George Higginbotham, a former Senior Congressional Affairs Specialist in the US Department of Justice (DOJ), pleaded guilty Friday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to conspiracy to make false statements to a bank.

The former DOJ employee admitted to facilitating the transfer of millions of dollars meant as payments to lobbyists who were supposed to influence the Department’s investigation into the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.

In order to conceal the identity of the foreign principal behind the lobbying campaign, Higginbotham admitted to conspiring to make false statements to financial institutions in the United States concerning the source and purpose of the funds. Higginbotham also admitted to working on various fake loan and consulting documents in order to deceive banks and other regulators about the true source and purpose of the money.

In addition to the conspiracy charges, the DOJ has filed a civil suit seeking to recoup $73 million laundered into the US.

The suit, brought by the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative in the Money Laundering and Asset Recover Section, attempts to recover the funds that Higginbotham, along with Prakazrel Michel (or Pras, former member of the musical group The Fugees), allegedly transferred in an attempt to tamper with the investigation into Jho Low, the mastermind behind the 1MDB embezzlement.

The Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative identifies corruption by foreign government officials and attempts to return the recovered funds to those harmed by the corruption.