The FBI recently made headlines when they released documents detailing the investigation of celebrities Leonardo DiCaprio and Kim Kardashian over their links to a Malaysian financier at the center of a multi-billion dollar graft scandal. The scandal involved state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), and former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was sentenced to over a decade in prison last year due to his involvement.
According to Reuters, the FBI interviewed DiCaprio in 2018 and Kardashian in 2019 over their connections to Jho Low, the financier believed to have stolen at least $4.5 billion from the public fund and moved it into offshore accounts.
Low is now on the run from U.S. authorities and is believed to be hiding in China. Federal authorities, including FBI agents, IRS officials, and DOJ prosecutors, conducted the interviews as part of the largest kleptocracy investigation ever conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Low allegedly sought to boost his image and credibility by associating with some of the world’s biggest stars, including DiCaprio and Kardashian, and giving them large financial gifts. Low financed DiCaprio’s 2013 hit movie “Wolf of Wall Street” after the two met at a nightclub. When presented with past communications he had with Low, including emails, DiCaprio claimed that he did not remember writing the messages and that they did not sound like something he would write.
Despite federal authorities announcing that they were seizing Low’s assets, Low and DiCaprio continued to work together on various business ventures, and their mothers reportedly met. Kardashian and Low became connected when he paid her $50,000 to appear at a red-carpet event in Las Vegas in 2009. They partied and gambled together frequently, including an incident where he gifted her hundreds of thousands of dollars in chips after they gambled in Las Vegas. Kardashian left the casino with a trash bag containing roughly $250,000 in cash, and she later collected the remaining $100,000 in cash from the remaining chips that she had after returning to Las Vegas during a later trip.
The FBI documents reveal a wider range of details about the relationships between Low and the celebrities. Low reportedly had extensive contact with other celebrities, including Jamie Foxx, who performed at a concert in Kuala Lumpur that Low organized. Low also attempted to make contact with Robert De Niro and agreed to loan $1.2 million to a production company linked to the actor in 2015. De Niro reportedly had no knowledge of Low’s connection to 1MDB.
Despite the celebrity connections to the 1MDB scandal, Low remains at large and is believed to be hiding in China. The documents released by the FBI show the extent to which Low went to improve his image by associating with and giving gifts to celebrities. The investigation into the 1MDB scandal and Low’s role in it continues.
Sources: DailyWire, Reuters, Bloomberg News
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