Dear Mr Boyd McCleary,

As the British High Commissioner to Malaysia, I presume that you are not unaware of the recent shocking exposes via the Sarawak Report and other online blogs of Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud’s vast property empire that extends to Ottawa, Adelaide, San Francisco and now apparently London via a company called Richford Properties of Weymouth Street.

Quite clearly there has been an ongoing policy of Taib and his family to ‘launder’ their ill-gotten gains into legitimate assets in the West so that they can continue to enjoy their plunder into the foreseeable future.

For those of us who have lived in Sarawak for many years and who have observed the rape of the jungles of Borneo for the benefit of only the political elite (Taib Mahmud and his family), we have also been privy to the many human rights abuses that have been conducted against peace-loving peoples such as the Penan and Punan.

The many and obviously accurate reports (mainly from NGOs) of sexual abuse and even rape of 10-year-old girls by the staff of logging companies that are owned or owe allegiance to Taib and his family have shocked all those who have read them.

It is all the more ironic and disgraceful that the Chief Executive Officer of CMS Berhad (Taib’s front company in Malaysia) is actually an Englishman called Richard Curtis!

So it would seem clear that the British government and its peoples have become, I would assume, unknowingly complicit in this disgraceful business and has allowed this man and his family to find a safe haven for their illegal money in London.

I would like you to explain to me your policy on this matter and what if anything you are going to do about it in order to bring some comfort to the poor people of Sarawak who’s wealth (or some of it) has been spirited away to London where it has been apparently cleansed and laundered into fashionable properties.

It seems high time that the British government distanced itself from association with this man and his family and also launched an immediate money laundering investigation into the situation with Richford Properties and their associates around the world.