The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) today denied any knowledge of a multi-million spyware deal with Israeli cybersecurity company Senpai Technologies Ltd before GE14 in 2018, according to news portal Malaysiakini.
MACC chief Datuk Seri Azam Baki was quoted as saying by Malaysiakini that the agency has never heard of the company before, much less acquired anything from it.
“I am being very clear. I do not know where this story came from and who wrote the fake story,” Azam was quoted as saying.
Azam added that although he was not heading MACC at the material time, he was in charge of its operations.
“I was not the chief of MACC at that time, but if there was such a purchase, I would have known as I was in charge of operations.
“There was no such purchase made by the then chief commissioner. If there was any plan, there would have been presentations and such,” said Azam.
Tech news site Calcalist reported that a month before the May 2018 general election, the Barisan Nasional government under Datuk Seri Najib Razak had signed a US$1.5 mil (RM6.5 million) deal for “Project Magnum”, a system to gather information and analyse data on the opposition. This was Phase 1 of the deal between the Malaysian government and Senpai.
The system was meant to be used by the Special Branch to keep tabs on political activists on the side of the opposition.
“Since Israel and Malaysia have no official diplomatic relations, the deal was signed through a Cypriot conduit company called Kohai Corp Ltd, founded by two Senpai shareholders for the sole purpose of serving as a front for such deals,” said the report.
It was also noted that Najib’s plans for Senpai’s system were not kept secret from the company and its use for “political investigations” is specifically mentioned in internal email correspondence.
A year after the elections, following Najib’s defeat, Senpai was due to sign a new contract with the Special Branch that required adjusting the goals of the original contract, according to correspondence obtained by Calcalist.
“The client got the documents and we are waiting for his response,” Senpai co-founder and head of sales Roy Shloman said, referring to “Magnum” in an email sent to fellow co-founders Guy David, Omri Raiter, and Eric Banoun on June 10, 2019.
In fact, the change was due to the need for the system to shift from political investigations towards criminal-terror investigations, with Senpai having planned a visit to meet up, answer questions, and offer “tips and tricks to maximise the system.”
For Malaysia’s phase two agreements, Banoun had counted US$300,000 to US$400,000 from the Special Branch, between US$2 mil and US$2.5 mil from the Prime Minister’s Office, between US$800,000 and US$2.2 mil from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, and a similar sum from the police. – May 29, 2020
