Tom Wright - Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World

In 2015, we began reporting on a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund after rumors started swirling about its towering debts and shadowy dealings. It was an intriguing story. Goldman Sachs had made unfathomably large profits helping the fund raise money, and the ensuing scandal over the fate of the cash threatened to topple Malaysias prime minister. But this was no run-of-the-mill corruption case in yet another developing country. Media reportsand sources we began speaking tosuggested that Jho Low, a little-known, twenty-seven-year-old associate of the prime minister, had himself taken the money, possibly hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars, and used it to build a Hollywood production company, commission one of the worlds grandest yachts, and throw wildly decadent parties around the globe. If true, the Low affair would represent one of the greatest financial heists in history.

Who was Jho Low? And how did he emerge from obscurity to become the alleged mastermind of a multi-billion-dollar scamone seemingly pulled off under the noses of the financial world? We set out to uncover Lows true identity, and what we found was astonishing. Behind the plain outward appearance and mild manners of Low was a serial fabulist who figured out how the world really works. He was everyones friend, but few truly knew him beyond his reputation as one of the greatest spenders of money the jet-setting class had seen in a generation. It was not just a wild story involving Wall Street bankers, celebrities, and a silver-tongued con man. Lows very success, at its core, was rooted in the failures of the twenty-first-century global economy. His ability to take so much, fooling Wall Street banks, auditors, and regulators; his success in using untold wealth to buy his way into friendships with the worlds most famous actors and models; and the ease with which he made everyone believe he belonged. In all of this, Low was the product of a society preoccupied with wealth and glamor.

We realized the amazing life of Jho Low was too incredible to fit neatly into the pages of the Wall Street Journal. By writing a book, we hoped to show in detail how Low did it, but also what drove him, and how he got away with it for so long. That larger portrait, about capitalism and inequality, told through the life of Low, would be of enduring value, we agreed.

The material in these pages is the result of three years of research. We interviewed more than one hundred individuals in more than a dozen countries, from the tiny city of Willemstad on the island of Curaao to Shanghai in China. The majority of people named in the book agreed to talk to us either directly or through legal representation, although a small number declined. Many of our sources insisted on anonymity for fear of physical or legal harm. Every anecdote is based on the recollection of multiple sources and in some cases backed up by photographs, videos, and other documentation. We have reviewed tens of thousands of documents, including public court records and confidential investigative documents and financial records, as well as hundreds of thousands of emails provided to authorities, during the course of investigating the case. We also relied on the official allegations contained in the Justice Departments civil asset-forfeiture cases, as well as court proceedings in Singapore and official reports by Swiss authorities.

As of this writing in July 2018, no public charges of criminal wrongdoing have been filed against Jho Low or most of the major characters in the book, with the exception of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Only a handful of bankers in Singapore have served jail time. As we conclude work on the book, the Justice Department is in the throes of a massive criminal investigation into Jho Low and others at the center of the case. Authorities in Malaysia, Switzerland, and Singapore continue to investigate.

All the principal characters in this book have denied committing crimes and maintained the transactions were legal, but they have declined to provide any thorough explanation for their dealings. Jho Low, in particular, emphasizes that he has never been charged with any criminal activity in any jurisdiction and that there have been no findings of fact by any court regarding any criminal wrongdoing. Other figures readers will get to know, including Patrick Mahony and Tarek Obaid of a Swiss oil company called PetroSaudi International, and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, have maintained, via lawyers, that they did nothing wrong. Any errors are our own.