Switzerland’s Financial Market Regulatory Authority (Finma) has dropped another bomboshell, saying that the Royal Bank of Scotland has been linked to investigations into 1MDB.

However, the CNBC report on this, dated April 30, 2016, by Emma Dunkley, Caroline Binham and Jeevan Vasagar, is vague at its best. The report has been found lacking of some important details that link the investigation into the Bank of Scotland to the ruling elites of Malaysia.

The report has not much reliable information, which denotes that Najib is the ultimate perpetrator for all the mis-transactions involving millions and billions of US dollars.

Besides that, the report had exposed that a few state-owned firms in Malaysia allegedly transferred a portion of US$4 billion into the Coutts International accounts, a former subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland based in Switzerland and now owned by Union Bancaire Privee.

The accounts are purportedly owned by a number of former public officials of Malaysia and former and current public officials of the United Arab Emirates.

Unfortunately, the report failed to detail the owners and the amounts in those accounts.

Adding to this, the report mentioned another name of the account-owner in the Coutts International as “Good Star” but also without the detail: Good Star belongs to whom?

Good Star received US$860 million twice

According to the report, the account under the name of Good Star had received US$860 million twice, between September 2009 and September 2010, from 1MDB. So, the readers

would wonder, who is Good Star?

Though attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali had revealed in January 2016 that at least US$4 billion has been misapropriated from Malaysian state companies, he didn’t name the so-called Malaysian state companies.

Definitely, the readers want to know the names of those behind these companies. Furthermore, Finma had indicated that another four financial institutions in Switzerland had been linked to 1MDB probe but refused to name them.

Of course, the reporters have to face an uphill battle to gather some information - deemed sensitive - but producing incomplete reports will not only mislead the readers but also encourage rumour-mongering.

Finma’s refusal to reveal the names of the financial institutions could be a matter of sub judice, but it also could draw a lot of false allegations against innocent parties.

So, should the reporters have no choice but to report without complete information, it is incumbent upon the readers to judge the report wisely and stay away from making false accusations without sufficient evidence.