New York’s first billionaires’ building, ONE57, was funded by a subsidiary of an Abu Dhabi company linked to a global money-laundering investigation, The Post has learned.
Gary Barnett, of Extell Development, started to build the 75-story skyscraper, at 157 W. 57th St., during the height of the recession when Western funding was scarce.
Barnett owns only a small piece of the $1.6 billion tower, which was mainly funded by Aabar Investments and a second, privately held Abu Dhabi-based investor, Tasameem Real Estate Co., sources said.
“Gary Barnett used this Abu Dhabi connection to bail him out,” one source familiar with the situation said.
Aabar is a subsidiary of International Petroleum Investment Co. (IPIC), one of the biggest backers of a state-owned Malaysian investment fund that is at the center of a growing corruption scandal.
ONE57 - billionaires building
That fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), had $6.5 billion in bonds guaranteed by IPIC, according to reports.
1MDB made two payments to IPIC — a $1.4 billion cash deposit in 2012 and a nearly $1 billion payment to extinguish options given to IPIC for guaranteeing bonds, according to a report.
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