In court papers filed last week, various entities connected to Aziz attacked the US government's attempt to seize real estate properties as part of its $1 billion action targeting alleged money laundering schemes connected to 1MDB. (Too see a related article about this saga, click here.)

The state-owned investment fund is currently the subject of worldwide money laundering probes in at least six countries including the US, Switzerland and Singapore and, most recently, Australia. In recent months, the fund has seen multiple fines, indictments and jail sentences handed down to former bankers over their affiliations with the fund. 

Aziz co-founded Red Granite Pictures, the company that produced Martin Scorsese's 2013 blockbuster The Wolf of Wall Street, which the US alleged was funded using money stolen from 1MDB. 

The US Department of Justice has touted the 1MDB scandal as its largest kleptocracy case to date.

But Aziz's lawyer, Matthew Schwartz, has slammed the US government over its failure to include “essential detail” about Aziz's supposed crimes and has subsequently demanded a dismissal.

"The alleged beneficial owner of the claimant (and therefore the defendant property), Riza Aziz, is neither alleged to have participated in any transactions involving 1MDB nor even to have knowledge of any transactions involving 1MDB - let alone knowledge of any supposed misappropriation," court documents stated.

The motion continued: “Thus, even taking the complaint’s allegations at face value, Mr Aziz plainly did not engage in a money laundering transaction or any other offense. But without identifying the person or persons the government believes to be culpable, it is impossible to test the adequacy of the government's allegations." 

Last July, the US DoJ moved to seize the rights to The Wolf of Wall Street, as well as other assets it alleged were acquired using cash illicitly obtained from 1MDB. 

Later this month, Red Granite Pictures is scheduled to file its response to the US government's seizure attempts. 

This publication will continue to monitor developments of this case and will update coverage accordingly.