MALAYSIA BRIEFED ON "MAYROW" INDICTMENT, INDICTEE

C O N F I D E N T I A L KUALA LUMPUR 000953 SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/MTS/BISCHOF AND ISN/CPI/MEYERS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/29/2018 TAGS: ETTC PREL PARM KNNP IR MY SUBJECT: MALAYSIA BRIEFED ON "MAYROW" INDICTMENT, INDICTEE COMES FORWARD REF: A. STATE 101192 - INSTRUCTIONS ¶B. KUALA LUMPUR 936 - LEVEY VISIT Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR MARK D. CLARK FOR REASONS 1.4 (B AND D). ¶1. (SBU) DCM, accompanied by Polcouns, called on Malaysian Foreign Ministry Senior Under Secretary for the Americas Zainuddin Yahya on September 24, and presented ref A non-paper regarding the indictment of four Malaysian entities for conspiracy to export prohibited items to Iran. DCM highlighted the relationship between the activities illustrated by the Mayrow indictment and Malaysia's pending development of an export control regime. Zainuddin acknowledged the serious nature of the indictment, and requested further information on the case and its ramifications for the two Malaysian individuals and two companies. Embassy subsequently provided additional publicly available information regarding the indictment as well as links to information on the Department of Commerce Entity List. Embassy also conveyed the non-paper to the head of the Foreign Ministry's Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Division, Bala Chandran Tharman. ¶2. (SBU) Concurrently on September 24, as part of a broader presentation alerting the GOM of the heightened risks presented by Iran's efforts to circumvent UN sanctions through the use of deceptive banking and commercial practices, visiting Treasury U/S Levey highlighted the Mayrow indictment for central bank Governor Zeti and senior bank compliance officers (ref B). U/S Levey took the opportunity to point out that the Mayrow case emphasized the importance to Malaysia of passing an export control law. ¶3. (C) On October 6, a longstanding Embassy contact in the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA, a political party representing ethnic Chinese) conveyed to FSN Political Specialist a request from one of the indictees, Brian Kam Chee Mun, for a meeting with the Embassy. Reportedly, Brian Kam sought a meeting in order to "come clean" regarding his activities. Brian Kam followed up with direct calls to the Embassy on October 15 and 23. These calls were reported to the DHS representative at post, as well to Legatt and RSO. ¶4. (U) In a sign of Malaysian political sensitivities in such cases, Utusan, a Malay language newspaper owned by the ruling UMNO party, carried a complete translation of a Reuters wire report on the indictment, but dropped mention of Malaysia from the list of countries whose entities are named in the U.S. prosecution. KEITH