“A lot is going to happen now,” she said in Kuala Lumpur. “Everyone is surprised when they see what is happening. There will be even more amazing scenes.”
Rewcastle, now 58, has been a thorn within the side of Malaysia’s ruling elite for years, working abroad to show theft and misrule, focusing mainly on Sarawak, where she was born and spent her early years.
But her biggest bombshell can have been the 2015 revelation on her Sarawak Report website that nearly $700 million had been transferred to former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s checking account.
It helped strengthen allegations that Najib and his entourage looted billions from the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund in a scandal that led to his election defeat, ending six a long time of rule by an increasingly corrupt government.
Millions tried to destroy my fame… But all they did was help make me famous, silly idiots
He is currently under investigation and is anticipated to face charges, although he insists he’s innocent and getting used as a scapegoat.
Rewcastle’s work through the years has resulted in Malaysian arrest warrants, lawsuits, threats and a sustained online smear campaign that he suspects was orchestrated by Najib’s government using Western PR firms.
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s sister-in-law Rewcastle was until recently approached by shady characters offering to pay her to publish juicy “revelations” for them – she says these were brazen attempts to entrap and discredit her.
“Millions tried to destroy my reputation that could have been spent on something useful,” she said. “But all they did was help make me famous, you stupid idiots.”
Never welcomed and officially banned from Malaysia in 2015, Rewcastle went from persona non grata to welcome guest almost overnight. She gave an interview to a state newspaper that had previously vilified her, but on Monday she received glowing front-page treatment.
She was stopped again and again by bizarre Malaysians who recognized her distinctive red locks. They thanked her and a few took selfies.
Many others praised Rewcastle on social media after learning of her arrival. “It’s extremely rewarding,” she said.
Few foreigners were as fearful because the Malaysian government.
Born in Sarawak, when it was a British crown colony, she spent several years there, often accompanying her mother – an indigenous midwife – on expeditions through the jungle to distant clinics.
She later worked for the BBC and other institutions in London doing investigative journalism, before devoting herself to exposing corruption in Sarawak, deforestation and the eviction of indigenous people from traditional lands.
“I did it partly because I used to be crazy and partly because I assumed there was a slim probability something could possibly be done,” she said of the state, which environmentalists say has lost just about all of its original rainforest.
In 2010, she founded Sarawak Report and the shortwave broadcaster Radio Free Sarawak – operating from London, later Bali, Brunei and Sarawak itself.
Rewcastle used his network of contacts in Malaysia to repeatedly expose the plundering of Sarawak. Najib’s government eventually blocked the web site – a choice the brand new government reversed – and radio signals were jammed.
With Malaysia on a reform path, Rewcastle expects to finish its anti-graft work, which it said was a money-losing project and depending on financial backers it’s going to not name.
However, she pledged to proceed advocating for Sarawak, which incorporates pushing for an investigation into former chief minister Abdul Taib Mahmoud.
The retired 82-year-old, with loose ties to Najib’s government, is accused by indigenous activists of ruling Sarawak like a family fiefdom for 33 years, plundering timber and constructing environmentally harmful dams.
The Sarawak report, along with the Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss non-governmental organization, documented the massive investments made around the globe by the Taiba circle.
“You must grab Taib’s ankles and shake them to make the cash fall out,” Rewcastle said. “There is still a lot of work to be done, but we are now in a great position to really campaign for what we were originally about.”
