Celebrity couple Vivy Yusof and Fadzarudin Shah Anuar on Thursday denied criminal charges of embezzlement from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund at their first court appearance over the alleged misappropriation of 8 million ringgit (US$1.81 million) from their failed Fashion Valet online sales platform.
If found guilty the pair face a 20-year sentence in a case which has stirred outcry among Malaysians and raised questions over who gains from state funding, in a country where the memory of the 1MDB scandal remains razor sharp.
The charges follow an investigation into a US$10 million loss incurred by Malaysian sovereign wealth funds Khazanah Nasional Berhad and Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) in their investment in Fashion Valet, a business operated by Vivy and Fadzarudin.
Initially popular with the public, the business aimed to build an online sales platform to take the country’s fashion retailers global, similar to China’s Shein or Temu. But it collapsed in 2022 after struggling through the Covid-19 pandemic, leading Khazanah Nasional and PNB to sell their stakes for just 3.1 million ringgit (US$710,000).
As outcry crescendoed after the state’s losses emerged, the founders apologised on Instagram in November, saying they were to blame and had expanded “too aggressively”.
The Malaysian public, however, started scrutinising the couple with some leveraging AI tools to analyse the spending habits of the company’s co-founders, focusing on their lavish lifestyles and apparent luxury purchases as the company imploded.
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