Pro-BN Group fooled the media as part of social experiment

PETALING JAYA - A statutory declaration purportedly evidencing how an AmBank executive was sacked for questioning the transfer of millions of ringgit into the personal accounts of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has turned out to be a fake.

The group responsible for releasing the declaration, that calls itself Citizens for Accountable Governance Malaysia (CAGM), claimed on its blog Wednesday that its existence was merely a social experiment.

CAGM released its first press statement some two months ago and has since tricked several media organisations into publishing its statements, supposedly issued by the group’s chairman – a lawyer by the name of Md Zainal Abidin.

The statutory declaration, which was uploaded by the group on its blog on Wednesday, detailed how the ex-AmBank officer was supposedly sacked in 2013 for wanting to report a “high-profile transfer” into a “VVIP bank account”.

Online media portals swiftly published the news, quoting Md Zainal.

This prompted CAGM to finally come clean on its motives, as it issued an update on its blog on Wednesday evening to explain how it had tricked editors who failed to “check their facts” and “thrived on reporting sensational news”.

“There is no such lawyer by the name of Md Zainal Abdin.

“There are no 2,000 over members in CAGM and we don’t have millions in our account to give to whistleblowers.

“And no, we don’t have an SD that implicates the PM in any financial misdeeds. CAGM was just an experiment in social media in Malaysia,” the group said in the blog posting.

CAGM went on to suggest that it had done a great job as editors wanted stories which could sell, adding that even reputable foreign media organisations nearly fell prey to its “tricks”.

The group issued its first press release on May 28, offering a RM1mil reward to anyone who could reveal information on former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s “hidden wealth and assets”.

The fake statutory declaration was issued after the Wall Street Journal’s recent report alleging that millions were channelled from 1Malaysia Development Berhad into Najib’s personal bank accounts prior to the 13th general election.
A special task force has since been set up to probe the matter.