KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 — The police said today it was aware of one of its top officer’s Australian bank account, with its Integrity and Standard Compliance Department having launched an internal inquiry into the matter.

Following a report by the Sydney Morning Herald over the seizure of A$320,000 in cash belonging to Comm Datuk Seri Wan Ahmad Najmuddin Mohd, the police said its investigation revealed that the account was opened in 2011 to help finance his son and daughter’s education there.

"He was able to provide legitimate documents to prove that the funds originated from the sale of his house in Shah Alam, which at that point of the time, was worth RM700,000 (AU$260,770).

"This fund was then entrusted to a very close friend to make the cash transfer into the said bank account in Australia,” Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun said in a statement here.

Mohamad Fuzi said in 2016 the same account was reactivated to plan for Wan Ahmad Najmuddin’s daughter’s masters degree course in Australia.

"He was able to provide all necessary and relevant documents to prove the source of the funds. He also provided justifications for the need to acquire an overseas account which was for the sole purpose of his children’s education.

"Thus it is baseless to assume that the source of the money was from questionable origins or that he was involved in any form of indictable offences,” he said.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Wan Ahmad Najmuddin had been stripped of more than A$320,000 by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which suspected that his Sydney bank account held laundered money or proceeds from crime.

The newspaper reported that he had opened a Commonwealth Bank "Goal Saver” account in 2011, and listed his address at Bankstown and then Glebe in Sydney.

One week after he concluded an Australian trip in 2016, the account received a flurry of cash deposits.

The Australian media outlet reported that the Bukit Aman CID director did not make any attempts to get back the money and that he cited court action would be too expensive and denied any wrongdoing.

He also reportedly told Fairfax Media that he had explained what actually transpired to his department and had also written a letter to the AFP.