Sarawak Report 2 days ago10 min read
How Jho Low’s Gang Blasted Malaysia’s Millions At New Year!
As Prime Minister Najib Razak prepares to confront the country with a belt-tightening revised new budget for 2016, Sarawak Report can inform Malaysians how some of its missing development funds have been spent.
Fugitive
billionaire Jho Low, who stole hundreds of millions from 1MDB, has been
recorded on social media entertaining his gang of friends and
co-conspirators to the most extravagant imaginable partying and waste in
a series of New Year bashes across the globe.
The jaw-dropping debauchery even included renting two jumbo jets so that the looters could “double-countdown” 2013 — by celebrating New Year in both Sydney and Las Vegas on the same day. As one admiring hanger-on commented:
“Only JL can manage this for double countdowns 2013″
The
revellers also gloried in wasting millions of dollars in gambling
chips… money that could have bought food and education for thousands of
Malaysian kids.
The
15 hour long journey from Sydney to the US was capped by a chauffeur
driven limo ride from the plane to the Vegas venue for their greedy
second countdown.
Jasmine Who?
Significantly,
as the trail of party pics and instagram records make clear, one member
of this inner circle of Jho Low party groupies is none other than the
diminutive Kuching lawyer and ex-UBG/1MDB employee Jasmine Loo.
Loo
is wanted by the Malaysian authorities for questioning over her role in
channelling hundreds of millions of ringgit from 1MDB into Sarawak’s
UBG buy out by Jho Low.
So
far she has evaded arrest and is believed to have abandoned her flat in
a swanky Manhattan block in New York (which at US$4 million would
appear to be well out of the normal price range for an already retired
30-something Malaysian legal executive).
However,
this very New Year, Jasmine was again hanging out with Jho Low’s top
celebrity friends Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz in the posh French ski
resort Corcheval.
The
pals have been on several trips together, according to a mass of
instagram evidence, which shows a sickening level of excess at the
expense of ordinary Malaysians, whose money Jho Low looted from the 1MDB
development fund controlled by his so-called ‘Big Boss’, Prime Minister
Najib Razak.
Also
in the same party of ski revellers was none other than the Wolf of Wall
Street producer and partner of Najib’s son Riza Aziz, Joey McFarland.
In
a schmaltzy comment on their cosy line up, Keys’ brother exclaimed this
band of friends have bonded over the years to become “family”. There is
one common denominator, who brings all these hangers-on together and
that is Jho Low.
Sarawak
Report has identified the core contingent of Jho Low’s party-guests,
who have been pictured time and again at these gatherings since the
original 1MDB heist of hundreds of millions of dollars in 2009.
These
include the former celebrity booker cum film producer Joey McFarland
and actors from Red Granite movies such as Jonah Hill; Jasmine Loo
herself; the sons of Najib Razak and their close pals from Thailand;
some key employees of Low’s Jynwel Capital, including his brother Szen
Low and deputy Seet Li Lin, as well as the likes of Alicia Keys, Swizz
Beatz, Jamie Foxx, Paris Hilton and Leonardo Dicaprio.
All
have either participated in Low’s theft of Malaysia’s cash (like Loo
and Seet) or enjoyed the fruits of his money through excessive partying
and gambling and payments to their various charities and PR activities.
Indeed,
with Jasmine in the know and on the run it appears that Jho Low has
decided to keep this mousey nobody of a local lawyer as part of this
‘close family’ — even if that means including her in his key celebrity
circle of flash Hollywood big shots.
Private Jumbo hire so Jho Low’s crowd can celebrate a global NY
The level of debauchery and extravagance by the Jho Low ‘family of friends’ is best described through their own testimony.
In 2013 Hollywood rapper/actor Jamie Foxx (a regular beneficiary of Jho Low’s largesse with Malaysia’s stolen money) went on television to brag about the excesses of their New Year’s partying.
He
had a “friend with some money”, Foxx coyly explained to gasping show
host Jonathan Ross. That friend had hired two private jumbo jets, so
that the well-paid celebrity pals could first enjoy New Year in Sydney
and then fly to welcome it in a second time in Las Vegas!
“I got a friend, you know he got some money and he flew me, Leonardo Di Caprio, Jonah Hill and some other cats and we flew to Australia right. And we did the countdown in Australia then jumped back on a plane and then did the countdown in Vegas. That’s crazy! That was nuts!”
There
is no doubt that the “friend” was Jho Low, because it was the same
“family” of hangers on who indulged in this event — bragging to their
pals “only JL can manage this”.
True
to form Joey McFarland was there to party in Vegas, whilst the party in
Sydney on board yet another grandiose yacht involved the entire Jho Low
family, before the revellers filled two entire jets for the 15 hour
trip to Vegas
The
circle of friends were gushing their thanks to the “Low family” for the
supposedly fabulous occasion hosted by them on the fancy yacht in
Sydney.
Sarawak
Report has established that by this date not only had Jho Low himself
siphoned over US$1 billion directly from 1MDB, he had passed some US$530
million of that money from the company Good Star’s account into his
private account at BSI Bank in Singapore.
Information
from Switzerland has also indicated that his father Larry Low was a
recipient of some of the remaining multi-millions from the Good Star
account, a matter currently under investigation by the Swiss
authorities.
Not so Halal
It
is worth noting that these humongously extravagant events have always
involved extensive debauchery at the expense of Malaysian taxpayers, who
are being increasingly lectured and harangued about ‘halal’ values by
the government of Jho Low’s patron Najib Razak.
As
the photos amply show, money that ought to have been spent on milk and
education for Malaysia’s poorest children has been splurged by the
millions on gambling chips and the world’s most expensive wines and
champagnes for wealthy stars like Leonardo Di Caprio.
Dicaprio’s PR machine meanwhile works overtime promoting his image as an environmentalist and indigenous rights campaigner.
The
common themes of these party events, as insiders have detailed to
Sarawak Report, is the hiring of women in a state of extensive undress,
drunkenness, the availability of drugs and massive gambling.
None of Jho Low’s circle of sychophants in Hollywood have yet responded to the information about 1MDB.
To the contrary, Leonardo Dicaprio is gearing up to star in the next
Red Granite movie for millions of dollars, whilst Alicia Keys has also
taken millions for her charities from Low and was there with her family
this very New Year in Corcheval with all Jho’s pals.
More skiing with the in-crowd for Jasmine — Whistler 2012/3
Back
in 2013 the Jho Low ‘family of friends’ went on celebrating it large in
lavish style following their Sydney/Vegas New Year extravaganza,
according to their bragging instagram records. After the “double
count-down” the party travelled on for a week of further spectacular
merry-making at a top ski resort, Whistler in Canada.
Their
party host, Jho Low, had planned out this further week of organised
luxury, clearly again at his own expense and sent his guests a full
itinerary for the trip:
Unlike
his guests the tubby Jho Low has not been photographed on the slopes
himself, mainly contenting himself with the apres ski it appears.
The highlight of this Canada trip, according to gushing instagram uploads, was a trip to an “ice castle” decorated with 10,001 red roses in mid-winter for their delectation.
“Only J L can make these happen” gushed Jho Low’s ecstatic hangers-on once again!
Is
PM Najib Razak really so willing to let the Orang Asli and Orang Ulu
suffer, just so that these pampered kids and celebrity side-kicks can
have their fun? Sadly, the answer seems to be yes.
Hanging onto the party waggon from start to end was none other, of course, than Jamine Loo:
And
in February 2015, Jasmine Loo hit the slopes of Whistler once again
thanks to her ‘family’ status with Jho Low and his current top celebrity
Alicia Keys, according to the same records on instagram.
Throughout
all this frolicking the pictures leave no doubt about the close
connections between this group of Jho Low groupies, who describe
themselves as “the boys”. They include his business colleagues, such as
brother Szen Low and Seet Li Lin, as well as two wealthy Thai brothers
from the Songthaveepol family, who have recorded these events — and also
the son and steps son of Najib Razak.
Najib’s son Norashman Najib (centre-right) with Jho Low’s friends, the Songthaveepol brothers
Indeed,
the Malaysian Prime Ministerial connection is frequently alluded to on
the tell tale instagram accounts located by Sarawak Report. The party
puppies have even landed themselves a trip on Malaysia’s publicly funded
prime ministerial jet — a freebie that could only have been authorised
by Najib himself.
Invitations
and dinner line ups with Jho Low’s ‘Big Boss’ also feature on the
Songthaveepol brothers’ instagram records — these extravagant playboys
are Malaysia’s hangers on, benefitting from public funds to an
extraordinary degree, courtesy of 1MDB and its pilfered funds.
Destination Vegas!
The
destinations of Jho Low’s party set also make an extremely telling
insight into 1MDB’s business connections, which he has so excessively
mixed with his own pleasure.
Sarawak Report has already investigated and detailed
the fraudulent tycoon’s close connections with Abu Dhabi’s sacked
former Aabar/IPIC boss Khadem Al Qubaisi, who has invested billions into
nightclubs in Las Vegas and beyond, through his questionable Hakkasan
Group.
Hakkasan’s
night clubs have provided a repeat venue for many of Jho Low’s
expensive jaunts. Just a few weeks ago the gang were all over at Wet
Republic, one of the chain’s newest openings
Al
Qubaisi has also invested huge sums in the South of France, where Jho
Low’s groupies have also regularly hung out, especially on the luxury
yacht circuit.
Jho Low took delivery of his own personal super-yacht Equanimity
in 2014, but before that his gang of friends were treated to several
extravaganzas aboard various hired boats. As they proudly announce, this
is Jho Low’s “style”, meaning disgusting extravagance with money stolen
from the poor of Malaysia?
Originally published at www.sarawakreport.org.
