Since becoming a symbol of Wall Street greed during the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs has tried to recast its image as an investment bank that cares as much about ethics as it does its bottom line.

Now, that makeover is being undone by the bank’s work for an obscure investment fund in Malaysia, which has entangled it in civil and criminal investigations around the world. Goldman recently received subpoenas from New York regulators, held talks with federal prosecutors and is likely to incur billions of dollars in penalties. It is one of the most serious crises in the bank’s 149-year history.

The international legal assault on Goldman intensified on Monday, with prosecutors in Malaysia filing criminal charges against the bank, accusing it of defrauding investors by raising more than $6 billion for the fund, which was supposed to benefit the Malaysian public but ended up enriching Goldman and others.

And that is just the start of the bank’s troubles.

Lawyers for Goldman met this fall with federal prosecutors in what appeared to be an early step in settlement negotiations, according to three people familiar with those talks. Two of its senior employees have already been charged.