Post: #1

Fascinating tale indeed, but now this guy appears to be on the run. Likely hiding out in China somewhere.

‘I own you! You’re my bitch’: Jho Low’s Hollywood power play - NY Post

Shady Malaysian billionaire might be hiding in China - NY Post

How Jho Low bought his way into Hollywood - NY Post

Post: #2

Thanks, crazy story and I never even heard of this guy.

Post: #3

Not amused.

Post: #4

so he's proved the hollywood liberals are just whores. first i've heard of this guy though, good read.

Post: #5

He was part of the 1MBD scandal. Guy isn't even allowed back in to Malaysia. He was mates or the fall guy for the former prime minister Najib Razak, a corrupt individual. Several of my Malaysian Chinese friends have told me about this scandal. Something about investing into a film company or film and loads of money disappeared and never ended where it was supposed to be. Najib shortly after got himself a private jet. He left office in an election earlier this year.

Post: #6

He is of Chinese descent - the Chinese while a tiny minority dominate many sectors in Malaysia. China will likely not surrender him for a tiny fee of a 1 bio. $ or so.

Interesting also about Miranda Kerr - coming from Orlando Bloom on to fat billionaire dick for a few million $ in jewelry and a better lifestyle.

Funny story. It's really interesting how easily you can make Hollywood your bitch, fuck their B- and C-level starlets just by waltzing into that place with a few hundred million $ in investment money.

Post: #7

(09-15-2018 04:01 PM)Simeon_Strangelight Wrote:  He is of Chinese descent - the Chinese while a tiny minority dominate many sectors in Malaysia. China will likely not surrender him for a tiny fee of a 1 bio. $ or so.

Interesting also about Miranda Kerr - coming from Orlando Bloom on to fat billionaire dick for a few million $ in jewelry and a better lifestyle.

Funny story. It's really interesting how easily you can make Hollywood your bitch, fuck their B- and C-level starlets just by waltzing into that place with a few hundred million $ in investment money.

"Just" by spending a few hundred million.

It would take far more than a few million to influence me. I am willing to be tested to verify

Post: #8

Those starlets seem to be soulless and their greed for money show they also have zero values. When you get offered a lot of money, certain stuff can be for sure tempting and this guy played it very well. Guess when I would be that rich and see how easy people bent in when you wave some cash, you lose respect for a lot of things.
The corruption of the souls is the biggest sin in modern days.

Post: #9

Crazy story. What amazes me is how long he got away with it for without anyone noticing all that money was gone. Miranda Kerr had sex with that dolphin looking guy and still didn't get to keep her jewels lol, SAD!

Post: #10

(09-16-2018 01:48 AM)[email protected] Wrote:  Crazy story. What amazes me is how long he got away with it for without anyone noticing all that money was gone. Miranda Kerr had sex with that dolphin looking guy and still didn't get to keep her jewels lol, SAD!

Actually that is quite common - fortunes are made and gone, many rich folk are extremely over-leveraged. One high-end escort said that she got plenty of offers of becoming exclusive with one sugar-daddy, even marrying him, but she knew from experience that she would have to check his entire bank balance, debt history ratio first. Many men spend 100k/month, but then you find out that they are essentially broke with liabilities almost wiping them out and they are just hoping to strike it big next.

So his story is not entirely uncommon - what is new here is that he got his cash by public cons and now most countries in the world will be stripping him to the bones except for China. Once Chinese - always Chinese I guess.

Post: #11

(09-15-2018 04:17 PM)Repo Wrote:  

(09-15-2018 04:01 PM)Simeon_Strangelight Wrote:  He is of Chinese descent - the Chinese while a tiny minority dominate many sectors in Malaysia. China will likely not surrender him for a tiny fee of a 1 bio. $ or so.

Interesting also about Miranda Kerr - coming from Orlando Bloom on to fat billionaire dick for a few million $ in jewelry and a better lifestyle.

Funny story. It's really interesting how easily you can make Hollywood your bitch, fuck their B- and C-level starlets just by waltzing into that place with a few hundred million $ in investment money.

"Just" by spending a few hundred million.

It would take far more than a few million to influence me. I am willing to be tested to verify

Here's something even more mindblowing. Instead of "buying" Hollywood influence, he literally could have bought Time magazine with the same amount of money, it was just sold for $190 million to the Salesforce CEO


https://abc7news.com/business/report-tim...e/4262375/

Post: #12

Nice summary of the guy:

-----------
Jho Low is an ethnically Chinese guy born to a well-off family in Malaysia. He went to a bunch of super fancy private schools where he hung out with the children of Saudi Sheiks, British real estate developers, and heirs to the throne of the Sultanate of Brunei, before going to Wharton Business School. Despite by all accounts being soft-spoken and somewhat shy (and terrible around women), Low had an amazing talent for networking. He spent tens of thousands of dollars per month at Wharton throwing massive parties in Philadelphia clubs where he would invite all his rich friends and sororities from other schools to hang out, all on his dime.

After graduating from Wharton, Low attempted to use his school connections be a middle-man between Middle Eastern (mostly UAE and Saudi Arabian) investors and Malaysian development companies, but to little avail. He actually did set up a bunch of deals, but kept getting screwed out of his fees. His luck changed when he got close to Riza Aziz, the stepson of future Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak. With this connection, Low convinced one of the Malaysian kings (there are seven of them) to set up an oil-based sovereign wealth for the country financed by Middle Eastern money, and for Low to manage the fund.

So basically Low was handed control of $4 billion. And he took it. Practically all of it. Low set up dozens of fake companies in places like the British Virgin Islands and the Seychelles with legitimate sounding names that were actually shell companies owned entirely by Low (one was "BlackRock Asia," which had nothing to do with the famous American hedge fund). And then Low proceeded to spend literally billions of dollars of Malaysian people's money. It's estimated that at one point, Low had more liquid cash in his possession than any person in all of history.

The book's authors make an interesting comparison between Low and Bernie Madoff. The latter stole much more money, in the tens of billions, but he kept a relatively small percentage of it because he had to keep the ponzi scheme going by continuously paying off old investors. When Madoff was arrested, his net worth was only about $850 million. But Low just had to pay off a few close associates (most notably, the wife of the Malaysian Prime Minister, whom he bought $100+ million worth of jewelry for), so Low literally had billions of dollars at his personal disposal, almost over night.

What did Low do with the money? Party. Party a lot. A significant chunk of the book just recounts Low's party exploits, including:

- Low got into a spending competition with a Belgian billionaire at a nightclub, which Low "won" by spending $2 million on champagne.

- Low threw what might be the most expensive party in modern history in Las Vegas, with a price tag in the tens of millions for a single night.

- Low hosted a party where he flew around the world in a private jet on New Years to celebrate the holiday in Australia and Las Vegas.

Best of all, Low cavorted with famous people. Leonardo Dicaprio, Paris Hilton, Alicia Keyes, Jamie Foxx, Busta Rymes, and Miranda Kerr are all characters in the book. All were "friends" who were paid to hang out with Low, and apparently did so quite a bit, especially Dicaprio, who in a bit of supreme happenstance, got Low to almost single-handedly finance the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. Later on, Miranda Kerr started seriously dating Low, despite she being a 10/10 stunner making millions of dollars per year as a super model, and Low being a short, pudgy Asian dude, who by all accounts was awkward with women (models at parties were often paid extraordinary fees by Low and then were shocked when he didn't hit on them).

Aside from partying, Low spent hundreds of millions of dollars on art (Picassos, Van Gohs, etc.), homes (I think he had close to a dozen homes dotted throughout the world), movie production (financed Red Granite, a surprisingly legitimate production company), private jets, and his very own super yacht.

Eventually the financial schemes started to collapse when too many media outlets were asking questions. Low panicked, stopped talking to his co-conspirators, and sailed to international waters on his mega yacht. He is still at-large, wanted by most of the world for criminal corruption, but gets refuge from a few friendly governments, including China and Thailand. Currently, he lives comfortably in Bangkok where he invested in a big shopping mall and is presumably paying off the Thai government to shield him from extradition.

All told, after multiple rounds of bullshit fundraising for the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, Jho Low stole something like $3.5-4.5 billion from Malaysia, and spent more than half of it.

There's still a ton more to describe about Jho Low's story, like how Goldman Sachs was instrumental in Low's money laundering, and how many weak-willed bankers let clearly fraudulent transactions go through, and how hopelessly corrupt basically all rich Asian people come off in the book, but I'll leave those alone for now. I had a few key take aways from the book:

- I remember reading in another SSC thread about how the drivers of most political change are a narrow band of people in the upper-middle class. These are the people who are wealthy, but spend time around even wealthier people, and therefore get envious and want to tear down the system. Jho Low is no revolutionary, but he's an interesting case study in that paradigm. Low's father sold a piece of a textile company for $15 million before Low was born. The kid grew up in a mansion and went to elite private schools, but despite his own wealth, he was dazzled by the unfathomably wealthy people around him. We have no way of knowing exactly what Low's motivations were, but all accounts indicate that he was desperate to be liked and respected.

- There are rich people, and then there are rich people. Leonardo Dicaprio is the former but not the latter. His net worth is $245 million according to some Googling, and yet even he is willing to hang out with some nerdy, awkward guy for money. This is something the book brings up a lot - even people accustomed to wealth, like Paris Hilton who was born an heiress, were simply astounded by Jho Low's spending habits. He would show up at a club and just spend more than everybody.He would bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on single hands of poker. He would hand out handbags worth tens of thousands of dollars to random girls at parties. He would send strangers private jets to give them lifts. There is a level of wealth that even the wealthy can't resist.

The best example in the book is Miranda Kerr, who IMO, comes off like a gold digger. The book says that the year she met Low, she made $8 million off her supermodeling, but she wanted to become an entrepreneur and needed financing for a jewelry business. So she started dating him.

- Big fraudsters like this never end up happy. Inevitably, no amount of partying can make up for the anxiety, fear, and paranoia induced by covering up big scams. Low was described as initially being extremely cheerful and generous, but eventually flying into constant rages and berating everyone around him.

- "Who you know" can get you anything and anywhere. Another common occurrence in the book is someone meeting Low in a boardroom or at a club, asking "who the fuck is this guy," but then having his fears assuaged as some Goldman Sachs banker or famous celebrity comes up behind Low and introduces him. As long as Low had respectable and famous friends, no one bothered looking past his surface.
-----------
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/...uccessful/

They are making a movie of the guy also:
https://deadline.com/2018/11/malaysian-f...202497747/

Post: #13

Dude banged Miranda Kerr (and probably a 100 other Hollywood starlets and models).

It's settled. Forget game. Forget genetics.

Just make a shit ton of money via whatever means possible.

Post: #14

A fat Asian dude can maintain a hard enough erection to fuck these women? Nah. It's probably a Hugh Hefner thing, like maybe he's peeing on them or his softie is getting a 1 hour blow.

Post: #15

All his money comes from the 1MDB scandal.

Basically he was a facilitator who helped corrupt Malaysian officials (including the former Prime Minister Najib Razak) siphon off billions of dollars from a state owned development fund (1MDB) into their own pockets.

It's just another sordid tale of a developing nations leaders ripping off their own citizens for personal gain. However Jho Low's extravagant lifestyle and Hollywood connections, facilitated by the money he stole from 1MDB, give it that extra Wolf of Wallstreet (incidentally partially funded by 1MDB money) zing that is sure to make Hollywood turn it into a movie.

Post: #16

This is such a cool thread. I love it! I heard about the book but this thread sums it up neatly and there's obvious hos gonna ho situations.

Pretty much an ugly ass Asian scams a bunch of rich people and goes on a hedonistic streak. He's apparently still at large and will never see a day in jail.

Raising children is a hard task and not even being born into a wealthy family can help as this case shows.

Post: #17

(11-21-2018 09:33 PM)ChicagoFire Wrote:  This is such a cool thread. I love it! I heard about the book but this thread sums it up neatly and there's obvious hos gonna ho situations.

Pretty much an ugly ass Asian scams a bunch of rich people and goes on a hedonistic streak. He's apparently still at large and will never see a day in jail.

Raising children is a hard task and not even being born into a wealthy family can help as this case shows.

Except he was born into a wealthy family. He went to a top private school in Malaysia and then some of the most prestigious universities in the world.
He wouldn't have been rubbing elbows with the worlds Muslim elite if he hadn't.

His grandfather made the family money and then his father increased it via corruption and back room deals with the Malaysian government. Like how most rich people in Malaysia got rich.
But the wealth his family had and he was raised in was nothing compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars he then accrued via 1MDB.

Post: #18

This guy got to fuck Miranda Kerr?

I mean Jesus Christ...I get that she's like 35, so she's been unofficially 'retired' for 7-8 years, and she's already hit the wall...but shit, she's Miranda Kerr, a supermodel, and supermodels that stay away from drugs don't really have a 'wall' in the conventional sense - she's still gonna be really hot until she's 40 and I bet she remains fuckable until she's 50 - Heidi Klum is 45, Liz Hurley is a decade older, both still fuckable - VS models are top tier, because they have to have the face and the body - runway models are the ones you see who are 5'11+ with stunning faces but no tits and curves, that shit don't fly in VS Land.

How to take this news aside from were monsters because 'how is a 35 year old gonna live on 8 million a year - and an ex husband who's almost as pretty as she is and makes 15 a movie even though he can't act for shit and her current husband a hedge fund manager!'?

All this proves to me is what I've before said; when cash and prizes are on the table, there's no bar a woman won't try to slink under.

...what else can I say other than I commend this cheating Asian's ability to cheat above and beyond his cheating and sneaky countrymen?

Maybe one thing; hello Mr. Li, you want to buy this twelve million dollar mansion with your barrel of undocumented cash? Give us the cash and get the fuck out or we'll ship you back to China where you'll hang.

Post: #19

So an ethnic Chinese stole basically from the Malaysian people. This will add more fuel to the fire why Malays and Indonesians hate their Chinese minorities. It is stories like these that cause such resentments.

Post: #20

(11-22-2018 11:03 AM)Jefferson Wrote:  So an ethnic Chinese stole basically from the Malaysian people. This will add more fuel to the fire why Malays and Indonesians hate their Chinese minorities.

Most of the Chinese in South East Asia are self-made. Mainland China was poor as shit until the 1980s so it's not like Communist China made them rich. Chinese in the region were also greatly impoverished too (which is why so many joined the Communist Party in Malaysia and Philippines).

Chinese get richer quicker than most nationalities just because of an insane work ethic and high savings' rates and arguably more individualism (yes Chinese are kind of family oriented compared to westerners but they don't give money to 2nd and 3rd cousins or support the whole village like South East Asians tend to do). .

Post: #21

Just finished reading Billion Dollar Whale, cover to cover. Highly recommended.

If you want to learn more about the story w/out buying the book, check out this website:

http://www.sarawakreport.org

As you guys noticed, Jho Low was able to continue partying for YEARS before the heat got turned up on him. The blogger behind the Sarawak Report was one of the first to bring attention to him, mostly by writing salacious clickbait-style articles focusing on the insane partying that him and his associates were doing with the stolen money.

For example:

From One Of The Lads To Fellow Fugitive
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2018/11/fro...-fugative/

Khadem Al Qubaisi Owned Hakkasan (HKK) Entertainment Empire As Part of the Vasco Trust Web Of Companies - MAJOR EXCLUSIVE!
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2016/08/kha...exclusive/

^ the owner of Hakkasan and Omnia in Las Vegas was an associate of Jho Low !!! Funny to see the dichotomy between him in his arab garb and when he is partying in the west:

https://www.google.com/search?q=khadem+a...0&tbm=isch

Timeline-wise, it was 2009 when JL first diverted 300M from 1MDB to his Goodstar shell company... And the crazy thing was, it sure seemed like he could have gotten away scot-free if he had just *stopped* at the 1st scam, and then used the continuing investment to "cover up" the mere 300M hole out of billions actually raised in the sovereign wealth fund.

... but instead he continued stealing into the billions and of course it eventually became impossible to successfully cover it up.

Post: #22

(11-22-2018 11:16 AM)BaatumMania Wrote:  Most of the Chinese in South East Asia are self-made. Mainland China was poor as shit until the 1980s so it's not like Communist China made them rich. Chinese in the region were also greatly impoverished too (which is why so many joined the Communist Party in Malaysia and Philippines).

Chinese get richer quicker than most nationalities just because of an insane work ethic and high savings' rates and arguably more individualism (yes Chinese are kind of family oriented compared to westerners but they don't give money to 2nd and 3rd cousins or support the whole village like South East Asians tend to do). .

They are self-made in the sense they were poor to start with, yes, but of course they achieved their wealth on the back of the Malaysian and Indonesian market in which they operated, ie they made a profit on the locals. After they do that they do not give back to local society because they do not integrate fully, with their own language and chinese connections they always tended to stick to their own kind, minus taking on local women obviously.

Yes, they are hard working but they are also to a certain extent parasitic, self-enclosed and self centred communities, who at times have their offspring steal from the locals in a spectuclar way, as we see with the story of this Ethnic Chinese fraudster who stole from a Malaysian pension fund designed to benefit the Malaysian people.

Post: #23

(11-22-2018 11:53 AM)RoadTo100 Wrote:  Just finished reading Billion Dollar Whale, cover to cover. Highly recommended.

If you want to learn more about the story w/out buying the book, check out this website:

http://www.sarawakreport.org

As you guys noticed, Jho Low was able to continue partying for YEARS before the heat got turned up on him. The blogger behind the Sarawak Report was one of the first to bring attention to him, mostly by writing salacious clickbait-style articles focusing on the insane partying that him and his associates were doing with the stolen money.

For example:

From One Of The Lads To Fellow Fugitive
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2018/11/fro...-fugative/

Khadem Al Qubaisi Owned Hakkasan (HKK) Entertainment Empire As Part of the Vasco Trust Web Of Companies - MAJOR EXCLUSIVE!
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2016/08/kha...exclusive/

^ the owner of Hakkasan and Omnia in Las Vegas was an associate of Jho Low !!! Funny to see the dichotomy between him in his arab garb and when he is partying in the west:

https://www.google.com/search?q=khadem+a...0&tbm=isch

Timeline-wise, it was 2009 when JL first diverted 300M from 1MDB to his Goodstar shell company... And the crazy thing was, it sure seemed like he could have gotten away scot-free if he had just *stopped* at the 1st scam, and then used the continuing investment to "cover up" the mere 300M hole out of billions actually raised in the sovereign wealth fund.

... but instead he continued stealing into the billions and of course it eventually became impossible to successfully cover it up.

She has covered it quite well for a long time. Pretty sure she has written a book now as well?

They all could have stopped, Jho Low, Najib, etc but they were too greedy. And $300M doesn't go far when you buy a $250 MUSD super yacht.
Malaysians accept that politicians are corrupt and that "its just how things are" but Najib took the piss and that is what really brought him undone.
If he'd "just" taken 10-20% like Mahartir did when he was in power he'd have been fine.

(11-22-2018 12:01 PM)Jefferson Wrote:  

(11-22-2018 11:16 AM)BaatumMania Wrote:  Most of the Chinese in South East Asia are self-made. Mainland China was poor as shit until the 1980s so it's not like Communist China made them rich. Chinese in the region were also greatly impoverished too (which is why so many joined the Communist Party in Malaysia and Philippines).

Chinese get richer quicker than most nationalities just because of an insane work ethic and high savings' rates and arguably more individualism (yes Chinese are kind of family oriented compared to westerners but they don't give money to 2nd and 3rd cousins or support the whole village like South East Asians tend to do). .

They are self-made in the sense they were poor to start with, yes, but of course they achieved their wealth on the back of the Malaysian and Indonesian market in which they operated, ie they made a profit on the locals. After they do that they do not give back to local society because they do not integrate fully, with their own language and chinese connections they always tended to stick to their own kind, minus taking on local women obviously.

Yes, they are hard working but they are also to a certain extent parasitic, self-enclosed and self centred communities, who at times have their offspring steal from the locals in a spectuclar way, as we see with the story of this Ethnic Chinese fraudster who stole from a Malaysian pension fund designed to benefit the Malaysian people.

Mate, the Malay's steal from the people way more than the Chinese do. Mahartir and Najib are the biggest crooks of them all. The government in Malaysia has been corrupt since the get go, and it's majority Malay.

Not to mention if I was treated like a second class citizen in my own country I'd be inclined to band together with my own kind. It's not like Malay's have been too welcoming over the years.

Post: #24

Sadly that's true, the corruption among the Malays may stem from the fact that many different ethnic groups make up the Malay people. There's more tribal loyalty than loyalty towards a patriotic or nationalist notion of 'the people'. Philippines, a Malay people, actually is another good example of this, they've not even had a unified language until recently, and even now, some people in some parts of the country can't understand the others. Though, thanks to Rizal they made some progress towards a nationalist ideal. It's similar in Indonesia, Malaysia.

It's not true that the Malays have not been welcoming, though, they've been extremely welcoming. Far more than the Chinese, Japanese or Koreans have been. It's just in the Malay DNA. Despite the odd pogrom against the Chinese, they are very free to function among Malays, who have no issue with the Chinese taking their women, which lead to Peranakan culture for instance.

Post: #25

(11-22-2018 11:16 AM)BaatumMania Wrote:  

(11-22-2018 11:03 AM)Jefferson Wrote:  So an ethnic Chinese stole basically from the Malaysian people. This will add more fuel to the fire why Malays and Indonesians hate their Chinese minorities.

Most of the Chinese in South East Asia are self-made. Mainland China was poor as shit until the 1980s so it's not like Communist China made them rich. Chinese in the region were also greatly impoverished too (which is why so many joined the Communist Party in Malaysia and Philippines).

Chinese get richer quicker than most nationalities just because of an insane work ethic and high savings' rates and arguably more individualism (yes Chinese are kind of family oriented compared to westerners but they don't give money to 2nd and 3rd cousins or support the whole village like South East Asians tend to do). .

Don't gloss over the insane amount of cheating, which is the cultural norm.