COMMENT | Back in 2015, the first cracks in the 1MDB façade appeared when The Wall Street Journal alleged that US$700 million (RM2.6 billion) had been transferred into the personal bank accounts of then-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak. He raged, blustered, and threatened to sue, but never followed through.

Others who dared to report the money trail were not so lucky: The Edge and The Edge Financial Daily saw their publishing permits suspended for three months by the Home Ministry, then under Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

In a surreal twist, then attorney-general (AG) Apandi Ali subsequently declared there was “no evidence” of misappropriation. Yet the US Justice Department soon dropped a bombshell - its exhaustive report branded 1MDB the “greatest kleptocracy” in modern history.

Locally, a task force comprising then AG Abdul Gani Patail, MACC chief Abu Kassim, Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Abdul Aziz, and then inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar was hastily assembled, only to be dissolved after Malaysia’s own “night of long knives.”

Two senior officials paid the price: Apandi’s predecessor Gani was marched out of office, while Abu Kassim was quietly dispatched to academia.

What followed in the interim is...