked not to be identified to avoid retaliation. That person and an MACC official say Lim’s history with the agency dates to at least 2007, when he was running a driving school and complained about corruption in Malaysia’s Road Transport Department.
Lim became a regular visitor to the MACC, offering to help officials and taking them to karaoke bars, the person who shared the internal MACC memo and the agency official said. He got to know some of Azam’s predecessors first, according to the people, who asked to remain anonymous discussing agency matters.
It’s unclear when Lim became friends with Azam, but by 2015 the two were investing in the same companies. That came to light in reports by Malaysian journalist Lalitha Kunaratnam published on the Independent News Service website in 2021. Her reporting, based on public securities filings, showed that in 2015 Azam owned shares worth more than 700,000 ringgit in a listed company that was then a bus operator known as Gets Global Bhd. Lim also had a stake in the company. In Malaysia, public officials are prohibited from holding shares in a company that are worth more than 100,000 ringgit.
The reports caused an outcry, but the bodies overseeing the MACC took no public action. An opposition lawmaker’s request for a discussion in parliament was rejected.
At a January 2022 press conference, Azam said one of his brothers had used his trading account to buy shares. The Securities Commission undertook an inquiry that ultimately cleared Azam, saying it found no evidence anyone else had used his account. A bigger issue remained: If Azam’s brother hadn’t used the account, Azam’s explanation was untrue — and he still hadn’t accounted for the stock holdings.
Asked recently about this, a spokesperson for the Securities Commission repeated that Azam had controlled the account, meaning he didn’t violate a law on the use of securities accounts by people other than the registered holder. The spokesperson didn’t comment further.
Azam sued Lalitha for defamation. The case was settled before trial, with neither side admitting fault. No terms were disclosed. Lalitha declined to comment. The MACC spokesman didn’t respond to questions about Azam’s relationship with Lim or his stock holdings. Nor did Lim and attorneys who have represented him.
Protesters hold placards displaying the face of Chief Commissioner of Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Azam Baki during a demonstration in January 2022.
Protesters with placards displaying Azam Baki’s face during a demonstration in January 2022 calling for him to step down over a share-ownership scandal.Photographer: Fazry Ismail/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
In January 2022, protesters marched in Kuala Lumpur, calling for Azam to resign. Also that month, Anwar, then leader of the opposition, posed for photographs with members of the youth wing of his political party outside parliament, surrounded by placards of dollar bills inscribed with the words “The Republic of Azam.” Anwar tweeted that he would report the matter to the prime minister. But after taking power that year, he kept Azam in place.
“Lalitha actually opened a Pandora’s Box,” said Edmund Terence Gomez, an emeritus professor of political economy at Universiti Malaya, who resigned from an MACC advisory panel following the allegations against Azam. “But the lid has been shut.”
Lim’s relationship with Azam brought him closer to Chin. In 2021, when the tax agency suspected Chin of money laundering, it asked the MACC to help investigate, people familiar with the matter said. Chin reached out to a contact in the Malaysian Chinese community to see if anyone could broker a deal with the MACC, according to two people familiar with the matter, both of whom requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. He was told to speak with Lim, the people said. It’s not clear what, if anything, Lim did on Chin’s behalf. But three current agency officials said a settlement was reached with the MACC.
In return, Chin helped Lim invest in the stock market, two people who know both men said. Stock exchange filings show that in October 2022 Lim bought a 29% stake in MMAG — the company the tax agency mentioned alongside Chin in its 2021 letter. That month, he also purchased 18% of broadband-device maker Green Packet Bhd., one of six companies allegedly targeted by the businessmen. Not anyone could have bought the Green Packet shares: It was a private placement for select investors.
In May 2023, Lim sold Green Packet shares and bought the GIIB stake, filings show. That’s how he ended up at the Social, meeting Tai.
Section D
A few months before Tai told police he’d been threatened at the Social, the restaurant was the scene of a meeting that featured a similar demand, according to allegations made in a lawsuit and a police report.
Brian Ng, one of the founders of Revenue Group Bhd., an electronic-payments company, was summoned to a meeting at the restaurant, he said in a March 2023 police report. He was under investigation by the MACC at the time for allegedly faking invoices. At the restaurant were Leong, who previously worked with Chin, and Chong, the attorney who has allegedly communicated the group’s demands. They said Ng and his brother Dino, who was also under investigation, should resign from all positions and not exercise voting rights for two years, Dino testified, in return for which the MACC would drop the probes.
“I am scared and worried because Chong and Francis in no uncertain terms were implying the MACC was under their control and will follow their orders,” Brian Ng said in the police report.
“There is no truth whatsoever to the allegations,” Chong’s lawyer said in his response to Bloomberg. He provided screenshots of messages between Chong and Ng that were submitted as evidence in court. The messages don’t contain any mention of the MACC and say there are no hidden conditions.
“Need to make up the story line to raise 500mil bro”
A similar tale unfolded at the cargo airline now called MJets Air Sdn. Bhd. Aviation executives Gunasekar Mariappan and Philip Phang had agreed to acquire and operate the company as a joint venture with Chin, according to an account given by the executives in a July 2023 lawsuit against Chin, MMAG and others. Chin would invest through MMAG, which would hold the majority stake, and the executives would run the business, according to their account of events. Chin has disputed this in court documents, saying he acted only as a business broker introducing the men to MMAG.
The lawsuit said that a complaint alleging wrongdoing at MJets was lodged with the MACC in an attempt to oust the two executives. Agency officers raided the company’s offices and the executives’ homes in February 2023. The officers arranged a meeting at MACC headquarters when Gunasekar and Phang were brought in for questioning, two current MACC officers said. They were led to an interrogation room, where an MMAG executive director tried to persuade them to sell their stake at a discount, the officers said. The MJets executives refused to negotiate, and a shouting match ensued.
Illustration of interrogation room with man holding his head in hands and another man standing over him
Illustration: Chris W. Kim
Gunasekar and Phang, who declined to comment for this story, claimed in their lawsuit that Chin controls MMAG and was behind the efforts to remove them from MJets. “MMAG is Victor’s corporate vehicle,” the two said, an allegation Chin has denied. They introduced as evidence screenshots of alleged WhatsApp conversations between Gunasekar and Chin about the cargo airline. In one of them, Gunasekar informed Chin that MJets had obtained licenses for ground handling and operating commercial flights. Chin asked if these developments could be announced. “Need to make up the story line to raise 500mil bro,” he wrote. The case is ongoing.
While the takeovers followed the same playbook, the motivations differed. Chin wanted to use MJets partly to obtain warehousing space at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and other aviation hubs, and he asked Gunasekar and Phang to lease more than they needed, according to the lawsuit. At other companies, the goals were more financial. Two of the six companies allegedly targeted by the group got money-lending licenses and started making loans.
Charge sheets, arrest notices and other documents seen by Bloomberg show that at least three of the complaints and arrests were handled by the MACC investigation division’s Section D, the unit that covers listed companies, market-related corruption and insider trading. It was headed by Wong Yun Fui until he was promoted to his current role as deputy director of investigations. Wong is valued by Azam for his understanding of a business world where Chinese-Malaysians, who make up about a quarter of the country’s population, often hold sway, people familiar with the agency said.
Section D officials offered a range of services, according to two current MACC officers who requested anonymity to talk about the agency. The most basic is intimidation, such as a raid on an office, the officers said. Then, there are add-ons to pressure executives to resign or sell their shares. One is holding them for questioning. Another is recommending charges to public prosecutors. Each service has a price, the officers said, more for high-profile targets or if senior MACC officials get involved. One of the officers said he heard both payers and recipients describe amounts that reached millions of ringgit. Neither the MACC nor Wong responded to questions sent by Bloomberg about Section D.
Illustration of an men doing an office raid
Illustration: Chris W. Kim
Some lower-level officers who don’t get paid for their involvement are disgruntled, according to five people who say they discussed cases with them. When executives were arrested, they say, the officers showed little interest in questioning them, instead spending hours on TikTok, vaping and sleeping in interrogation rooms.
A few even warned executives about what was happening. They told them there was a coordinated attempt to take over their companies, instructing them to look into events at Revenue Group, four people familiar with the matter said. They apologized for arresting them, saying they were just following orders.
Section D isn’t a rogue faction within the MACC, according to three people with knowledge of how it relates to the rest of the agency. Senior management is aware of its activities, the people said. And, on three occasions, Azam, the agency’s top official, acted in ways that supported members of the group or those who worked with them, people familiar with the incidents said.
When Section D was having trouble persuading MACC prosecutors to press charges against Gunasekar and Phang, Azam asked them to proceed, according to two prosecutors briefed on the incident. The person in charge refused and asked to be removed from the case, the two said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals. His replacement complied.
“I’ve lost faith in the system. If you have money, you have connections, you have power, you can just fix up anybody in this country.”
Azam also approved the promotion of Wong, the former head of Section D, after allegations of Wong’s ties to Chin emerged in the Corporate Secret blog, according to two current MACC officials who say they were told about it by their managers. The agency denied the blog’s allegations at the time. Without mentioning Wong’s name, it said two senior officials lodged police reports against the blog. “The MACC is certain that these irresponsible and wild accusations hurled at the MACC officials are meant to generate negative perceptions against the commission,” the agency said in a March 2023 statement.
A third intervention involved Lim. Soon after Tai reported the incident at the Social, police arrested Lim, confiscated his gun and took CCTV footage from the restaurant, according to three police officials with knowledge of the matter. Local media reported on the incident, a big deal in a country with strict gun ownership laws. It didn’t look good for him.
But a couple of weeks later, staff in the Firearms Licence Enforcement Unit at federal police headquarters received a call, the officials said. The caller identified himself and made his request: Return Lim’s gun and drop the case. Shortly after that, Lim got the weapon back, the officials said, and there has been no further action. The caller, they said, was Azam Baki.
Neither the Royal Malaysia Police nor the MACC responded to questions about whether Azam had intervened.
The Aftermath
Those who have said they were targeted by the businessmen enjoyed no such support. Some fell into depression. Others hired bodyguards or fought back with lawsuits. They share an ability to see some comedy in the absurdity of their situations. But beyond the laughter lies anger.
“I’ve lost faith in the system,” one of the executives said. “If you have money, you have connections, you have power, you can just fix up anybody in this country. So I don’t feel safe.”
The Ng brothers, who declined to comment for this story, relinquished their positions at Revenue Group and sold their shares. Criminal trials against them relating to ownership of a Toyota minivan won in a lottery, and against Brian for allegedly issuing fictitious invoices, are underway. The brothers pleaded not guilty. Lawsuits they and the company filed against each other were withdrawn last year. Revenue Group’s market value has fallen to less than $10 million from more than $250 million in 2021.
“We founded this group and expanded a lot of effort and time in building it up,” Dino Ng wrote in a court document. “Given all the events that transpired, we can no longer remain in the group. We were treated oppressively.”
Gunasekar and Phang have been ousted from MJets. Their criminal trial for dishonest misappropriation of property, including approving payments for renovations and buying and installing CCTV and other security systems, is ongoing. In October, the Companies Commission of Malaysia charged them with agreeing to salary increases for each other without getting shareholder approval. They pleaded not guilty. Their lawsuit alleges that Chin, MMAG and others took “a series of calculated steps” to undermine MJets. A suit filed by MJets alleges Gunasekar and Phang breached their fiduciary duties as directors. Those cases are also underway.
Tai Boon Wee, former chairman of rubber products company GIIB Holdings, in court in Kuala Lumpur in May 2024.
Tai Boon Wee, former chairman of rubber products company GIIB Holdings, in court in Kuala Lumpur in May 2024.Photographer: Muhammad Hazim Izam/Bernama
Tai Boon Wee and his partner were acquitted in 2023 of providing falsified documents to an auditor. The next year, prosecutors withdrew a charge against him of forging a financial report. His sons now run GIIB. Lim remains a shareholder, but he sold some of his shares and never got the board seats. Lim sued Tai for defamation over the police report. He confirmed in an affidavit that the meeting happened but portrayed it as an introductory business discussion and said the mention of a gun was defamatory. A judge dismissed the suit. Lim’s appeal is pending.
GIIB, MJets, Revenue Group and MMAG didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“It’s a question of political will. You keep all the tools you have with you to help keep you in power. And that’s when political will goes out the window.”
Meanwhile, Azam has returned to the stock market. Bloomberg reported this week that he held 17.7 million shares in money lender Velocity Capital Partner Bhd. as of last year, according to a filing to the Companies Commission of Malaysia, the state agency responsible for corporate records. The stake would currently be worth almost 800,000 ringgit, well above the limit allowed for public officials under Malaysian regulations. Chong, the former Securities Commission officer, Chin’s wife and MMAG are or have been shareholders.
The MACC spokesman didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s questions about Velocity Capital, but after the story was published, Azam told the New Straits Times, a local media outlet, that the shares had been sold, the transaction had been properly declared and he had nothing to hide. In a statement, the MACC said any portrayal suggesting Azam didn’t declare assets was factually incorrect and misleading. Later, Azam told reporters that he no longer owns any shares. Velocity Capital didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Edmund Terence Gomez, professor emeritus of political economy at Universiti Malaya, at his home in October 2025.Photographer: Ian Teh/Bloomberg
Longtime MACC watcher Gomez said the agency must be made accountable to parliament rather than the prime minister, a position Anwar’s coalition adopted before the 2022 election. All it requires is a few legal tweaks, he said: making the main oversight board independent, allowing it to choose the chief commissioner and having parliament approve the choice. But he acknowledged that any prime minister would find it difficult to make such changes. “It’s a question of political will,” Gomez said. “You keep all the tools you have with you to help keep you in power. And that’s when political will goes out the window.”
For Tommy Thomas, the former attorney general who led the 1MDB prosecutions, change will only come through public pressure. The agency’s role in Malaysian society must be investigated, he said, and it must become truly independent and accountable. Thomas compared the anti-corruption agency to the Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome, an elite army unit that protected emperors but sometimes assassinated them and ultimately became so powerful it had to be disbanded.
“Who guards the Praetorian Guards?” Thomas asked. “Who polices the MACC?”
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