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

by Tom Wright, Bradley Hope

Overview

Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this "thrilling" (Bill Gates) New York Times bestseller exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century" (Axios).

Now a #1 international bestseller, Billion Dollar Whale is "an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale" (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history.

In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude—one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund—right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street.

By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the U.S. Department of Justice continued its investigation.

Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316436502
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	09/18/2018
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Tom Wright was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene of the raid in which Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden. In 2013, he spearheaded coverage of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, which killed over 1,000 people, earning the Wall Street Journal a Sigma Delta Chi award from The Society of Professional Journalists. He is a Pulitzer finalist, a Loeb winner, and has garnered numerous awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia, which in 2016 named him "Journalist of the Year." He speaks English, Malay, French and Italian.

Bradley Hope has worked for the Wall Street Journal for the last four years, covering finance and malfeasance from New York City and London. Before that, he spent six years as a correspondent in the Middle East, where he covered the Arab Spring uprisings from Cairo, Tripoli, Tunis, and Beirut. He was detained by authorities in Bahrain, reported from the front lines of the Libyan civil war, and has been teargassed in raucous Egyptian protests. Bradley is a Pulitzer finalist and a Loeb winner, and also author of Last Days of the Pharaoh, a chronicle of the final days and hours of the presidency of Hosni Mubarak.

Table of Contents

Authors' Note xi

Cast of Characters xv

Prologue 1

Part I The Invention of Jho Low

Chapter 1 Fake Photos 13

Chapter 2 Asian Great Gatsby 22

Chapter 3 Win Tons of Money 27

Chapter 4 We're Going to Need a Bigger Van 32

Chapter 5 A Nice Toy 42

Chapter 6 Doctor Leissner, I Presume 49

Chapter 7 Saudi "Royalty" (The First Heist) 61

Chapter 8 Hitting a Gold Mine 67

Chapter 9 "I Feel the Earth Move" 74

Part II Overnight Billionaire

Chapter 10 An Evening with the Playmates 81

Chapter 11 Raining Cristal 94

Chapter 12 How to Spend a Billion 99

Chapter 13 Where's Our Money? 104

Chapter 14 Roll the Presses 111

Chapter 15 Welcome to New York 115

Chapter 16 Shitty, Junk Products 119

Chapter 17 My Good Friend, Leo 127

Chapter 18 Two-Million-Kuro Bottle Parade 132

Chapter 19 "Keep Your Nonsense to Yourself" 140

Chapter 20 Belfort Smells a Scam 147

Chapter 21 Bitter Severance 155

Chapter 22 Penthouse with a View 159

Chapter 23 Switzerland of the East 164

Chapter 24 Brazen Sky 170

Chapter 25 Goldman and the Sheikh (The Second Heist) 176

Chapter 26 Bilking the State 182

Part III Empire

Chapter 27 Making Busta His Bitch 197

Chapter 28 All the Wealth in the World 203

Chapter 29 Mystique of the Orient 211

Chapter 30 "681 American Pies" (The Third Heist) 216

Chapter 31 Art No One Can See 227

Chapter 32 Jewelers and Bankers 235

Chapter 33 Bona Fide Business 242

Chapter 34 140 Gigabytes 247

Chapter 35 Leo's Wall Street indictment 252

Chapter 36 The Oval Office 256

Chapter 37 Size Matters 265

Chapter 38 Losing Control 270

Part IV Bonfire Of Secrets

Chapter 39 "No Cash. No Deal." 283

Chapter 40 Generous Jho 292

Chapter 41 Sacks of Money 296

Chapter 42 The Expose 303

Chapter 43 Buttocks in a G-String 309

Chapter 44 Strongman Najib 315

Part V The Captain's Resolve

Chapter 45 Prosecutor in an Oil Drum 327

Chapter 46 Special Agent Bill McMurry 330

Chapter 47 Partying on the Run 340

Chapter 48 China Connection 344

Chapter 49 Glass Half Full 348

Chapter 50 White-Collar Crime 352

Chapter 51 King Khadem Falls 361

Epilogue 367

Acknowledgments 377

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/16/2018
Wall Street Journal correspondents Wright and Hope transform their investigation of a mind-boggling financial fraud into a nonfiction thriller tracking the rise and fall of Jho Low, the “alleged mastermind of a multi-billion-dollar scam.” In 2003, Low convinced an adviser to the rulers of the United Arab Emirates that he could broker deals between Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian governments. He then parlayed that connection into a relationship with a Goldman Sachs banker, who helped set up a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund in 2009, which was overseen by Najib Razak, the prime minister of Malaysia and Low’s family friend. The authors contend that Razak turned a blind eye while Low siphoned billions of dollars from the state fund into a “byzantine labyrinth of bank accounts, offshore companies, and other complex financial structures.” Low, still a fugitive, used the stolen loot to “build a Hollywood production company, commission one of the world’s grandest yachts, and throw wildly decadent parties around the globe.” The authors explain how lax oversight enabled Low to carry out such a scheme. Complete with an epigraph from Jordan Belfort of Wolf of Wall Street fame, this is an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

A Fortune magazine Best Book of 2018

A Financial Times Best Book of 2018

"As Bad Blood is to biotech, Billion Dollar Whale is to international finance... a wonderful read... Thrilling."—Bill Gates

"What a blast to read! A true life thriller that reads like a Hollywood movie, Billion Dollar Whale traces the exploits of the most mercurial, mysterious big player in history. Jho Low is Gatsby with twice the bank account and ten times the ambition, and the stories surrounding his exploits leap right off the page!"—Ben Mezrich, NewYork Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and BringingDown The House

"If you like global intrigue, financial crime, wealth porn, and absurdity, Billion Dollar Whale, by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, is for you.... It almost seems made up. Still, anyone who has followed the news out of Malaysia will know that the story is all too real."—The New Yorker

"Wright and Hope deliver a scintillating and prodigiously reported tale of a globe-spanning modern Gatsby and his audacious fraud."—Jesse Eisinger,Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for ProPublica and author of TheChickenshit Club

"This story of a Wharton graduate who carried out the $5 billion swindle known as 1MDB offers a textbook case of financial fraud in the modern age."—New York Times

"An incredible story.... If you need some billionaires to despise—look no further than these charlatans."—Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit

"Just finished reading Billion Dollar Whale and was blown away. I thought I had seen it all with Russian kleptocracy, but the story of the money stolen in Malaysia in 1MDB and all the enthusiastic Western enablers was unbelievable."
—Bill Browder, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Notice

"Even the most skilled fiction writer would have trouble conjuring the corrupt and colorful protagonist of Billion Dollar Whale. Bradley Hope and Tom Wright's gripping portrait of Jho Low and his enablers throughout the global financial system will both fascinate and enrage you."—Sheelah Kolhatkar,staff writer at The New Yorker and New YorkTimes bestselling author of Black Edge

"The story of a massive international financial scandal... As the authors amply prove, the scandal reaches far beyond Low. To succeed, he relied on the naivete, greed, and generally immoral conduct of huge banks as well as corrupt governments."—Kirkus

"An amazing tale of greed.... juicy and entertaining."—Library Journal (starred review)

"Wright and Hope transform their investigation of a mind-boggling financial fraud into a nonfiction thriller... This is an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Well-researched and well-documented.... Reveals how Low used a bag of tricks, including financial fraud, to make himself seem more powerful, more influential, and more successful than he actually was... This is a must-read."—Booklist

"An extraordinary tale.... richly woven...[with] dogged reporting.... Like all good business stories, Billion Dollar Whale is bigger than the immediate one it tells. It is a story of emerging markets crippled by corruption and cronyism and comes from the era of egregious—and mostly punishment-free—banking.... One thing is clear. If ever Hollywood gets round to telling the story on screen, here is perfect material for the script."—Financial Times

"Gripping.... The heist of the century."—Axios

"I highly recommend this rip-roaring story of brazen fraud..., political corruption..., and investment-banker callousness."—Adam Lashinsky, FORTUNE

"Take one chubby Malaysian business school graduate. Mix with Middle Eastern sheikhs and greedy Southeast Asian politicians. Add Wall Street investment banks, law firms and Swiss wealth managers. Then mix in superyachts, five-star hotels, luxury apartments, nightclubs, models, A-list movie stars—and bathtubs of champagne... [This] richly reported page-turner is meticulously pieced together from interviews, documents and emails by Wall Street Journal reporters Tom Wright and Bradley Hope."—PeterThal Larsen, Reuters

"Compelling."—Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A wonderful book... A rip-roaring, absolutely delightful account of one of the biggest financial cons in the history of the world.... If you liked Bad Blood, you might well enjoy Billion Dollar Whale... An incredible story of a con artist at the height of his game."—David Plotz, Slate "Political Gabfest"

"A cracking read."—Unreserved Media

"An incredible story."—Knowledge@Wharton

"One of the best business books in a long time."—Brian Sullivan, CNBC

"One of the most important books of 2018."—MoneyLaundering.com

"[The] extraordinaire saga of Malaysian entrepreneur Jho Low [is] chronicled in juicy detail.... A mind-boggling picture of Low's thievery, grandiose spending and disappearance."—Financial Advisor

"Impeccably researched."
—The Economist

"1MDB book is a whale of a tale.... Readers who have followed the 1MDB scandal will be expecting heavy doses of both opulence and corruption. What Billion Dollar Whale does best is show just how dizzyingly far-reaching the scheme was.... shocking - and an essential read."—Financial News of London

"A must-read for fugitive financiers...a belter of a financial scandal takedown...great fun....A breathless collation of excellent investigative reporting, it shows real life really can be stranger than fiction."—Bloomberg.com

From the Publisher

★ 08/01/2018
Wall Street Journal reporters Wright and Hope tell an amazing tale of greed and sovereign corruption. Expanding on their investigative series into Malaysia's investment fund, 1MDB, the authors portray a toxic brew of Hollywood elites for sale, Wall Street, investment banks, and foreign politicians, all willing to look the other way in return for a payout. The book spans the period 1999–2018 and takes readers onto yachts and into private clubs and elite banks. Groomed by their roguish father, the Low children learned how to use offshore bank accounts to divert money. At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, son Jho Low understood finance, partying, and networking. His connections paid off as he aspired to become a billionaire using other people's money. Thanks to his relationship with the stepson of Malaysia's Prime Minister, he latched on to its investment fund, going on a multibillion-dollar spending spree of art, jewels, a yacht, and lavish homes. The book details how the movie The Wolf of Wall Street was financed. When Jordan Belfort, the convicted "wolf," met Low at an extravagant prerelease party, he recognized a fellow con man. VERDICT A juicy and entertaining tale of crime and deception for all collections.—Harry Charles, St. Louis

Library Journal

2018-07-02
Wall Street Journal reporters Wright and Hope tell the story of a massive international financial scandal they initially exposed in the newspaper in 2015, reporting that made them finalists for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize.The fraud centers on one man, Malaysian-born Jho Low, who by age 20 had begun figuring out how lies about his own background, combined with careful study of international financial markets, could enrich him. By age 30, Low had fooled even sophisticated international bankers into investing billions of dollars into fraudulent companies he created. Much of the book is set in the United States, where Low attended college, resided part-time, and identified his credulous marks, which included dealmakers at the mammoth Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs, among many others. Many American readers will not have a solid background in Malaysian affairs; a strength of this account is the authors' explication of how Malaysian culture and politics helped enable Low to carry out his schemes. The "whale" of the title is slang for a high-rolling gambler, an apt description of Low. He did not gamble with his own money, however. Instead, he used billions of dollars raised from corrupt governments and wealthy individual investors to finance his lavish lifestyle, which the authors describe meticulously. The partying included celebrities from around the globe, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton, fashion models, and Kanye West and other hip-hop stars. A major irony documented by the authors was the creation of a movie studio by Low using stolen cash; the studio would produce the movie The Wolf of Wall Street, based on the memoir by financial fraudster Jordan Belfort. Despite all the evidence against him, the question remains: "Will Low ever be brought to justice?"As the authors amply prove, the scandal reaches far beyond Low. To succeed, he relied on the naiveté, greed, and generally immoral conduct of huge banks as well as corrupt governments.

Kirkus Reviews

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then what of the seductive power of money? This compelling audiobook tells a tale we’ve heard before: In 2009, a creative genius named Jho Low uses his abilities and position to steal billions of dollars from investment funds that are supposed to be built to repel such efforts. Narrator Will Collyer has an expressive, spirited voice that propels this unlikely story forward and animates the author’s words. Collyer reads confidently, pauses for effect, and verbally winks when necessary. He doesn’t create characters but makes it clear when there’s a quote and changes his pitch to punctuate emotions. The result is a cracking story told well and narrated with professional assurance. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then what of the seductive power of money? This compelling audiobook tells a tale we’ve heard before: In 2009, a creative genius named Jho Low uses his abilities and position to steal billions of dollars from investment funds that are supposed to be built to repel such efforts. Narrator Will Collyer has an expressive, spirited voice that propels this unlikely story forward and animates the author’s words. Collyer reads confidently, pauses for effect, and verbally winks when necessary. He doesn’t create characters but makes it clear when there’s a quote and changes his pitch to punctuate emotions. The result is a cracking story told well and narrated with professional assurance. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2018 - AudioFile