On July 3, 2015 Malaysians woke up to news that RM2.6 billion had flowed into then-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak's bank accounts.

This was first alleged by Sarawak Report and The Wall Street Journal, citing investigators who were pursuing Najib at the time.

Now, exactly three years later, Najib has been arrested by the MACC in relation to allegations that SRC International Sdn Bhd funds also ended up in his bank accounts.

By design or otherwise, MACC had chosen to arrest Najib on a Tuesday – which many Malaysians would recall is the same day of the week that he was supposed to have sued WSJ for defamation over the report back in July 2015.

In the end, Najib never sued WSJ nor anyone else who accused him of pilfering 1MDB and SRC International funds.

‘The week of long knives’

What followed, however, was what DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang has dubbed "the week of long knives."

On 28 July, 2015, again on a Tuesday, then attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail found out that he had been locked out of his office and sacked three months ahead of his mandatory retirement date.

At the time, Gani was part of a special task force on revenue recovery. Eventually, the task force had turned its attention on 1MDB-related affairs.

After BN was ousted from Putrajaya last month, new Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Gani had intended to charge Najib.

Gani was replaced as attorney-general by a pliant former Federal Court judge, Mohamed Apandi Ali, who cleared Najib of any wrongdoing with regards to 1MDB and SRC International in January 2016.

Apart from Gani, Najib had removed Muhyiddin Yassin as deputy prime minister on the same day as well, and introduced a mini-cabinet reshuffle.

Muhyiddin would go on to team up with Mahathir to form Bersatu, which is now part of the Pakatan Harapan administration installed after the May 9 elections.

Incidentally, the first US Department of Justice's court filings on the seizure of 1MDB-related assets also occurred in the month of July two years ago, which gave rise to the popular usage of the moniker "Malaysian Official 1" or "MO1."

At the time, US attorney-general Loretta Lynch had described how 1MDB funds had made its way through the US financial system and the seizure was meant to restitute funds to Malaysia.

The present Mahathir administration has pledged to recover as much possible the funds linked to 1MDB from foreign jurisdictions.

In June last year, the DOJ dropped yet another bombshell with another major court filing, accusing 1MDB funds of being used to purchase the Equanimity superyacht, film rights, several large diamonds and prized paintings, among others.

At the time, Najib's aide Tengku Sharifuddin Tengku Ahmad said that DOJ's filing had less to do with seizing assets, and more "domestic political manipulation and interference."

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