by Tom Wright
Many may wonder if the link to the top political players in Malaysia and friendship with the PM’s step-son might account for Jho Low’s easy access to investment income or indeed if he is the front man for others.
This was too much for Red Granite, whose lawyers quickly fired off a letter demanding a retraction and an apology, which Rewcastle-Brown ignored. There was no Malaysian money in the film, the letter said. Talents of the caliber of Scorsese and DiCaprio, it went on, never would have gotten involved if the financing was tainted.
Chapter 36
The Oval Office
New York, December 2013
Leonardo DiCaprio ducked into the Four Seasons restaurant on Fifty-Second Street in Midtown Manhattan and made his way to a private room. Since the late 1950s, the restaurant had catered to the city’s business elite to the point that, in the 1970s, Esquire magazine coined the term “power lunch” to refer to the meetings held between lawyers, bankers, and ad executives over steaks in the Grill Room, with its leather sofas and wood-paneled walls. Jordan Belfort, too, dined there, and DiCaprio and Margot Robbie, who played Belfort’s second wife, filmed a scene for The Wolf of Wall Street in the Pool Room, dining under the indoor trees near the water feature.
The night before, after the film’s premiere at the Ziegfield, DiCaprio had moved on to the after-party at the Roseland Ballroom, a converted ice rink, also on Fifty-Second Street, with his “Wolf Pack” in tow, friends like Orlando Bloom and Tobey Maguire. DiCaprio’s schedule was packed, and the next morning he was at the Four Seasons to meet members of the Academy, the six-thousand-member body of former actors, directors, and other movie professionals who vote on the year’s Oscar winners.
He was running late to catch a plane and didn’t really have time for the lunch event, put on by Paramount Pictures, the film’s distributor. Scorsese was already en route to the airport and wouldn’t make the lunch. But DiCaprio’s presence was crucial, and he made his way around the room, greeting Academy members. The glad-handing was important public relations. The Academy was dominated by old, white males, and several of them had shown hostility to the film, with its gleeful depiction of sex and drugs. After ten minutes, DiCaprio made his excuses and exited quietly, befuddling some in the room, leaving Margot Robbie to animate the event with jokes about the awkward sex scenes between her and DiCaprio.
After years in the business, DiCaprio had gotten used to the usual flurry of events that follow a major film release, but the next meeting on his schedule was more enticing. Outside the Four Seasons, a car was waiting to take the actor to the airport, where he would fly on to Washington, DC. There he would deliver a DVD of the film to President Barack Obama.
As usual, Washington was a few degrees warmer than New York, and there was no snow, but DiCaprio was wrapped in a dark coat and cap as he went through White House security. Accompanying him was a small group that included Scorsese, Riza Aziz, and Norashman Najib, the son of Malaysia’s prime minister. Escorting them to see the president was Frank White Jr., one of Obama’s foremost individual fund-raisers. With pronounced cheeks and an easy smile, White was an entrepreneur who made his fortune providing information technology support to the U.S. government, including the intelligence community.
In the 2008 elections, he raised more than $10 million as a “bundler”—a supporter who collects small individual contributions and delivers them to a campaign. By 2012, White was national vice chair of the president’s reelection campaign. Born and raised in Chicago, where he’d studied at the University of Illinois, he also had family ties to the White House—his sister was married to Michelle Obama’s cousin—and was a regular attendee of state dinners. He was also deeply entwined with Jho Low.
During the 2008 campaign, White got to know Prakazrel Samuel Michél, better known as Pras, a former member of the 1990s hip-hop band the Fugees, and Shomik Dutta, who had worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. After the Fugees and a short-lived solo career—“Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)”—Pras was looking to reinvent himself as a businessman. A longtime fixture on the Hollywood party scene, he’d heard from a nightclub promoter about these showy events a young Malaysian was throwing, and by 2012 was a regular at Low’s parties. Like DiCaprio and Scorsese, Pras saw Low’s billions as a business opportunity, and the pair became close. He started to tell his new friend about Frank White, a political operative he’d met on the campaign trail, and Low was entranced.
Low moved quickly, trying to figure out a way he could benefit from a connection to White. Could he leverage the new contact to acquire influence in the United States, as he had done with Otaiba in Abu Dhabi and Prince Turki in Saudi Arabia? On the face of it, Low’s ambition seemed laughably lofty. But Malaysian connections were enticing to some in Washington at that moment. Since taking office, Obama had been keen to befriend Najib to deepen U.S. influence in Asia, part of the president’s much-vaunted pivot to East Asia. Some in the White House and State Department, as well as retired diplomats, including old hands like John Malott, a former U.S. ambassador to Kuala Lumpur, had urged caution about Najib, pointing out the prime minister was showing increasingly antidemocratic tendencies.
In 2013, after losing the vote of ethnic Chinese and Indian Malaysians, the prime minister turned to solidify his Malay base. Despite initially pledging to repeal it, Najib and his government had used a colonial-era sedition law to prosecute opposition leaders, students, and critical academics.
But the White House, especially Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, clung to its vision of Najib as a transformative prime minister, not least because of constant lobbying from Jamaluddin Jarjis, a former Malaysian ambassador to Washington who now was special envoy to the United States. A senior UMNO politician and one of Najib’s closest friends, Jamaluddin was an architect of efforts for closer U.S.-Malaysia ties, and he was agitating for Obama’s staff to organize an official presidential visit to Malaysia. (It was his daughter who interned at Goldman Sachs in Singapore and had an affair with Tim Leissner.)
To build his connection to the White House, Low got involved with efforts to reelect Obama to a second four-year term. Pras Michél would be his conduit. In 2012, Low sent $20 million from an offshore company he controlled to two companies owned by Pras. The money was ostensibly a “gift,” but the musician used one of these firms to make a $1.2 million donation to a super PAC called Black Men Vote, which supported Obama’s campaign. It was a risky move for Pras, as donating money to a candidate on behalf of another person is a violation of federal campaign-finance laws. A lawyer for Pras later said the musician was the victim of a “false narrative.”
Low also reached an agreement for Frank White to scout for projects and act as a cheerleader for Malaysia with the Obama administration. For that, White was paid handsomely; Low in 2012 arranged for $10 million in 1MDB money to move to White via MB Consulting, a firm controlled by Aabar’s Mohamed Al Husseiny.
In return, White went to work. In October 2012, he set up a meeting between Obama and the Red Granite crew. Joey McFarland posted a picture on Instagram of himself shaking hands with President Obama at White’s home. When the president won reelection in November, Low wanted to celebrate with a visit to the White House. Later that month, White arranged for Low to attend the president’s holiday party. Low later showed off a photograph of himself with Obama and the first lady to friends. But on another occasion, White House security personnel turned Low away at the door. It seemed the U.S. government had growing reason to be wary of this young Malaysian with a mysterious past.
Undeterred, Low doubled down on his investment in White, an association he hoped could influence White House policy. In May 2013, White set up DuSable Capital Management in Washington with Pras and Dutta, the banker who also had worked as a special assistant in the White House. Soon after, the fund told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was planning to raise $500 million to invest in renewable energy and infrastructure projects. The plan was for Aabar to pu
t in the majority of the capital, with White investing a small amount himself. DuSable registered as a lobbyist for 1MDB, and by the end of the year, White was arranging for another White House tour—this time for DiCaprio’s group.
DiCaprio and Scorsese did in fact hand over a DVD copy of The Wolf of Wall Street to President Obama, but there was little publicity for the visit. The administration didn’t want to be seen unduly influencing the upcoming Oscar race. The Wolf of Wall Street was viewed as an outside challenger to Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave, and Gravity. The famous director and actor were spotted later in the day having tea at the W Hotel, just across Fifteenth Street from the White House, but neither of them mentioned the meeting with Obama in the barrage of interviews that followed the film’s public release a few days later, on Christmas Day.
Between the release and the Oscars in early March, Low headed off on his traditional end-of-year ski trip with friends and family. This year’s destination was Aspen, Colorado. Low’s guests included Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz, Joey McFarland, and his girlfriend, Antoniette Costa. The town was awash with celebrities, and Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Nicole Scherzinger, and her boyfriend, Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, attended some of Low’s gatherings.
At one dinner, the actor Dakota Johnson, the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, was sitting next to Low, who thought she was a random stranger. Now used to fraternizing with bigger stars, Low had no time for Johnson.
“She ate food and didn’t even say thank you afterward,” Low complained to friends.
At one point, Low bumped into Paris Hilton, who also was in Aspen. He had remained friendly with Hilton, even though he saw her less now than back in 2010. The pair went to get pizza.
The chat that week, at the St. Regis Aspen Resort, centered on The Wolf of Wall Street and whether DiCaprio would finally win an Oscar. As he snowboarded, Low had good reason to be content.
The film would be extremely lucrative at the box office, earning more than $400 million globally, almost four times the cost of production. Despite his constant scheming, Low was exhibiting skill as an investor. Viceroy Hotel Group, in which he now owned a half share, had expanded, gaining a name as a five-star boutique chain. His 13 percent stake in EMI Music Publishing also was a winner, as the global music business recovered due to digital sales via streaming services. The Wolf of Wall Street was his most successful investment to date, and Red Granite had a promising pipeline of new films in development. If the company became one of the biggest producers in Hollywood, Low wagered, there would be oodles of cash to put back into 1MDB.
As the award season came around, The Wolf of Wall Street was expected to do well. In January, DiCaprio won a Golden Globe for his role as Jordan Belfort, using his acceptance speech to thank “Joey, Riz, and Jho” for taking a risk on the project. (Jho Low was also thanked in the film’s closing credits.) But the big prize remained just out of DiCaprio’s grasp yet again: At the Oscars, in early March, the Best Actor statuette was handed to Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club. It was a terrible night for The Wolf of Wall Street, which, despite five nominations, failed to pick up any awards. For Low and Riza, sitting behind Bono and the Edge from U2 in the Dolby Theatre, the evening fell a little flat.
To top off their Oscar buzzkill, the movie wasn’t even going to play back home in Malaysia. To comply with local morality laws, Malaysian authorities demanded more than ninety cuts, and Paramount Pictures, the film’s distributor, together with Scorsese and Red Granite, had decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
But, no matter: An even bigger American import was soon set to land in Malaysia.
On April 27, 2014, Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Malaysia in five decades. The iconic image of the visit was a selfie that Najib took of himself and Obama. The president leaned in, beaming broadly, while Najib didn’t quite know where to look as the camera snapped. “My selfie with President Obama,” the prime minister tweeted moments later. The world had gone selfie mad months earlier when Ellen DeGeneres had taken one at the Oscars with Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, and other stars.
It was Najib’s moment to shine on a world stage. The leaders had spent the morning at the National Mosque, where Najib’s father was buried, and the prime minister used the visit to underline his special relationship with Obama. For years, U.S. presidents had avoided Malaysia, put off by former prime minister Mahathir’s strident anti-Western rhetoric and the nation’s authoritarian bent. Now, Obama was finally in Malaysia as part of a tour that also included close allies like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.
His deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, who was also on the trip, called Malaysia a “pivotal state” in the region—a code for a bulwark against China. In recent months, Beijing had been taking a militarist approach toward enforcing its territorial claims to the entire South China Sea.
President Obama, keen to balance this aggression, promised in a joint statement with Najib to help train and equip Malaysia’s navy. The statement also stressed the two leaders’ support for a vibrant civil society. For some State Department officials who had counseled against the visit—given Najib’s government was busy locking up opposition politicians—this last pledge was derisory.
As Obama toured Malaysia, Low bragged to contacts that he had played a role in the rapprochement with the United States. Just days before Obama arrived, 1MDB signed a multi-million-dollar deal with Frank White’s company, DuSable Capital, to develop a solar-electricity plant in Malaysia. The 1MDB fund’s management falsely described the deal to the board as a “government-to-government” endeavor, even though DuSable was a private entity.
Low was hoping Obama and Najib would highlight the joint-venture plan during the president’s visit. But he was learning it wasn’t as easy to stage-manage events with the United States as in the Middle East. For one, he didn’t have an ambassador-level figure like Otaiba at his disposal, only Frank White—who although close to Obama, was a mere businessman and fund-raiser. Only months later, the solar deal was scrapped, and 1MDB eventually paid $69 million to buy out DuSable’s share in the joint venture. White had plucked a fortune from thin air. He’d later say the deal was “intended to provide renewable energy in Malaysia, create jobs in the United States and earn support for Malaysia in the United States,” and at the time he had no knowledge 1MDB was the “victim of theft.”
The president’s visit turned out to be a major disappointment. If Obama’s Malaysia trip hadn’t worked out as planned, Low could take comfort in another development. In recent weeks, he had started to date one of the world’s most striking women.
Chapter 37
Size Matters
New York, January 2014
The New Wonjo Restaurant, on Thirty-Second Street in Manhattan’s Koreatown, sat under the shadow of the Empire State Building. It was a 24/7 establishment, with plastic menus in the windows and authentic Asian fare—exactly the sort of place Jho Low liked to head after a late night of partying. On this night, he was ensconced at a table with Joey McFarland and some other friends. It was cold outside—the “polar vortex” had sent temperatures plummeting at the turn of the New Year—and the group was eating Korean barbecue and soup after a night of karaoke, when Miranda Kerr, the Australian supermodel, walked in.
She had come from a formal event and was wearing a ball gown, at odds with the atmosphere in the down-to-earth eatery. With her soft brown curls, iridescent blue eyes, and trademark dimples, the thirty-year-old was instantly recognizable, and her elegant attire stood out in such a simple restaurant. She had come to see a friend who was part of Low’s group and took a seat at the table. Before long, the model was engrossed in a conversation with Low about her skin-care line, KORA Organics.
As it became clear that Low was a major investor, a billionaire, even—with interests in EMI and the Park Lane, and ties to a Hollywood studio—Kerr peppered him with questions about how to develop KORA, the running of which she h
ad recently taken over from her mother. As Low had accumulated power, and perhaps because of the built-up stress, some of his earlier charm and solicitousness had worn off, and he began to exhibit a rough edge of arrogance. At a recent gambling session in Vegas, he had told a British model called Roxy Horner that she needed to lose weight, pointing to her waist. She was offended, but Low had learned that, because he was paying, he didn’t really need to care. Kerr, though, was a different prospect, and when she mentioned her desire to expand KORA, Low was careful to praise her financial acumen.
Kerr had grown up on the edge of the Australian Outback, in a stultifying farming town called Gunnedah, but she had left that world far behind. After winning an Australian modeling competition, aged only thirteen, she had eventually moved to the United States, where she became a Victoria’s Secret model. In 2013, she earned $7 million, making her the second-best-paid female model in the world after Gisele Bündchen, and offers kept piling up—from H&M, Swarovski, Unilever—to promote products.
But a supermodel’s earnings aren’t enough to launch a major business, and Kerr was interested in what Low had to offer. She had tired of modeling and was looking to transform herself into an entrepreneur. The next morning, she had a package of KORA products couriered over to Low’s apartment in the Time Warner building.