they have driven us to the point that libya was taken or that syria was taken to the point of an armed opposition they have attempted that we've not allowed them to and in venezuela is it peace the meeting between the leaders of the u.s. and north korea later this month will be held in vietnam's capital one only told trump tweeted that his representatives have just left north korea after productive meetings and that he's looking forward to seeing kim jong un the summit will take place some february the twenty seventh and twenty eighth. a canadian man who shot and killed six members of a quebec city mall sc in twenty seventeen has been sentenced to life in prison i was on the bissonnette plaited guilty last year to six counts of first degree murder and six counts of attempted murder for the attack one of canada's rare shootings those are the headlines and back with more news in half an hour here on al-jazeera but next it's one of the least do stay with us. on counting the cost digital divisions why half the world's population risks missing out on the

next evolution of the internet from russia with interest what the kremlin backed investments in venezuela are all about plus a report from senegal's currency control the sea counting the cost on al-jazeera. it's been branded the world's biggest heist and least four point five billion dollars stolen from malaysia's sovereign wealth fund one indeed. the former prime minister najib razak pieces almost forty criminal charges. and a malaysian financier jolo is wanted by authorities in malaysia singapore and the united states. i'm steve chair on this episode a one on one east we investigate the deals and alleged criminal cover ups there rob malaysians of billions of dollars and tracked down the accidental hero who blew the

whistle on. them and. it's been a massive pool for malaysia's former prime minister najib resign like ousted from power in may last year he's banned from leaving the country and his family homes have been raided. police seizing two hundred and seventeen. million dollars worth of cash and luxury goods to be good at a lot of gifts it was a not fair you know to parade and to put a value on the steves as far as i'm concerned i was not doing anything wrong. but it's not the result faces mounting charges. from the past slips into the capital kuala lumpur.

the swiss national informant bank it turned businessman is regarded as a hero in what's being dubbed the new malaysia today xavi just is a keynote speaker at an anti corruption summit he provided the crucial evidence exposing the lead scam that saw more than four point five billion dollars siphoned out of malaysia's sovereign wealth fund one aimed. at. the very dangerous they would do. to keep the money they have. and with us they took everything from us i spent they made my wife suffer. from poor people and just because. i have to forget. they have to pay. at home in switzerland the shore of lake geneva

office the serenity xaverian his wife laura crying. the past three and a half years have been tumultuous as a couple found themselves in broiled in malaysia's financial scandal. their nightmare began in twenty fifteen when they were living in thailand and building a resort. laura was visiting family in switzerland with their eight month old son when the thai police arrested her husband for review or area when i went to work or. you're through matter of time. and the second i knew he was arrested i knew it was because it was so early and i could feel it was going to be bigger than. than what it was.

petro saudi is a company at the heart of malaysia's stolen billion in two thousand and nine it entered into a one point eight billion dollars joint venture with one aim to be. the deal was struck on a make a yacht in the mediterranean on board the now fugitive malaysian financier an alleged mastermind jolo who then prime minister najib resigned and his wife. and the hosts petro saudi cofounders prince turki a son of the late king of saudi arabia and to record by at the time to record buried was one of saving is best friends february two thousand. contacted me a couple of times. office because they signed a deal with the malaysian money and they needed directly the guy that you could

trust. to run to run the company. xavi went to work with a record by eight and another director patrick mahoney but seven months into the job he says things started to sour it said that if you receive a lot of money you become crazy that's a fact i sold up direct started buying a flat after you bought. renting your in the south of france it's probably are familiar euro's weak everything becomes like extravaganza so he started to treat me like a star he was treating other people very bad xavier resigned april twentieth levon he says he was only two point five million dollars and to ensure he'd be paid he had more than two hundred thirty thousand confidential emails downloaded from the company server on to

a hard drive. again there were a lot of money involved that. access the financial daughters of parents or so they were going to be what would be i would worry until. three years later he says he still hadn't been paid so he began looking for a potential buyer for the dark. british journalist claire brown had already been investigating suspected corruption behind. what first caught my eye was the fact that the young son a step son of the prime minister of malaysia had been targeted as the producer of one of hollywood's most expensive movies the reason or is it is a step son of knowledge of resign act and one of the producers of the twenty thirteen one hundred million dollar hollywood blockbuster wolf of wall street he

was claiming he put his own money in and there was really no there was no money behind trees so where was this money coming from and looking into it deeper i had very quickly ascertained that at resist site there was this young financial low who was connected to one n.d.p. as the advisor so what i was asking was a very simple question to begin with were the missing billions that no one could account for that had disappeared from one and were they in any way linked to the tens of millions that suddenly the stepson of the prime minister was able to invest in this film about the theft and large acts. those search for answers led her to a meeting with xavier twenty fourteen i went to bangkok and i met this strange man in the middle of bangkok who someone of war may be a russian mafia she was scared and i was going to be in

a world that it. luckily that my hunch was correct and it was a former director of patricide and none other than. he explained how he gradually had begun to realize there was something very troubling about this joint venture with one m.t.p. . he started to show me some of his emails that he had from this database. the one in d.b. petro saudi deal struck on the yorkshire required when major to initially invest one billion dollars in the joint venture and petro saudi to contribute energy concessions valued at almost three billion dollars. it's very easy and i listen to what they did the been in the front company something that could appear very legal and they found this very beautiful name. it looks

like it's the fish oil company of saudi arabia that's the only quality but. this beautiful name so the frame of the gun where the stub of. the e-mails showed those billions of dollars were the petro saudi energy concessions had been hugely and fraudulently overvalued something's a.v.o. always suspected and now believed was crucial to the alleged criminal scam in two thousand and nine. but you can hone in ask me if i knew a company or a guy that could evaluate the four to billions. so no way i'm going to us. a company that is worth pretty much nothing for the billions but it seems mahoney in a bird a jew got what they wanted by restricting the work of the value asia is cause of

work is to have value. the number of assets not. the owner of the typo three just overlooking something is nothing that can see better a saudi. giving privilege so i said that it's not but it's not belonging to the scheme. and xavi is cash of documents revealed even more fraudulent activity he was flicking through very quickly and there was there was one sort of bank transfer. i said to him can we go back and look at that because there was a seven awful lot of zeros i'm assuming it was the seven hundred thousand dollar transfer but actually was there as an extra three cirrus on that was it a seven hundred million dollar transfer and he said yeah seven hundred million. the dart it clearly showed that only three hundred million of malaysia's one billion

dollars cash investment made it into the joint venture account. seven hundred million winched to a switch bank account controlled by none other then joe lhota. you should of all the red flags like lightning. big money go through and wanted to. go it's longer. according to the daughter tens of millions then allegedly flowed from there to to record birthday and on to prince turki and patrick mahoney. and are no into the world back then also as the u.s. department of justice alleges into malaysia's then prime minister najib resign x. personal bank account because they won't. but a symbol of that you have the money. the channels the bank accounts and that's when

i saw that enormous number being transferred to a company that belonged to that it was an offshore instrument belonging to. that was when i knew i had a earth shattering story. but very real wanted to point five million dollars before he'd give her the dollar i'm not selling this to the bigger. this is worth a lot of one just want to recover my money. i knew this was a story i couldn't just turn away from just because i didn't have a few million dollars in the end one of southeast asia's biggest media financial crepes got in touch and told me that they wanted to speak to us and what would be interested in buying salvias story. in february twenty fifth deen a deal was done xavier was promised two million dollars by the media conglomerate andrew castle broome left with a copy of the data a few days later she published her first story heist of this century. four

months later xavier was jailed in thailand on a charge of attempted blackmail against petro saudi it was a terrible shock and there were some very very terrifying pictures i mean he is surrounded by heavily armed guards he was in handcuffs he was being he was being paraded for the malaysian media so therefore you could see that there was conspiracy here at the highest levels. back in malaysia then prime minister knowledge of reserve was facing a leadership crisis as he tried to explain one him degrees mind boggling fifteen billion dollar debt. xavi is a wrist was the start of a relentless campaign to discredit the former insider petrocelli announced it was a victim of a crime by an unscrupulous ex employee and hired a dart

a security expert who then discredited castle brown t.v. stated to the world media that i had forged the data and that i had doctored it and that there was you know that i was lying and it was great that these things were being said so i knew something incredibly awkward was going on at a very high level and clearly hugely funded. and things would become even more or just design a.v.o. was about to go into court to apply for bail. while. ok the door open and there's a. bottom from scotland yard international investigation it's between you between malaysia and the government does increase in wrong but we need you to

corporate with us you have to plead guilty. otherwise you go to prison. i'm not going to prison i'm not going to plead guilty of things i haven't done since that's ridiculous. xavier was denied pale and jailed what he didn't know at the time was the even leishman the so-called paul scott was not a scotland yard officer but instead a security consultant employed by petro saudi who seemingly had influence over time . i couldn't speak to no one. give me even where he worth. thousands of kilometers away in switzerland nora turned to claire rukh also brown for hope. we sat down and i you know and together i wrote the real story against what was being poured out against him in in malaysia

and we published that. but then came a phone call for laura from the so-called poor scotch he was with xavier calling from the prison in thailand to tell her scotland yard was on the case laura told me yes they're saying all the savio nice to do is to cooperate with the strategy of the scotland yard detectives to a little crime receive a slap on the wrist at this point i'm beginning to think why is the scotland yard to tight of asking survey to mit to something and nor someone i don't know but we have to put our trust in them in the hands because so obvious telling me i have to cooperate in prison in bangkok xavi a was cooperating meeting the so-called paul's guard and patrick mahoney regularly xavier's says paul dictated a confession it cleared petro saudi and one him to be of any wrongdoing and

implicated rew castle brown in a plot to bring down malaysia's prime minister najib resign back i would have to confess whatever they wanted you have no idea what is the job you have to live up to understand i really wanted to go home to be with my wife and with my son. a bang directions xavier was marched out for a few carefully selected media interviews a paper closely aligned with malaysia's then ruling party was first stop if you didn't their views it's the same structure i started out. i'm a bad guy i'm a greedy guy you know the that i've been manipulated i work with journalists bloggers in court the nation with the opposition when most of the point he said

class tampered with the daughter well you know that's one of those moments i knew i hadn't i knew he knew i hadn't so i knew exactly what was going on i'd taken my own sort of journalistic route to establish by that time that there was no official scotland yard investigation even though the t'ai police was saying that they had british scotland yard detectives working with them on the case in bangkok realised that we were talking about an extraordinary conspiracy the most oday shifts conspiracy. the one in t.v. scandal was escalating rapidly phonology brazil news breaking around the world that almost seven hundred million dollars had been deposited into his personal bank account. just as the attorney general was reportedly preparing to charge him with misappropriating one m.t.b. functions the prime minister sacked him from the position it was not merely because

charges were about to be double that i had not been fully interviewed and if charges were noble before full investigation that's not probable. in orcus twenty fifteen under normal pressure xavi just pleaded guilty ensuring he'd be locked away until after malaysia's next general election i remember it was in the morning. and foreigner. through here couldn't believe. just think. with angry a with was being played with being forced to do things i didn't want.

my husband i was alone and desperate i had my son no it was on earth yeah i think it was one of the. of the worst time of my life. but laura didn't cut ties with petro saudi she says they were now promising an early release for her husband patrick called me and he was i mean but you know if. we had to do that for the press or the shaw don't worry you will celebrate christmas song with your husband. and you know this that's the point where i. know i have to have a backup plan. and corporate of the things that i was making sure that everything was recorded to make sure that if when the i could prove when

they're done. laurie says patrick mahoney pressured her to download an application on her phone so she could record conversations with clear blue castle brown that could then be used to incriminate the journalist. actually i managed to record them . who they are pretty the way because they forgot that every time they would call me it would've been recorded. many of the recordings are now evidence for criminal complaints the couple have filed in switzerland and the united kingdom and have also been shared with other all thora g.'s including the f.b.i. the prime minister of malaysia was often the subject of discussion so this is patrick mahoney and me he's saying that everyone is is in a lot of troubles and the prime minister of malaysia basically is in let's say

a lot a lot of troubles because of what they've. seen one year this group. that . he. it seems they are six he's simulate. what are its. that you know it's just that in the situation or people who are you that has. a propensity to stop laura plays another recording with patrick mahoney he tells who he's going to be sent the list of questions the malaysian police will ask to say via when they interview him in prison call or pretty sure the civil case channels of human will. usually deny. it he can see retreat there on the gesture it's pretty balanced on defense force and i did history. you can see the access he has to prison because paul is going to

be sent to a few days before this interview with the malaysian police to prepare him he then tells laura that her husband must stick to the story they have been telling credible kind of illustration and outlets are fortresses if you. finally eighteen months after his arrest xavier was released not because of petro saudi but rather a royal amnesty from the time i keep. churning or. your free money expert from the country but as a free man. you have maybe other feeling to think here and it was not pretty. with free or they're pretty it's amazing really the lives finished and we started. the fight for the troops

so it was and of a chapter a very bad one. and it was the beginning of a new war. as xaverian lura rebuild their lives at least six countries around the world are investigating one m.t.b. linked to corruption and charges of being lied. to unnamed petro saudi officials are under investigation in switzerland for fraud money laundering and bribery of foreign officials. to recode bay and the so-called paul scott whose real name is paul finnegan didn't respond to the allegations put forward by one or one east through his lawyers patrick mahoney denies all allegations made against him and any wrongdoing. neither petro salaries headquarters nor former cole or owner prince turki responded to our attempts to

contact them. through his media adviser joe no declined to be interviewed i do think they regret they know there are on the najib regime this club the government as being expert. everything's thanks to the. recently xavier received two million dollars from the malaysian media conglomerate but one wonders if the petro saudi direct is had paid say via the money he says he was on whether the world's biggest heist would have ever been exposed i don't know that's that's a beautiful question if i want to. be a glorious guy i would tell you of course i would have given that that. i thought you can go back in the story.

i made of it every week a new cycle brings a series of breaking stories then listening faced as we turn the cameras on the media and focus on how they report on the stories that matter demands on al-jazeera al-jazeera is a very important force of information for many people around the world when all the cameras are gone i'm still here go into areas that nobody else is going talk to people that nobody else is talking to and bringing that story to the forefront. the silence has been this to. believe this. is one of scandinavia some largest iron ore deposits. and it's driving a wedge between those seeking wealth. and those defending their way of life.

a witness documentary on a jersey and. the deadline passes for donald trump to tell congress whether he'll sanction saudi arabia over the killing of jamal khashoggi. also robin you're watching al-jazeera along my headquarters here in doha coming up in the next thirty minutes. on the other side of london are. going to be venezuelan president warns of catastrophic consequences if the.