Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton, Sarah Burnette.
Speaker 3: What are you doing girl?
Speaker 2: Just sitting here waiting for me, sitting in my own filth?
Speaker 3: Nice? Do you like my filth?
Speaker 2: I love your filth?
Speaker 3: Heay, right back at you, girl, Thank you. I got
Speaker 3: a question, not about your filth. The question is simple, straightforward,
Speaker 3: right to the point. Do you know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I do know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Is it about your filth?
Speaker 4: It is about my filth. It's about the filth that
Speaker 4: I spread in the world. Oh, so, mashup's ridiculous. It's
Speaker 4: ridiculous when rude dudes dip into the mashup pool, not
Speaker 4: in suggestions, but in participation. We got an email from
Speaker 4: rude dude Tom and it reads Terry ps. As an aside,
Speaker 4: Terry the assistant actually forwarding emails around.
Speaker 3: They're good.
Speaker 2: Not to tell you, Terry. Oh ya, anyways, let me
Speaker 2: read it.
Speaker 4: Hi, Guys love the show. It's always entertaining. I'm a
Speaker 4: native wiscons tonight and a lifelong PBR drinker.
Speaker 2: Do with that what you will. Thanks to you.
Speaker 4: I heard about the Grillos PBR and found some at
Speaker 4: my local quick trip. What I have to say, it's
Speaker 4: actually pretty good. I attached a picture of a nearly
Speaker 4: finished can feel free to use this if you'd like.
Speaker 4: Thanks for the mashup. And there's a picture of a
Speaker 4: nearly finished can Wow.
Speaker 3: Look at that. Tom a mash up team. And I
Speaker 3: didn't even grimace once you took one for this because
Speaker 3: you took one for the team.
Speaker 2: Well, and I think it's interesting. He's like, he says,
Speaker 2: it's actually pretty good.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I trust him for Tom. Yeah, I was
Speaker 3: like that, that sounds good for Tom.
Speaker 2: I think that's awesome.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Tom, honestly, thank you. That is good.
Speaker 2: It's not only awesome, but you know what else it is?
Speaker 2: What ridiculous? Oh yeah, there it is over to you, Zarin.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, Elizabeth, I want to talk to you about
Speaker 3: something that near and dear to my heart. Marlon Brando
Speaker 3: got an Oscar statuette for the Best Actor for his
Speaker 3: starring roleing on the Waterfront, right okay and leaving the
Speaker 3: whole like you know, Elia Cason, non American activities out
Speaker 3: of it. I still love that movie, right, great film.
Speaker 3: Leonardo DiCaprio used to own that Oscar really before he
Speaker 3: had an oscar of his own before he won I
Speaker 3: think for The Revenant or whatever. He had that oscar,
Speaker 3: but sadly he no longer owns it.
Speaker 2: Did he get it a yard sale?
Speaker 3: No, and he didn't resell it. Instead, he was seized
Speaker 3: by the Department of Justice, which means the US government
Speaker 3: now owns Brando's oscar for on the waterfront.
Speaker 2: What.
Speaker 3: Yes, Elizabeth, this is all part of the story I
Speaker 3: want to tell you today, the behind the scenes, real
Speaker 3: life story, crime story no less of the Wolf of
Speaker 3: Wall Street the movie. Oh there's a whole crime story
Speaker 3: bigger than that one behind that movie, and it features
Speaker 3: a man named Jolo Jolo. Yes, this is Ridiculous Crime,
Speaker 3: a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons.
Speaker 3: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 3: percent ridiculous. Elizabeth. Yes, Now, I've flirted be telling you
Speaker 3: this one for a long time, you know, and well
Speaker 3: today is finally that day we get into the rampant
Speaker 3: international embezzling scheme that financed the Wolf of Wall Street.
Speaker 4: Oh so you're not going to tell the story of
Speaker 4: the dude who was Wolf of Jordan Belford.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he shows up in this story. So he is
Speaker 3: in this story.
Speaker 2: He is not the focus, not at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talk about irony. Right, you can make a movie
Speaker 3: about financial crimes by paying for it with wait for it,
Speaker 3: financial crimes. No, no, quick question. Have you seen The
Speaker 3: Wolf of Wall Street? Yes, okay, you know. It's about
Speaker 3: a real life crimer named Jordan Belford and he is
Speaker 3: the wolf of the Wolf of All Street. The movie
Speaker 3: basically covers his rise and fall and him being a
Speaker 3: financial crimes mastermind. Right, and he wrote a memoir and
Speaker 3: then Marty Scorsese he turned it into a story that
Speaker 3: became an OSCAR nominated film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Marty, Marty your friend on that kind of basis.
Speaker 3: We're in a film watching group, Elizabeth and a kickball group.
Speaker 3: Marty's really good in senders. Yeah. So this whole you know,
Speaker 3: Wolf of Wall Street is intended to be a cautionary
Speaker 3: tale about greed another irony. Now, the film has one
Speaker 3: of my favorite Matthew McConaughey scenes where he and Leonardo
Speaker 3: DiCaprio is sitting there there in some skyscraper having like
Speaker 3: a business launch. In Matthew McConaughey, he's doing blow at
Speaker 3: the table and then he makes Leo do that tribal
Speaker 3: beat on his chest. I love that scene. That seems
Speaker 3: not in the script. By the way, Leonardo DiCaprio saw
Speaker 3: Matthew McConaughey doing that for his warm up exercises, and
Speaker 3: he's like, put to put that on camera.
Speaker 2: Warm up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because Leo, say, was a producer for the film,
Speaker 3: so he could make those kind of calls. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's his warm up. A lot of people like the
Speaker 3: Denzel talks about that beating on his body a little
Speaker 3: bit to get loose, you know, like, yeah, you really
Speaker 3: want to be in your body as an actor.
Speaker 2: Did he also hunt? Doesn't he hunt?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's hitting his chest and humming.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Anyway, I was like embarrassed for him
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 3: I vote him and everything he does. So anyway, the
Speaker 3: summer of twenty thirteen, Leonardo DiCaprio had just finished shooting
Speaker 3: The Wolf of Wall Street. Right early talk was this
Speaker 3: film's a lot for the Oscars. They've done it again,
Speaker 3: better than the aviator. Blah blah blah. Now that's this
Speaker 3: helps explain Leo's excitement and his like, you know, self
Speaker 3: serious tone and his confidence when he spoke with Deadline
Speaker 3: later on that same year, in December twenty thirteen, right
Speaker 3: Leo was telling Deadline about his latest film, a dream
Speaker 3: project that he'd been trying to make for a while,
Speaker 3: and he's both the star and the producer, and he
Speaker 3: tells Deadline and I quote everything Jordan and this book
Speaker 3: was so raw. The crash of two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: was a huge motivator for me as well, to want
Speaker 3: to really see what's going on in our culture that
Speaker 3: creates people like this. Greed is a timeless virtue. I've
Speaker 3: been talking about greed a lot in interviews, and you
Speaker 3: can't pinpoint it to any specific time period, or any civilization,
Speaker 3: or even just human beings. It's a fundamental characteristic of survival.
Speaker 3: As we are progressing into the future, things are moving
Speaker 3: faster and we are way more destructive than we've ever been.
Speaker 3: We have not evolved at all, Well, said Leo. Well
Speaker 3: said an, So greed is bad. We're still subject to
Speaker 3: its seductive siren call. Gotcha.
Speaker 2: Because he lives a monastic lifestyle.
Speaker 3: He's an environmentalist, wall he cares about things bigger than him.
Speaker 2: Just not paid for any So, Elizabeth, there's.
Speaker 3: A great cosmic irony that Leo partners in this film
Speaker 3: were the masterminds of international fraud, of palooza and an
Speaker 3: orgy of embezzlement and other financial crimes. And as they said,
Speaker 3: far far bigger than what Jordan Belford had ever done. Really, Yes,
Speaker 3: and when he gave that interview, Leo was knee deep
Speaker 3: in the greed, like just surrounded by it, sinking deeper
Speaker 3: and deeper into it. It was all around him, but somehow
Speaker 3: he missed it, just didn't see it. Wow, somehow this
Speaker 3: highly intelligent, very sensitive actor never recognized the look of
Speaker 3: real life greed when it was the one buying him
Speaker 3: champagne at a casino.
Speaker 2: But zaren he was talking about it a lot in
Speaker 2: the interviews.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, also, as he pointed out, totally.
Speaker 3: He wanted you know, he's thinking about greed. But he
Speaker 3: still missed it when that same greed gave him a
Speaker 3: Jean Michel basciat painting worth nine point two million dollars. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's just as a gift. He missed it when it
Speaker 3: bought him Marlon Brando's oscar. Right, but we're getting ahead
Speaker 3: of ourselves. It's time to meet our man of the hour.
Speaker 2: Jolo Jolo like Jello, but Jolo.
Speaker 3: Jolo j h o Oh Joe l Ow jo Lo Oh.
Speaker 4: So two words, two words yes, mister Low Yes now
Speaker 4: Low Comma Joe h Ok. I'm doing the math yes
Speaker 4: in my face.
Speaker 3: To give you a sense of his character. Back in
Speaker 3: April of twenty thirteen, just after The Wolf of Wall
Speaker 3: Street was filming done filming, it had wrapped, Jo Loo
Speaker 3: was partying in New York and he nearly lost his
Speaker 3: life to buster rhymes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean who among the By.
Speaker 3: The way, this story is going to keep doing that
Speaker 3: where I'm going to say something and all of a
Speaker 3: sudden a celebrity pops up. You do not expect I
Speaker 3: like that. So the story goes this socially awkward thirty
Speaker 3: year old financier Low Tayke Joe aka Jo Lo because
Speaker 3: he's Malaysian of Chinese ethnicity reverse exactly. So. He was
Speaker 3: at Jungle City Studios in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan.
Speaker 3: He was there in the studio. He was there to
Speaker 3: record a vanity track called Void of a Legend. To
Speaker 3: do with that what you.
Speaker 4: Will, He's in the recording studio.
Speaker 2: What's the genre rap?
Speaker 3: Of course, Elizabeth Yes, financial guys love rap. It's all
Speaker 3: about the Benjamins. That's as far as they're concerned. So
Speaker 3: Jo Lo had paid the rapper and producer Swizz Beats
Speaker 3: to help him record his Vanity project or mister Yes himself.
Speaker 3: And also there that night was Pharrell Williams and Buster.
Speaker 2: Rhymes No Yes, So this is horrible.
Speaker 3: So they're all together in this studio in Chelsea in Manhattan,
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, indulging Jolo, indulging Iman. At one point, quite
Speaker 3: visibly drunk, Jolo looks at Buster Rhymes across the studio
Speaker 3: and he yells out at him, yo, I own you.
Speaker 3: You're my bitch? WHOA yes. Well, by the way, it's
Speaker 3: never good to tell black man in America that you
Speaker 3: own him. I don't think I need to explain.
Speaker 2: That anything further. I don't want yes.
Speaker 3: But then, but also because I don't know if you
Speaker 3: you don't play fantasy sports, but I see this often
Speaker 3: in fantasy sports, because people will talk about how they
Speaker 3: own a player, and then they forget how they talk
Speaker 3: about that amongst their friends, and then there they're at
Speaker 3: a game or some social function and they see a
Speaker 3: player that they have on their fantasy team and they
Speaker 3: yell at this real life person, I own you man,
Speaker 3: I need more points this weekend. Once again, do not
Speaker 3: yell at a black man that you own him. I'm
Speaker 3: just saying it's never going to be a good one.
Speaker 4: Let's just avoid that completely, right, So, or just avoid
Speaker 4: fantasy sports. Okay, Well that's my thing about That's my
Speaker 4: complaint about football is the plantation mentality.
Speaker 2: There is that, yes, anyway, so off of that.
Speaker 3: In this case, Joe Lo, as I said, was drunk
Speaker 3: and he was all hyped up on the fact that
Speaker 3: he had just purchased Emi Music Publishing. Wait what yes,
Speaker 3: he bought it for one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2: How does this guy?
Speaker 3: And he wanted Buster Rhymes to know he owned his
Speaker 3: publishing and thus in his mind he owned Buster Rhymes.
Speaker 2: Right, But then also you're my bitch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was drunk and he was like a financi bro.
Speaker 3: So he's like, let me put you in your place.
Speaker 3: I own you, right, So Jolo's uh, we'll call it joke.
Speaker 3: Taunt did not land. He was about to result in
Speaker 3: an epic beatdown when Pharrell Williams had to like step in.
Speaker 3: He had to calm down Buster Rhymes and tell him
Speaker 3: like being.
Speaker 2: Happy, he gotta be happy, and then they punched him.
Speaker 3: They So there you go a glimpse at the character
Speaker 3: of Jolo.
Speaker 2: Right, that is incredible.
Speaker 3: But I've got more for you because I also have
Speaker 3: an eyewitness account, not from the gossip press or from like,
Speaker 3: you know, some hip hop outlet. It's like, oh, we
Speaker 3: got the latest news that nobody will tell you, right right,
Speaker 3: This friend of mine, he works as a DJ. He
Speaker 3: did work as a DJ in Las Vegas, right, and
Speaker 3: he was working there back when Joel was a regular
Speaker 3: at the daytime rooftop pool parties that they have at
Speaker 3: the casino.
Speaker 5: Dear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so back then.
Speaker 3: He was called a super vip. Jolo not my friend,
Speaker 3: my friend Jeff, he was a DJs. I said, So,
Speaker 3: he tells me the story about working a private party
Speaker 3: for this super vip.
Speaker 2: So he did, he go and he gambled along. He
Speaker 2: was a whale.
Speaker 3: There's a whal.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So according to my friend Jeff, and I quote, I
Speaker 3: see this very heavy set Asian guy wearing one of
Speaker 3: those a whole yacht caps and he's sitting in this cabana.
Speaker 3: They had bottles and all the bottle service girls were
Speaker 3: huddled around this area to party. There was a special
Speaker 3: DJ that had come in, so I continue to do
Speaker 3: my job. At one point, Joe Lo grabbed a microphone.
Speaker 3: There was like a wireless handheld that was sent to
Speaker 3: his cabana for him to say what he wanted or whatever.
Speaker 3: He says. Everybody in the pool. Everybody, I mean everybody
Speaker 3: in the pool, and I thought, I'm not getting in
Speaker 3: the pool, but I'll film this. So I grabbed my
Speaker 3: cell phone. I started filming everybody doing what this VIP wanted.
Speaker 3: And I mean eighty percent of the people in the
Speaker 3: pool were staff. Everybody did what this guy told him
Speaker 3: to do, and they all got in the pool fully dressed,
Speaker 3: and I'm filming it. So what did he catch on camera?
Speaker 3: Great question, Elizabeth, We may never know. Well again, according
Speaker 3: to my friend Jeff and I quote, this Asian guy
Speaker 3: came up to me and said, the you doing. I
Speaker 3: stared at him blankly. I didn't know what the problem was.
Speaker 3: People had cell phones out filming stuff at the club
Speaker 3: all the time and no one ever had an issue
Speaker 3: with it. But this was like a major deal. I
Speaker 3: started getting emails on my phone immediately from different management
Speaker 3: people in the casino and the club. The Asian dude
Speaker 3: got really abraced with me, so I apologized and he
Speaker 3: made me erase the phone. I learned later that it
Speaker 3: was what's called a blackout event. That's when there's a
Speaker 3: high security and no one's allowed to film or photograph
Speaker 3: or record anything. This guy low was throwing away so
Speaker 3: much money that he was just hemorrhaging money. It was
Speaker 3: beyond trying to burn money. Brewsters millions is the only
Speaker 3: thing that comes to mind. Why would one literally burn
Speaker 3: piles of money for what reason? If you had that much,
Speaker 3: you just wanted to get rid of it as much
Speaker 3: as you can before you die. That's one thing that
Speaker 3: was not this. This story is another thing, Elizabeth. Yes,
Speaker 3: so that's an eyewitness account.
Speaker 2: Was just the money to say this is a blackout event?
Speaker 2: Did he did? He rent the hole basically.
Speaker 3: The club yea yeah, and the rooftop pool club, I mean,
Speaker 3: and then he had the staff, didn't have people had
Speaker 3: the staff getting the pool like pretend to be having fun.
Speaker 4: That sounds like hell on for I would just start
Speaker 4: throwing people off the roof. If I could throw myself.
Speaker 2: I throw everybody.
Speaker 3: Someone's coming off that roof.
Speaker 2: Someone's out of here.
Speaker 3: So now we're back to the essential question, Who the
Speaker 3: hell is jo Lo? I'm happy to tell you I
Speaker 3: have answers, lots of answers. So low Taik Joe was
Speaker 3: born in Malaysia in nineteen eighty one. He was born
Speaker 3: a son of privilege. He's gobad numbers, sharp minded, you know.
Speaker 3: So his family sent him to Harrow. It's a private
Speaker 3: school in London, so old that it was founded by
Speaker 3: a charter from Queen Elizabeth the first way back in
Speaker 3: fifteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So his classmates were the sons of kings and the
Speaker 3: nephews of prime ministers from around the world. Right, It's
Speaker 3: where everybody sends their you know, special boys. Elizabeth. You
Speaker 3: might say that the British private schools are a lot
Speaker 3: like prison. Yeah, They're a great place to learn to
Speaker 3: be a better criminal.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 3: I mean I wouldn't say that, but you might.
Speaker 2: Say I'll say anything there.
Speaker 3: So anyway, jo Lo, he said of his private school days,
Speaker 3: they absolutely shaped his future. In an interview with The
Speaker 3: Toronto Star, he said, and I quote, there were a
Speaker 3: few key relationships which I started to develop there. Harrow
Speaker 3: had lots of children of prominent European, Asian and Middle
Speaker 3: Eastern families. That's when I met the former King of
Speaker 3: Jordan's son, among others.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, So those.
Speaker 3: Early heady days at Harrow, they were the key that
Speaker 3: unlocked the man and criminal he would become. Or, as
Speaker 3: Joel put it in his interview with The Toronto Star,
Speaker 3: that's when I felt that I built the core foundation
Speaker 3: of contacts for the future. That's quite important because that's
Speaker 3: when you know them as friends and you build the
Speaker 3: trust level for the future, as opposed to meeting someone
Speaker 3: during the course of your business life. He's like, get
Speaker 3: them WHI they're susceptive.
Speaker 2: You see some of the terrible things they do as youth. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: and hold it over.
Speaker 3: This is really why you want your kids to go
Speaker 3: to an elite school. Not the education, it's for the connections. Comply.
Speaker 3: So Adri attends Harrow. Joel transfers to Wharton School of
Speaker 3: Business here in the US, which coincidentally is also the
Speaker 3: president's alma motern Apropos of Nothing but Cress. At Wharton,
Speaker 3: Jolo made a name for himself on campus. His nickname
Speaker 3: was the a Great Gatsby.
Speaker 2: He made his own nickname, did he did he.
Speaker 3: I don't know about that, but she'd give you some
Speaker 3: idea of how he was perceived by.
Speaker 2: A question that's not a nickname.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: In short, it was known that, just like Jay Gatsby,
Speaker 3: jo Loo was a schemer, a striver, an operator, and
Speaker 3: a social.
Speaker 2: Media like the lamest nickname everyone.
Speaker 3: No now Jolo for instance, to give you an example
Speaker 3: of his Jay gatsbying around, he once invited his Wharton
Speaker 3: classmate Avanka Trump to go on a gambling trip with
Speaker 3: him and some of his friends too where Atlantic City.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: You see, Jolo had a big time crush on Avanka,
Speaker 3: and he thought she might go for a guy like him.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm having like a sliding doors moment of like
Speaker 4: an alternative reality.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Evanka politely declined the invite, but the way Jolo later
Speaker 3: told the story, he explained her rejection was far less
Speaker 3: about him and more about her father. You see, Jolo
Speaker 3: told his friends that Ivanka said quote she'd never set
Speaker 3: foot in one of her father's skeevy casinos. So that's
Speaker 3: from Jolo. I didn't say that. So at this point
Speaker 3: in his story, Joo moves on to his next crush,
Speaker 3: someone who was also a rich, mildly attractive blonde daughter
Speaker 3: of a famous American family. He started angling for Paris Hilton.
Speaker 2: Oh dear, clearly the.
Speaker 3: Man had a type. Now. Yeah, his roommates at Wharton
Speaker 3: later recalled that Jolo loved to watch House of Wax.
Speaker 3: Now if that name doesn't sound familiar, it was Paris
Speaker 3: Hilton's debut movie. Yeah, now, he watched it over and
Speaker 3: over again, apparently just all the time. So now, Joo
Speaker 3: didn't know it back then, but one day, a drunken
Speaker 3: Paris Hilton would be photographed at a casino with his sweaty,
Speaker 3: alcohol flushed face pressed against her shoulder. That was all
Speaker 3: become Elizabeth. That's the future we have to look forward to.
Speaker 3: So back to his college days. After Wharton, Lowe returned
Speaker 3: to Malaysia. There he tried his hand in a few businesses.
Speaker 3: None of them were successful, but he did orchestrate the
Speaker 3: sale of a skyscraper, so that had to make his
Speaker 3: parents proud, right, I mean, oh, you.
Speaker 4: Sold that long, daddy.
Speaker 3: So after that, he then partnered with a man named
Speaker 3: Reza Aziz. He was a friend of his he had
Speaker 3: met back when they're both attending private school in London.
Speaker 3: So we're now working together in Malaysia, jo Loo and
Speaker 3: Aziz won the backing of Aziza's stepfather, this man named
Speaker 3: Najib Razak. Now you see, at the time he was
Speaker 3: the Defense Minister of Malaysia, and then in a very
Speaker 3: short time he was elected Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Yes. And then working together, the three men conspired to
Speaker 3: create a Sovereign Wealth Fund for Malaysia. It's basically a
Speaker 3: state owned development investment program, right, and this was just
Speaker 3: after the financial meltdown of two thousand.
Speaker 2: And eight, perfect timing.
Speaker 3: But these men, they saw opportunity Elizabeth where the rest
Speaker 3: of us saw ruined. They saw the saints for the future.
Speaker 3: So they used, you know what, there's big deals to
Speaker 3: be made, there's steals to be lifted, fraud to be purchased.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: So in two thousand and nine, Jol returns to America
Speaker 3: with the backing of the Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund, and
Speaker 3: he's over there looking to make big deals. Doesn't take
Speaker 3: long for the New York gossip pages to find him, so,
Speaker 3: like page six of the New York Post, they spot
Speaker 3: Jolo out making an ass of himself all across the
Speaker 3: Manhattan nightclub scene. This is like in November of two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine. In his very first news story, Jolo
Speaker 3: is pictured sweaty faced, champagne.
Speaker 2: Drunks, sweaty all the time. He's often I can get
Speaker 2: pretty spitzy, but like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just kind of his like MESHI, It's like,
Speaker 3: look I'm dancing, I'm having fun. It's hot in here.
Speaker 3: So he was basically the New York Post covers him,
Speaker 3: he's just like this another finance bro in Manhattan, right.
Speaker 2: Just a dewey man.
Speaker 3: You look at the photo of him, you'd never imagine
Speaker 3: this guy would become the mastermind of an international money
Speaker 3: laundering scheme to steal billions of dollars. Right in the
Speaker 3: very second sentence in the very first story I ever
Speaker 3: written about, Jolo reads like the opening line of a
Speaker 3: fairy tale about a money launderer. As the Post reported, quote,
Speaker 3: a Jolo comes around once in a lifetime, marveled one
Speaker 3: into veteran. Oh no, yes, To be clear, the industry
Speaker 3: wasn't an investment banking or finance. It was nightclubs. You
Speaker 3: don't get like him coming out exactly so, this Malaysian
Speaker 3: international man of mystery had become modestly famous for downing
Speaker 3: champagne and chasing long legged models. Yea, As the Post noted,
Speaker 3: and I quote, Lowe just celebrated his twenty eighth birthday
Speaker 3: in Las Vegas, a four day affair that started out
Speaker 3: last Wednesday at Caesar's Palace, where sources said the swimming
Speaker 3: pool was stocked with bikini clad party girls and surrounded
Speaker 3: by caged lions and tigers.
Speaker 2: Ew Right.
Speaker 3: So, after that pool party, to start the debauchery, his
Speaker 3: birthday entourage hit up a nightclub in the casino, where
Speaker 3: Paris Hilton and Usher danced the night away with Jolo
Speaker 3: and drank with him and his friends. Hell Also, Jamie
Speaker 3: Fox reportedly gave Jolo a sports car for his twenty
Speaker 3: eighth birthday.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, where did that come from?
Speaker 3: Don't I'm talking to me. You're just going to keep
Speaker 3: popping up on a swivel.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: At the end of that New York Post article, a
Speaker 3: friend of Low's tried to dispel any mystery about Jolo,
Speaker 3: but instead only enlarged it because the friend said, and
Speaker 3: I quote, he's not an arms dealer and he doesn't
Speaker 3: want all this publicity. It's always fun when you have
Speaker 3: your friends trying to clarify that your perpetually drunk friend
Speaker 3: is not an arms dealer.
Speaker 4: I've never had anyone say, you know, the thing about Elizabeth,
Speaker 4: that she's not an arms dealer.
Speaker 3: One thing you can say about Elizabeth not an arms dealer.
Speaker 3: Now they do. Now that we've met our crimer of
Speaker 3: the day, let's take a little break, and that's the messages.
Speaker 3: We will get high and low with Jolo and we're
Speaker 3: back Elizabeth. Hello, you ready for more Jolo?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: More twenty ten celebs in young Hollywood.
Speaker 2: This is so great. Who else is gonna pop up?
Speaker 2: It's like whack a mole?
Speaker 3: Oh wait for the rest of these moms. Oh no, okay,
Speaker 3: so where were we? All Right, it's two thousand and
Speaker 3: nine and the gossip rags have just learned the name
Speaker 3: Jolo right well after the New York Post spots him.
Speaker 3: Next came Gawker's coverage.
Speaker 2: Right, rip Gocker, What I miss Gaker? We could use
Speaker 2: Gaker right about.
Speaker 3: Desperately need a Gaker right now. So Gawker publishes their
Speaker 3: first story on him six hours after the New York
Speaker 3: Post story drops.
Speaker 2: Nice, They're like.
Speaker 3: We're on it too, So they had more details from
Speaker 3: that epic Las Vegas Casino birthday party. The one yeah,
Speaker 3: well was Gawker reported and I quote Meghan Fox was
Speaker 3: flown out to Vegas to hang out with the birthday boy,
Speaker 3: who routinely surrounds himself with models.
Speaker 2: So did he like hire Meghan Fox.
Speaker 3: He's hiring everybody, and he's paying everyone.
Speaker 4: The thing about these celebrities that you know they did,
Speaker 4: I mean you have. It used to be that celebrities
Speaker 4: didn't want to do commercials, huh, and so.
Speaker 2: They did them in the foreign countries.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and now they don't care, they'll plug anything.
Speaker 2: They just get paid.
Speaker 4: But they also do all these weird appearances, in these
Speaker 4: personal appearances, pay to have them go wherever.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It used to be like, oh, like you know,
Speaker 3: so and so went over and and went to Oman
Speaker 3: for this, but like you know, Leader's sons birthday party
Speaker 3: and then performed. And it's not even like j Lo
Speaker 3: is in Qatar anymore. Now it's like you can get
Speaker 3: them to come down for like your furniture stores opening,
Speaker 3: if you're willing to pay them one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: You got enough money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so okay. So as also, Goker had another great
Speaker 3: quote about Joe Lo. They I think, provide some interesting
Speaker 3: color about how Jolo quote rents several apartments in the
Speaker 3: Park Imperial on West fifty seventh Street in Midtown that
Speaker 3: housed him and his staff, including several bodyguards. Famous neighbors
Speaker 3: include Daniel Craig and Sean Combs. Oh yeah, birds. It's
Speaker 3: key to remember that this was again two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: just one year earlier. The entire world's economy had melted down,
Speaker 3: so not many people were in the mood to throw
Speaker 3: money around.
Speaker 2: When he has multiple apartments. Yes, yes, that's obscene.
Speaker 3: No one knows where the money's coming from. People are wondering,
Speaker 3: is he an arms dealer? What's his story?
Speaker 2: They don't even they don't care, He don't care.
Speaker 4: They liked it was he an arms dealer, because that's
Speaker 4: a fun, exciting little bit of gossipy, don't They don't
Speaker 4: give a toss when no where it comes from.
Speaker 3: Also, but the people were talking about like, okay, this
Speaker 3: is when Las Vegas began to seriously court international gamblers,
Speaker 3: as you well know, because they needed to stay in business.
Speaker 3: And so what was true for like Vegas casino general
Speaker 3: managers was also true for Manhattan nightclub owners. Naturally, they
Speaker 3: were both more than happy to protect a man's privacy
Speaker 3: or a person's privacy, you know, the Jolo's privacy in particular,
Speaker 3: because he was saving their asses as far as they
Speaker 3: were concerned, Like we need a guy like.
Speaker 2: Him at bottle service markup.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So you know, like nobody, as they said,
Speaker 3: nobody was throwing money around like Jolo. So people were
Speaker 3: ready to protect him, possibly from himself, but at least
Speaker 3: like the wrong people seeing him. Yeah, So back to Jolo.
Speaker 3: The year is twenty ten now, so Jolo grows even
Speaker 3: more flagrant. Now remember his crush on Paris Hilton, who's
Speaker 3: now party?
Speaker 2: I remember that?
Speaker 3: Well. In twenty ten there were now rumors in print
Speaker 3: that Jolo was paying Paris Hilton a million dollars to
Speaker 3: hang out with him and to party in places like
Speaker 3: Sant Trepez. And he apparently rented a yacht from the
Speaker 3: billionaire Paul Allen. Oh wow, he's like mega yacht. Tattoose
Speaker 3: is what it called three hundred three foot yacht. It's
Speaker 3: the kind of boath that has a movie theater and
Speaker 3: a parking spot for your helicopter. Right, that kind of
Speaker 3: boat and so then the rumors hit the press that
Speaker 3: Paris Siltan was dating him or you know, at least
Speaker 3: spending time with him, and so she denies them, right,
Speaker 3: she has her reptil the New York Post.
Speaker 2: They are friends, they're not canonling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just he pays her for her time.
Speaker 4: If someone like, let's think of it like a if
Speaker 4: some guy, some some random eccentric guy said I'll pay
Speaker 4: you a million dollars or no, let's like, let's say
Speaker 4: some bodacious babe or not so bodacious babe. I guess
Speaker 4: if we're going to do equivalents said I'll give you
Speaker 4: a million dollars Aaron to come party with me on
Speaker 4: the Mediterranean, and would you do it?
Speaker 2: Would you go?
Speaker 3: I would need to know more information, like you know, what,
Speaker 3: what is this party? Why do you want me? When
Speaker 3: do I get the money?
Speaker 4: You see?
Speaker 2: The hangout?
Speaker 3: Like I'm not signing NDA's you know, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff that I do.
Speaker 2: I bet you ye, Betty Adam.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, totally. It's a whole lifestyle. So like I'm
Speaker 3: not it's not the money part there, Like I don't
Speaker 3: mind being like, oh, a paid person, but it would
Speaker 3: be the fact that, like I have, I have morality
Speaker 3: about that, Like I'm not you can't pay me to
Speaker 3: do something I don't want to do, right, But if
Speaker 3: you want to just pay me to like party on
Speaker 3: a yacht, if I was into partying on yachts, I'd
Speaker 3: be like sure. And obviously Paris Hilton is in Joy's party.
Speaker 3: You're not asking her to do anything she doesn't like doing.
Speaker 3: So if I was something equivalent, like he's Aaron you
Speaker 3: want to come to my fantacy football draft, I'd be
Speaker 3: like sure, for a million.
Speaker 2: Dollars, come ride mountain bikes with me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go, right, So that makes it a
Speaker 3: little easier, I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, So at this point, now the New York Post
Speaker 3: they find some of Paris Hilton's friends who claimed Jolo
Speaker 3: is actually only paying her one hundred thousand dollars each
Speaker 3: time they hang out. Oh yeah, that's why. Yeah I
Speaker 3: came up with that number. So believe whatever and whoever
Speaker 3: you want. But the point is jo Loo was using
Speaker 3: Paris Hilton and paying her so he could get famous
Speaker 3: and also gain access to real stars in big, big money.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, according there's a whole book about him called Billion
Speaker 3: Dollar Whale. And according to Billion Dollar Whale, which was written,
Speaker 3: by the way, by a pair of Wall Street Journal reporters,
Speaker 3: great a good book, jo Lo was with Paris Hilton
Speaker 3: when she celebrated her twenty ninth birthday. Their entourage partied
Speaker 3: in Vegas at the Palazzo, and Jolo gave his longtime
Speaker 3: crush a Cartier watch. And then, as the book reports,
Speaker 3: Low quote handed her two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 3: in gambling chips and asked her to join him at
Speaker 3: the baccarat table.
Speaker 2: And her birthday party. Yes, I mean this sounds sir.
Speaker 3: Million dollars join me at the baker rote.
Speaker 2: Too, and she just accepts it, of course.
Speaker 3: And that's not all because, back to the book Billion
Speaker 3: Dollar Whale, Quote, between October two thousand and nine and
Speaker 3: June twenty ten, a period of only eight months, low
Speaker 3: and his entourage spent eighty five million dollars on alcohol,
Speaker 3: gambling in Vegas, jets, renting super yachts, and to pay
Speaker 3: playmates and Hollywood celebrities to hang out with them. Eighty
Speaker 3: five five million million dollars in eight months. That's more
Speaker 3: than ten million dollars a month.
Speaker 2: I just Oh my god, I.
Speaker 3: Need to ask you another question, Elizabeth. Sure, if you
Speaker 3: stole a billion dollars from the people of Malaysia, what
Speaker 3: would you do with it?
Speaker 2: A billion dollars from the people of Malaysia.
Speaker 3: You asked me a question, that's my question for you.
Speaker 4: Well, I guess I got to figure out how to
Speaker 4: make sure they don't come at me.
Speaker 3: What does this assume they can't?
Speaker 4: So they can't because I'll say, like half of it
Speaker 4: is my is to pay for my standing army, oh
Speaker 4: and then smart and the rest, you know, just chilling. Well,
Speaker 4: I'm reading people to burritos, like I just pay a burrito, like.
Speaker 3: Picking up like people's vet bills, oh yeah, yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: going down to a vet hospble and hanging out.
Speaker 4: Just yeah, and just be like how much how much
Speaker 4: do people owe you this month?
Speaker 3: Put the card down there?
Speaker 2: It is there, it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They do stuff like that, you know, school field.
Speaker 3: Trips, well, lunches, I know you are, Okay. I got
Speaker 3: a more specific second question. How much of that same
Speaker 3: billion dollars would you use to bankroll the sequel Dumb
Speaker 3: and Dumberer two.
Speaker 2: I'd say probably around zero dollars.
Speaker 3: Well, it turns out that movie was bankrolled by Jolo.
Speaker 2: That was also the Malaysian Wealth Fund.
Speaker 3: Really the first time people began to take notice of
Speaker 3: Jolo's Hollywood aspirations also was the first time people began
Speaker 3: to make concrete legal claims against him.
Speaker 4: You know, just think about like the person who reeled
Speaker 4: him in and like when he said yes, I'll do
Speaker 4: it and starts transferring money, and like all the people
Speaker 4: that that that, like the guy who secured the funding
Speaker 4: is telling, oh, yeah, how excited, Like You're never going
Speaker 4: to believe how much money I got.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just how he keeps spiraling. So in this why
Speaker 3: it's the summer of twenty thirteen, right just after Leonardo
Speaker 3: DiCaprio finished filming The Wolf of Wall Street in the
Speaker 3: like autumn of twenty.
Speaker 2: Twelve, and that long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So at this point, Joe Lo gets sued by
Speaker 3: the producers of Dumb and Dumberer two. See the producers
Speaker 3: alleged in their lawsuit against Joel's production company Red Granite,
Speaker 3: and I quote Red Granite is s funded with moneies
Speaker 3: that include proceeds from offenses against a foreign nation that
Speaker 3: involve bribery public officials or misappropriation, theft or embezzlement of
Speaker 3: public funds by a public official. Plaintiffs are informed and
Speaker 3: believed that public officials in Asia and the Middle East
Speaker 3: have taken bribes and or misappropriated, stolen or embezzled funds,
Speaker 3: and that those ill gotten funds have been invested in
Speaker 3: Red Granite. That pretty much lays it all out right
Speaker 3: in the language. So what's the story of this production company,
Speaker 3: Red Granite? Fantastic question, Elizabeth. You see, back in twenty ten,
Speaker 3: jo Lo and his school friend Reza Aziz, they decided
Speaker 3: to get into the film business. Yeah, neither man had
Speaker 3: any experience in Alloa.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 3: But in fact Aziz had been a banker in London,
Speaker 3: so he thought, Oh, after the financial collapse of two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight, he decided to get out of banking.
Speaker 3: He's like, I'm going to get into the picture business.
Speaker 3: These are very similar, luckily for him. In two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine, his stepfather, the newly elected Prime Minister of Malaysia,
Speaker 3: formed something called one MDB, which stands for one Malaysia
Speaker 3: Development baarhart Or Bank. Now that's the aforementioned sovereign weal
Speaker 3: fund I told you about. Yeah, that Jolo conspired along
Speaker 3: with his buddy disease and his stepfather to create It
Speaker 3: was designed to quote invest in green energy and tourism,
Speaker 3: to create high quality jobs for all Malaysians. But really
Speaker 3: it was a big piggybank for them to loot. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this is where it starts to resemble our more modern
Speaker 3: money laundering schemes. You see, the Malaysian government partnered with
Speaker 3: a Saudi investment firm called Petro Saudi, and that all
Speaker 3: made perfect sense on paper. Since Malaysia is a predominantly
Speaker 3: Muslim nation, it's also conservative, and it's an oil producer
Speaker 3: just like Saudi Arabia. They're like, we have similar business interests.
Speaker 3: So the investment deal was Malaysia and Petro Saudi contributed
Speaker 3: two point five billion dollars to the new one MDB
Speaker 3: investment fun.
Speaker 2: So this is for green energy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because back then that's what Sudi Raby was talking
Speaker 3: about the future was going to be green energy. So
Speaker 3: sensibly this was for new infrastructure as well as oil
Speaker 3: development projects because they're not going to leave their money
Speaker 3: maker behind. So meanwhile, behind the scenes, seven hundred million
Speaker 3: dollars was directed into a shell company called good Star,
Speaker 3: which was a company owned and controlled by Jolo. So
Speaker 3: there are all these the mini bribes and payoffs to
Speaker 3: Malaysian officials to grease the wheels of their conspiracy. Not
Speaker 3: to mention the fees paid international investment banks like Goldman Sachs,
Speaker 3: because the investment banks executives helped make this scheme pass
Speaker 3: compliance and beat all the regulators and what they would do.
Speaker 3: And as you might imagine, with all that graft and
Speaker 3: outright theft, it didn't leave much money for the needed
Speaker 3: green energy and infrastructure projects or the quote high quality
Speaker 3: jobs for all Malaysians. But anyway, back to Red Granted.
Speaker 3: In twenty ten, using the money embezzled from one MDB
Speaker 3: and dispersed through Low's front company, Good Star, Aziz took
Speaker 3: a cut of hundreds of millions of dollars and he
Speaker 3: bought himself a production company and he named himself co
Speaker 3: founder and CEO. And then to make their name on
Speaker 3: the Hollywood scene, Joe Lo did what he did best.
Speaker 3: He threw an epic party to announce their new production company,
Speaker 3: Red Granite, and in May of twenty eleven, at the
Speaker 3: Conns Film Festival, Red Granted announced that they had just
Speaker 3: purchased the rights to the Wolf of Wall Street and
Speaker 3: they intended to make it with DiCaprio and Scorsese. This
Speaker 3: was huge news, yeah, because, as the Hollywood Press reported
Speaker 3: it at the time, DiCaprio had finally found someone to
Speaker 3: pay for his dream project. He'd been wanting to make
Speaker 3: this for years, and the Wolf of Wall Street had
Speaker 3: been mired in development, had gone into turnaround. It had
Speaker 3: been just been bobbing around Hollywood for a while. It's
Speaker 3: always deemed basically too expensive because it had a hard
Speaker 3: R rating and it also had one hundred million dollar budget,
Speaker 3: so it was a risky investment as far as all
Speaker 3: the calculus they use. So back in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 3: no one in Hollywood was willing to take that risk
Speaker 3: because nobody has any money, right, And all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: this guy, when Red Granite comes along and he goes
Speaker 3: to cons and announces it, we're making it. We're doing
Speaker 3: the Wolf of Wall Street. And to make sure people
Speaker 3: had all eyes on the Red Granite party, they flew
Speaker 3: in Kanye West to perform. And when you know it,
Speaker 3: Forarrell Williams opened for Kanye.
Speaker 2: What does he buzzing around?
Speaker 3: So you got Bradley Cooper and Leonardo DiCaprio dancing in
Speaker 3: the crowd right. And later on when Kanye took the stage,
Speaker 3: Jamie Fox joined him and together they performed gold Digger,
Speaker 3: with Jamie Fox doing his own like you know bit
Speaker 3: from the race. So it was quite the spectacles. When
Speaker 3: I'm telling quite the party, you would have loved, I love,
Speaker 3: I mean hate. In an interview with Collider producer Reza Aziz,
Speaker 3: he spoke to the many questions about what an amateur
Speaker 3: like him was doing in cons or in Hollywood, and
Speaker 3: why some neophyte like him was producing a movie with
Speaker 3: one of the greatest living directors, and how he'd managed
Speaker 3: to partner with one of the world's most famous, respected
Speaker 3: leading men. And obviously the answer was quite simple.
Speaker 2: Money money.
Speaker 3: So Aziz called The Wolf of Wall Street a compelling
Speaker 3: story about quote a guy who comes from nothing, gets
Speaker 3: everything overnight and becomes rich. And in that journey from
Speaker 3: nothing to everything, he gets sidetracked with all the drugs,
Speaker 3: the hookers and the alcohol, and once he gets to
Speaker 3: the top, he gets taken down by the government.
Speaker 2: That's an aspirational story.
Speaker 3: He also promised that once again, quote when you see
Speaker 3: the film, it's a good snapshot of what American capitalism
Speaker 3: is like kind of an indictment.
Speaker 2: He's like, and that's complimentary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I guess true words were never spoken, right,
Speaker 3: But that doesn't answer the question. How did Joe Lo
Speaker 3: and Riza Aziz impress Scorsese and DiCaprio enough to work
Speaker 3: with them? I said, money, But there's more to it. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's take a break and after these messages, we will
Speaker 3: get back into the more. Back, Elizabeth, we are back
Speaker 3: to enjoying Jo Lo and this crazy tour. S okay, Well,
Speaker 3: back to my man, Reza Asease. He had an interview
Speaker 3: with Collider, the media outlet that covers like entertainment and uh.
Speaker 3: In that interview, he credited his businessman's efficiency for his success,
Speaker 3: with the.
Speaker 4: Straight efficiency, all efficiency.
Speaker 3: He said, explaining how he got into the Wolf of
Speaker 3: Wall Street and got Marty and Leo to come together
Speaker 3: on the project.
Speaker 2: Yes, he said, and.
Speaker 3: I quote, we bought the script in the book rights
Speaker 3: from Warner Brothers and signed Leo on, and then waited
Speaker 3: for Marty to finish with Hugo and signed him on.
Speaker 3: Once you get those two guys on board, it's a
Speaker 3: fast moving train. Right after it's been a great ride
Speaker 3: so far.
Speaker 2: At least he like didn't mix his metaphors that if.
Speaker 3: You asked the actual Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belford,
Speaker 3: who oh yeah, brought into all this.
Speaker 2: He's got to be making money off of it.
Speaker 3: Oh, he told The Hollywood Reporter in twenty fourteen. A
Speaker 3: little bit later quote Leo just refused to let it die.
Speaker 3: And after the option expired in twenty eleven, Scott Lambert
Speaker 3: called a meeting with everybody, me, DiCaprio's manager, rick Yorn, Leo,
Speaker 3: and Alexandra at the Polo Lounge and Leo goes, We're
Speaker 3: gonna get Marty, and then I start hearing about Red Granite.
Speaker 3: They buy it. They announced it con They said, listen,
Speaker 3: we're gonna make Marty an offer he can't refuse. Isn't
Speaker 3: that cute?
Speaker 2: I love it there at the Polo Loune.
Speaker 3: Right, the Hollywood newbies are gonna make a Godfather reference
Speaker 3: about them pressuring Martin scor Sasey into making their film
Speaker 3: So Good at the polou.
Speaker 2: At the Polo Anywhere, Pink and everywhere.
Speaker 3: So before filming began for New Year's Eve in twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: Joe Lo and Disease Jamie Fox, DiCaprio, and his co
Speaker 3: star Jonahill. They all celebrate New Year's together in Australia.
Speaker 3: Then they hopped on a private jet and they flew
Speaker 3: to Vegas where they promptly celebrated the New Year a
Speaker 3: second time. Isn't that amazing, Elizabeth?
Speaker 4: You know, it's the concern for the environment by up,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: But see, they had enough embezzled money to celebrate New
Speaker 3: Years twice. Sure, I mean, if time is money, why
Speaker 3: not cheat time?
Speaker 4: But too, you know, at least Leo drives a prius
Speaker 4: of course offset all that.
Speaker 3: So in the fall of twenty twelve, the winter of
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, they filming The Wolf of Wall Street, right,
Speaker 3: And then when they get done, to commemorate the fact
Speaker 3: that they wrapped jo Lo and Reza z Eve, they
Speaker 3: gave Leonardo DiCaprio a very personal birthday gift, something that
Speaker 3: had eluded him thus far. It was an Oscar. That's right.
Speaker 3: Red Granite presented DiCaprio with the Oscar statuette that Marlon
Speaker 3: Brando won for on the waterfront.
Speaker 2: So why didn't Marlon Brando have this?
Speaker 3: There's a bunch of interesting stories, backstories both of his Oscars.
Speaker 3: He also had another Oscar, the one he got for
Speaker 3: The Godfather. Apparently that one also got lost to the
Speaker 3: wind and ended up with Charlie Chaplin of all people.
Speaker 3: I don't know why this one was. What happened to it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like did he get.
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: I know he doesn't care, but I'm just curious.
Speaker 3: Like if he I wish I had an answer for it.
Speaker 2: He gave it away to someone else?
Speaker 3: No, I do not know, but I do know that
Speaker 3: it cost them six hundred thousand dollars to buy it
Speaker 3: from the new owner interested. But what's six hundred grand
Speaker 3: between friends? You know?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 3: So Joe Low and Rizozis they hoped that that oscar
Speaker 3: would bring good luck to Leo and their film. And
Speaker 3: you know, if you allow me to momentarily fast forward
Speaker 3: to the Oscars. That next following year, DiCaprio was nominated
Speaker 3: for Best Actor for The Wolf of Wall Street. The
Speaker 3: film was nominated for Best Picture, and sadly neither.
Speaker 4: One you look at how badly everyone knew that Leonardo
Speaker 4: DiCaprio really wanted an Oscar and to give him one
Speaker 4: that's not his, like exactly, it's like, no, he doesn't
Speaker 4: want the statuette, you ding.
Speaker 2: He he wants the award. He wants everyone to he
Speaker 2: wants the accolade.
Speaker 3: Here's a tiny gold man. You like tiny gold man?
Speaker 3: Here you come.
Speaker 4: It's like, well, here, Marlon Brando one one, you had it,
Speaker 4: but we bought you.
Speaker 2: Marlon Brando, you can have his. So that makes you happy? Brando,
Speaker 2: but he bust up his hair.
Speaker 3: Does that make you happy? So back to the gifts
Speaker 3: for Leo, because there's others, as I pointed out, and
Speaker 3: many of twenty thirteen. A little bit after this, DiCaprio
Speaker 3: held this art auction for his environmental charity because he's
Speaker 3: into that. Jolo attends the auction, he snaps up two
Speaker 3: pieces of art to support his friend's cause.
Speaker 2: Of course, of course this sparks this art.
Speaker 3: Buying frenzy for jo Lo. So earlier in March he
Speaker 3: bought his very first piece of art, and it was
Speaker 3: Jean Michel Bosquiot's collage painting Redman from nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 3: He bought it for nine point two million dollars. And
Speaker 3: then two days after DiCaprio's art auction in May, jo
Speaker 3: Loo bought another Basquiocht dust Heads, the very famous painting. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that one cost him forty eight point eight million dollars.
Speaker 2: Was it wrecked?
Speaker 3: It was a record at the time for a work
Speaker 3: by Bosciot. What yes? And then that June Jolo grabbed
Speaker 3: a Rothko that set him back about any one point
Speaker 3: five mil. Oh, my god, Elizabeth, he was hooked. He
Speaker 3: got the bug.
Speaker 2: I just can't these.
Speaker 4: I can't get my head around the prices and the
Speaker 4: fact that like Malaysia's buying these, not knowing.
Speaker 3: For the good jobs in Malaysia.
Speaker 2: Green in phasis helping.
Speaker 3: Next, Joo picked up works from Picasso, van go Or
Speaker 3: van Goch, Monet, Liechtenstein, Warhol, and some more Bosciots. Then
Speaker 3: he gave his good friend Leonardo some of his new artworks.
Speaker 3: According to the art news outlet Artsy, they reported that
Speaker 3: quote Lo had decided to gift a few works, the
Speaker 3: nine point two million Bascuiote brought from Namad and the
Speaker 3: three point two million Picasso from the Monaco art dealer,
Speaker 3: along with a Diane Arbus photo purchased for seven hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand dollars, all to one person. The handwritten
Speaker 3: note said, dear Leonardo DiCaprio, Happy belated birthday. This gift
Speaker 3: is for you, creepy happy belated bird.
Speaker 2: Happy dear Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker 3: You're so close, Leonardo DiCaprio. I laughed at that one
Speaker 3: when I read it, too. So at this point, not
Speaker 3: long after this, it's now the start of twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: and Jolo begins to date the Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr. Okay,
Speaker 3: and naturally he was quite generous with her, as he
Speaker 3: was with all.
Speaker 2: His closes quote unquote date.
Speaker 3: No, I don't know. So for Valentine's Day, Jolo ordered
Speaker 3: a diamond necklace worth roughly two million dollars be created
Speaker 3: custom for her and then hand delivered to curR. And
Speaker 3: for Kerr's birthday, which was just a short time after
Speaker 3: Valentine's Day, jo Lo created a nineties themed night and
Speaker 3: for that he paid Salt and Peppa and Vanilla Ice
Speaker 3: to perform at her birthday party. Oh, Leonardo DiCaprio and
Speaker 3: Jamie Fox were at the party.
Speaker 2: Jamie's not missing any of this are.
Speaker 3: Champagne He's It was apparently an epic night.
Speaker 2: Oh sure.
Speaker 3: In my experience, I'm always suspicious of someone who wants
Speaker 3: to hire Vanilla Ice to perform. It just seems like
Speaker 3: a red flag total nineties night Vanilla Ice and I really.
Speaker 2: Disappointed the Salt Pepper, But I mean they got bills.
Speaker 3: They got bills. Yeah, you know. So you know what
Speaker 3: Elizabeth I forgot to tell you about was Joe Lo
Speaker 3: also gave Kerr an enormous sea through one hundred percent
Speaker 3: translucent grand piano around this same time. This piano was
Speaker 3: so big that contractors had to build new walls around
Speaker 3: the piano once they got it into place in her
Speaker 3: Hollywood Hills mansion. So they knocked down walls, they put
Speaker 3: in the piano, they built new walls.
Speaker 2: This is just obscene, obs.
Speaker 3: And ridiculous, like what they're doing with the money. I'm like,
Speaker 3: you bought a translucent piano?
Speaker 2: Obscene?
Speaker 3: Why have you ever seen one? No?
Speaker 2: Who cares?
Speaker 3: Now you are you wondering? Didn't any of these Hollywood
Speaker 3: veterans and supermodels suspect that Jolo was buying their friendship,
Speaker 3: their time, their romance. Didn't they see that he was
Speaker 3: basically love bombing them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they know, they don't care.
Speaker 3: No. At the time, the only person who seemed to
Speaker 3: see Joe Lo for the criminal he was was his
Speaker 3: fellow con man, the og Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Baumber. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he knew Low was from the word go. For instance,
Speaker 3: when he first met Jolo and a Z's he told
Speaker 3: his girlfriend, these guys are criminals. Wow, one day meets
Speaker 3: the first time he meets you. That's his reed. As
Speaker 3: Bellefort later recalled, quote, they flew me to cons for
Speaker 3: four or five months after they bought the movie, and
Speaker 3: they wanted to announce it in con It hadn't even
Speaker 3: gone into production yet, and they threw a launch party.
Speaker 3: They must have spent three million dollars on the launch party.
Speaker 3: They flew in Kanye West and I said to Anne,
Speaker 3: this is a scam. Anybody who does this is stolen money.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't spend money you worked for like that.
Speaker 2: That's a really good pointing.
Speaker 3: A read like that, right, drag queens and criminals like
Speaker 3: at this, I will listen to.
Speaker 2: It, Jordan, the soothsayers.
Speaker 3: Yes. At one point, Bellford turned down half a million
Speaker 3: dollars of Low's free money he was throwing around. As
Speaker 3: Bellefort tells it, quote, So then the movie goes into
Speaker 3: production and I'm spending a lot of time with Leo
Speaker 3: and these guys wanted to meet me for dinner and
Speaker 3: they wanted me to go to Vegas with Leo. They
Speaker 3: offered me money and everything to go to Vegas. I'll
Speaker 3: lot of money, like five hundred thousand dollars, which I
Speaker 3: really could have used. I was like, I can't do it.
Speaker 3: Leo went, Margo went, that's Margot Robbie.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: So why didn't Jordan Belford take the easy money like
Speaker 3: everyone else? Fantastic question.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: Well, but as we've established he knew better. What Let's
Speaker 3: leave it to him to explain. As he put it, quote,
Speaker 3: I refuse to go, and because of that, I'm not
Speaker 3: mentioned in the articles. I've learned my lesson. It's all
Speaker 3: red granite. They tried to offer him money and give
Speaker 3: me things. I never even spoke to these guys. I
Speaker 3: was like, I don't need these people. I knew it.
Speaker 3: It was so obvious.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So he's like, that's dirty money. I don't want no
Speaker 3: part of it. Yeah, he's gonna stay me in the future.
Speaker 3: I'm looking out for future joys and brushes.
Speaker 2: He doesn't need to to go back.
Speaker 3: No, he doesn't want to get tired with that brush
Speaker 3: of crime again.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, it was this point obvious to those with eyes
Speaker 3: to look, you know, but apparently not obvious to everyone
Speaker 3: like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Fox and many others. Okay, let's
Speaker 3: take another little break, and after these messages we'll hear
Speaker 3: how Jolo was brought low once some other clear eyed
Speaker 3: folks take a look at the mountain of evidence of corruption, fraud, embezzlement,
Speaker 3: and outright theft.
Speaker 6: Back in two and two. We're back, Elizabeth, we are back.
Speaker 3: Sorry, and I know I've hit you with a crazy
Speaker 3: cocktail of figures and dates.
Speaker 4: We're talking about all of this money flowing and how
Speaker 4: absolutely disgusting and o'b seen it is, the amount of
Speaker 4: money spent on ridiculous things. And then I'm remembering back
Speaker 4: to Leonardo DiCaprio lecturing everybody on greed. Yes, and he's
Speaker 4: you know, people don't know these guys in their take
Speaker 4: all this money to them.
Speaker 3: This is why I don't go by anything people say,
Speaker 3: only by what they do. So true, it just always
Speaker 3: works out because it's so easy to say things. So
Speaker 3: it is you. I mean, it's literally to open your
Speaker 3: mouth and exhale some air. I mean, that's how much
Speaker 3: effort it takes, but to actually have a consistent pattern
Speaker 3: of behavior, which is why I really came away from
Speaker 3: this story respecting Jordan Belford so much.
Speaker 2: That's where I am right now. I'm thinking, like.
Speaker 3: He turned down the money, he would not take the trips,
Speaker 3: he would not be associated.
Speaker 2: With smell right. And now these other guys they know
Speaker 2: it too.
Speaker 4: It's deep in their hearts. Yes, and yet they're willing
Speaker 4: to overlook it. And why, I don't know. Let's ask
Speaker 4: Leo what his favorite topic is this?
Speaker 3: Maybe why you know, at the beginning of the last century,
Speaker 3: no one really wanted actors to marry into their families.
Speaker 3: They didn't trust actresses. Only recently, only when like movies
Speaker 3: that came about, did we start actually talking about actors
Speaker 3: in high regard and high esteem. Before that, everyone's like
Speaker 3: they do what for money? They lie? I don't trust them.
Speaker 4: But it's like that projection of like, oh, all these
Speaker 4: people who are so greedy?
Speaker 3: Ye yeah, oh yeah, of course, Well you know, so
Speaker 3: checks projection. Now I got asked, are you ready to
Speaker 3: hear how criminal gravity gives a good art tug to Joba? Yes, okay, Well,
Speaker 3: the credit for ending this orgy of money, fame parties,
Speaker 3: high price gifts. It belongs to two people. One was
Speaker 3: a wronged banker and the other was an investigative reporter.
Speaker 3: I liked both a right, so, Elizabeth meet the first,
Speaker 3: the banker, Xavier Justo. He was a Swiss banker, but
Speaker 3: not just any old Swiss banker. He was friends with
Speaker 3: the co founder of Petro Saudi Oh, which means he
Speaker 3: traveled to rarefied air. For instance. Justo was friends with
Speaker 3: Tarek Obayat, who was a well connected Saudi national, really
Speaker 3: good friend of his. The two men party together often
Speaker 3: in Geneva. This is all during the early aughts, like three,
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine, two thousand and eight, like right.
Speaker 3: So at that time, according to the Guardian, Justo was
Speaker 3: quote running a large financial services firm Thin and four
Speaker 3: and the owner of a Geneva night spot named the
Speaker 3: Platinum Club.
Speaker 4: I don't trust people who are like oh, I party
Speaker 4: with them in filling the blanks. That's like in another country.
Speaker 4: It's like people who summer places.
Speaker 3: You don't trust that no lines draw you.
Speaker 4: Know, I just it tells me that everything I need
Speaker 4: to know. But party with you know, honestly, even if
Speaker 4: it's like, I party with filling the blank person.
Speaker 2: At and it's in your town. I'm like, that's still
Speaker 2: you party with them.
Speaker 3: No, you go out and you leave the house to
Speaker 3: meet them.
Speaker 2: I mean, who does that? You go out in public?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: You got to be perceived. Yeah. So in two thousand
Speaker 3: and six, while he was doing well for himself, Justo
Speaker 3: ended up loaning his friend Tarek Obayad thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Not only that, he also let him use a desk
Speaker 3: at his financial firm thin In for to start a
Speaker 3: new company called Petro Saudi.
Speaker 4: Well that's the other thing is if you're running with
Speaker 4: like high up Saudi's.
Speaker 3: Gotta say you don't trust it little shady Well, they're
Speaker 3: he's not known for doing like the best things. No,
Speaker 3: there's interesting stories that you come out of La about
Speaker 3: the rental houses that they have, like in Beverly Hills.
Speaker 3: Like I used to be a house painter, and let
Speaker 3: me just tell you, you got crazy stories down in La
Speaker 3: about like the well, all the mini Saudi. There's like
Speaker 3: hundreds of Saudi princes. So they come over and they
Speaker 3: act like a Saudi prince and they rent these mansions
Speaker 3: and we would have to go in and paint to
Speaker 3: clean up what had happened. We're like, what happened here,
Speaker 3: and they would be like, you don't want to know. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a big bad oh. So at this point,
Speaker 3: one of the co founders of Petro Saudi was a
Speaker 3: Saudi prince, Prince Turkey Ben Abdullah and Elizabeth. Since you
Speaker 3: hear Ben Abdullah means he was the son of King
Speaker 3: Abdullah and Abdullah Ziz. So he was a legit Saudi
Speaker 3: prince of the late king King Abdullah, right, right, So
Speaker 3: he's like a real legit prince, but he didn't make
Speaker 3: it to like a crown prince. So he's like one
Speaker 3: of the many out there just spending fortunes doing whatever
Speaker 3: they want, buying up you know, soccer teams, f one clubs,
Speaker 3: night clubs in Vegas. They're just on a buying spree
Speaker 3: at this point in time, right.
Speaker 4: There have to be some who are doing good, and
Speaker 4: sure people always hear about.
Speaker 3: The yes, but on this show the other one. So
Speaker 3: Justin gets brought into this social circle of the Saudi
Speaker 3: prince and in two thousand and nine, oh by Ed
Speaker 3: his friend. He was on a three hundred foot mega
Speaker 3: yacht that's docked off the coast of Monaco, and on
Speaker 3: board with him are jo Loo, Prince Turkey, and the
Speaker 3: newly elected Prime Minister Najeb of Malaysia. Yeah, so the
Speaker 3: men discuss their business investment opportunities, ways for the two
Speaker 3: oil rich nations to investor Petro dollars. They told you
Speaker 3: about that earlier. And by this point Jolo and the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister they have created the wealth fund, the one MDB,
Speaker 3: and so the Prime Minister was the chairman of the
Speaker 3: board of that. Jolo was an unofficial advisor. But in
Speaker 3: that one business meeting on the super yacht, this spurred
Speaker 3: a wave of business deals, right, just a bunch of
Speaker 3: stuff followed. So months after the meeting, Prime Minister Naseeb
Speaker 3: travels to Saudi Arabia and there he concludes some of
Speaker 3: the deals. He signs a major deal between Malaysia and
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia, the two nations. They announced this new joint
Speaker 3: venture worth two point five billion dollars. The men claim
Speaker 3: that Petro Saudi and one MDB would quote make strategic
Speaker 3: investments in high impact projects. That's some empty words.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 3: Petro Saudi pumps one point five billion into the partnership,
Speaker 3: one MDB adds a billion of theirs, actually the Malaysian
Speaker 3: people's money, and Elizabeth, you want to guess what happened next, No,
Speaker 3: you don't have to because you already know. According to
Speaker 3: the Department of Justices two hundred and fifty one page
Speaker 3: criminal complaint and quotes, Low and his associates cost seven
Speaker 3: hundred million of that one billion that was to be
Speaker 3: invested in the joint venture to be sent to an
Speaker 3: account at RBS Coots Bank and Zurich held in the
Speaker 3: name of good Star Limited. That was the money I
Speaker 3: told you about.
Speaker 2: Earlier, thered million, right.
Speaker 3: So then later on, once again, according to the DOJ,
Speaker 3: approximately three hundred and thirty million in additional funds were
Speaker 3: wired at the direction of one MDB officials to the
Speaker 3: good Star account. So they got a cool billion dollars
Speaker 3: to play with. Now, as we hear over and over again,
Speaker 3: it's not exactly easy to send that kind of money around, right,
Speaker 3: because it generates paper trails. And then also you have
Speaker 3: got compliance officers at international banks and they have to
Speaker 3: personally sign off on such large transfers away, right, But
Speaker 3: they can be got around.
Speaker 2: Apparently everyone can.
Speaker 3: Because according to the DOJ, one MDB officials represented, including
Speaker 3: to Deutsche Bank in Malaysia, the Good Star was a
Speaker 3: wholly owned subsidiary of Petro Saudi. This was not true.
Speaker 3: According to banking records, Good Star was a company controlled
Speaker 3: by Low and Low was also the Good Star accounts,
Speaker 3: a beneficial owner and sole authorized signatory. At the time,
Speaker 3: Lowe was a twenty nine year old with no official
Speaker 3: position with a one MDB or Petro Saudi. So just
Speaker 3: give a billion dollars to our unofficial advisor. So to
Speaker 3: get around bank regulators and compliance officers, Joel relied on
Speaker 3: a network of business associates. This still managed to set
Speaker 3: off alarm bells amongst the international bankers. Talk was going
Speaker 3: back bouncing around the globe right and as the DOJ
Speaker 3: describes it. Quote in an email dated September twenty eighth,
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine, a banker at BSI and Lugano wrote,
Speaker 3: I don't like the transaction at all, in particular the
Speaker 3: role and involvement of mister Low Tayak Joe looks and
Speaker 3: feels very suspicious to me. The joint venture then approached
Speaker 3: JP Morgan Swiss about opening an account without disclosing the
Speaker 3: same details about the structure of the investment. The joint
Speaker 3: venture open an account at JP Morgan Swiss on or
Speaker 3: about September thirtieth, two thousand and nine. So basically, they
Speaker 3: skirted money laundering and embezzlement concerns by going bank shopping.
Speaker 3: They found a bank that would not look too closely,
Speaker 3: and JP Morgan Swiss was like, that's us man, we
Speaker 3: like to it. So now, at one point, when bank
Speaker 3: folks were asking pointed questions about the missing funds and
Speaker 3: loan repayment schedules, one unnamed Saudi official he claimed in
Speaker 3: a letter two bank regulators that the alleged financial improprieties
Speaker 3: quote should not in any event be construed as an
Speaker 3: active corruption, since this is against the practice of Islam
Speaker 3: and I personally do not encourage such practices in any
Speaker 3: matter whatsoever. This is merely a personal token of appreciation
Speaker 3: of Lowe's good work in promoting in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: So this was a tip. They're like, this is a
Speaker 3: tip man, billion dollars. Good guy's good. Yeah, kid's good.
Speaker 3: Twenty nine year old if you were partied with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's really living the tenants of this line.
Speaker 3: So now skip forward to twenty fifteen, a short six
Speaker 3: years later. By then, rumors had been building. Everybody, No,
Speaker 3: and you can only write so many letters of like
Speaker 3: he's done good work promoting and bus Remember there's that
Speaker 3: Swiss banker Justo who I mentioned earlier. Well, you see,
Speaker 3: back in two thousand and nine, Xavier Justo had agreed
Speaker 3: to come to work for Oby Ed at Petra Saudi.
Speaker 3: The friend he loaned the thirty grand too. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then for a couple of years he watched as this
Speaker 3: Saudi national who Justo once called a little brother, he
Speaker 3: made millions upon billions upon billions for himself and his
Speaker 3: business partners with the Petro Saudi one mdbn laundering scheme.
Speaker 3: And then, according to Justo, his friend's behavior changed. Soon
Speaker 3: enough they would get into rageful fights. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: like lots of like you know, shouting and fighting. Right, So,
Speaker 3: by March of twenty eleven, Justo opts to step away
Speaker 3: from Petro Saudi. Yeah, that took some negotiations, but in
Speaker 3: the end Petro Saudi agreed to a severance package with Justo.
Speaker 3: The company would pay him six point five million Swiss francs.
Speaker 2: Okay, just to bounce right.
Speaker 3: But then after they came to terms. Petro Saudi was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I don't like that deal, so the
Speaker 3: informed Justo will actually give you four million Swiss francs
Speaker 3: oh right. Trouble was, Justo still had access to the
Speaker 3: Petro Saudi servers, so he downloaded all of the data
Speaker 3: he could and he hung on to it, waiting for
Speaker 3: the right moment to get his revenge. Finally, of September
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, Justo decided it was time to get his
Speaker 3: revenge and get the money owed to him, so he
Speaker 3: sends an email to Petro Saudi. He tells him I
Speaker 3: got gigabytes of evidence of criminal conspiracy to embezzlem billions,
Speaker 3: so you're gonna pay me my money.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This led to get this Elizabeth a furious exchange of emails.
Speaker 3: They went back and forth, insulting each other, threatening each other.
Speaker 2: I love email site totally.
Speaker 3: At one point, a rep from Petro Saudi warrened Justo,
Speaker 3: that quote troubles me so much. Is the way in
Speaker 3: which I see this situation ending with the destruction of you.
Speaker 2: In an email.
Speaker 3: Yes, so that torret that pushed Justo to share what
Speaker 3: he knew and all the data he had he chose
Speaker 3: to go to an intrepid environmental reporter. Uh, Elizabeth, meet
Speaker 3: the second person, Claire Rooecastle Brown.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 3: Normally she'd be the sort of person that Leonardo DiCaprio
Speaker 3: would like and esteem and invite to a charity auction. Right,
Speaker 3: A good point. And she's a retired British journalist. Would
Speaker 3: move back to Malaysia, where she'd spent the early years
Speaker 3: of her life. She wanted to return to that tropical existence.
Speaker 3: And you know, even though she missed London, she was like,
Speaker 3: I really miss Malaysia. So when she gets back to Malaysia,
Speaker 3: she finds that it's not what she remembers. There's an
Speaker 3: active bit of deforestation going. She's like, you're savaging the environment,
Speaker 3: this beautiful place, this oasis. So as a retired journalist,
Speaker 3: you know, she does what she does best. She puts
Speaker 3: her journalism hat back on. She starts calling attention to
Speaker 3: the issue. So she starts a blog. She starts reporting
Speaker 3: on the corruption and the maufeza she finds, and she
Speaker 3: keeps digging and digging until she finally reaches the Prime
Speaker 3: Minister of Malaysia.
Speaker 2: She's just gonna blog it out.
Speaker 3: She's like this goes right to the top. In an
Speaker 3: interview with Fraud Magazine, which by the way, we need
Speaker 3: a subscription to magazine. Rucastle Brown fraud Magazine. I think
Speaker 3: it's a British outlet, they said, Ruecastle Brown told Fraud Magazine,
Speaker 3: and I quote, I was following a strand that concerned
Speaker 3: me about what was going on and how our global
Speaker 3: systems were being managed to the enormous disadvantage of people
Speaker 3: in the environment and what appeared to be a very
Speaker 3: dodgy practice. Of course, what I found is every time
Speaker 3: I uncovered the correct I was just getting higher and higher.
Speaker 3: The reason why nothing was being done about any of
Speaker 3: these appalling actions was because the corruption went right to
Speaker 3: the top. So Ok. Thanks to her independent diligence, people
Speaker 3: began to leak info to her for her reporting, and
Speaker 3: one of those people was Xavier Justo, who had plenty
Speaker 3: of avacs to share with the investigative reporter. There went
Speaker 3: right to the top.
Speaker 2: He's got thumb drives for days, right, I.
Speaker 3: Mean literal days. But you know what, Elizabeth, rather let
Speaker 3: me tell you more about this.
Speaker 2: Close your eyes.
Speaker 3: I want you to picture it. It's afternoon in Malaysia
Speaker 3: and you are in Kuala Lumpur. In your apartment, out
Speaker 3: on the balcony, working on your laptop, you absent mindedly
Speaker 3: fan the perspiration blooming on your shoulders and arms and
Speaker 3: gathering in the pits of your elbows. You, Elizabeth, are
Speaker 3: investigative reporter Claire Rucastle Brown and you're checking your email.
Speaker 3: The city sounds bubble up to where you were seated
Speaker 3: on the balcony, and iced tea sweats through a glass
Speaker 3: on the table next to your open laptop. You scan
Speaker 3: read an email from a source about some background info
Speaker 3: on an upcoming interview. After that, there's an email from
Speaker 3: your editor about your last submitted article. It's a disagreement
Speaker 3: about whether a person moves towards something, or if a
Speaker 3: person moves towards something with or without an S. On
Speaker 3: the end, the editor is willing to admit you were
Speaker 3: both right. There is no right answer. It's a matter
Speaker 3: of taste. You smile to yourself and close the email.
Speaker 3: You don't need to respond to that one right now.
Speaker 3: You enjoy a long, slow sip of the still ice
Speaker 3: cold iced tea, and then you move on to the
Speaker 3: last email, the final one you have to clear before
Speaker 3: you're back to in box zero. You click on the
Speaker 3: email and you begin to read. You take another sip
Speaker 3: of iced tea, but you stop. Suddenly, you nearly choke
Speaker 3: on the iced tea, until finally you blow a spit
Speaker 3: take across your laptop. It spouts like the spray of
Speaker 3: a breaching killer whale. After you regain your breath and
Speaker 3: dab up the iced t you just spit on your laptop.
Speaker 3: You go back to the email and read it again,
Speaker 3: this time knowing what's coming. You don't do a second
Speaker 3: spit take, but you do gold like a cartoon character
Speaker 3: in a haunted house. The email you see is from
Speaker 3: a Swiss banker who says he possesses a stolen cash
Speaker 3: of emails and financial reports and data that altogether would
Speaker 3: paint a damning picture of the Malaysian Prime Minister, a
Speaker 3: Saudi prince, the firm Petro Saudi and the wealth fund
Speaker 3: one MDB and their multi billion dollar scheme for high finance,
Speaker 3: money laundering and outright theft. You read further and the
Speaker 3: email lists names, key figures, dates, amounts, deals made, partnerships
Speaker 3: forged and protected by a shield of shell companies. It's
Speaker 3: all there, and it's all convincing. The whole world goes quiet,
Speaker 3: The city sounds fade away, the birds and the buzz
Speaker 3: of insects disappears from your ears intil all that's left
Speaker 3: is the sound of your heart beat, and then a
Speaker 3: soft explosion, like a bomb just detonated inside your skull.
Speaker 3: It's followed by what sounds like a fuzzy underwater echo
Speaker 3: of the blast, which fades away as the birds and
Speaker 3: insects and the sounds of the city all rushing back
Speaker 3: and return. Just like that. You know this is a
Speaker 3: major world changing story. You type out a quick response
Speaker 3: to your new source. Your fingers shake with that electric
Speaker 3: tingle of excitement thrilling through your body. You decide to
Speaker 3: keep it grief. You finish the email and end it
Speaker 3: by saying how much you look forward to learning more
Speaker 3: and seeing what data and evidence the source has. If
Speaker 3: you handle this one right, this story could be the
Speaker 3: biggest story of your life. Elizabeth. This is how Claire
Speaker 3: Rucastle Brown, and a pissed off banker came together to
Speaker 3: bring down a multi billion dollar crimes Free. Now, it
Speaker 3: did take some work to earn Justo's trust, and there
Speaker 3: was his money to consider. Justo was gonna get paid.
Speaker 3: He was like, I'm here for the money. He demanded
Speaker 3: two million American for the full story if he would
Speaker 3: trade the evidence, the data, the cash of emails. But
Speaker 3: he was going to get paid.
Speaker 2: He get paid for it.
Speaker 3: That took some time to arrange, but they managed to
Speaker 3: arrange the two million dollars.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Once they had a promise to pay him in place,
Speaker 3: Justo trusted Rucastle Brown and he hands her the stolen
Speaker 3: cash of emails and he gives her key insights into
Speaker 3: the whole sprawling money laundering scheme. And then on February
Speaker 3: twenty eighth, twenty fifteen, Rucastle Brown publishes her first story
Speaker 3: that exposes the one MDB billion dollar robbery. She titles
Speaker 3: her article Heist of the Century.
Speaker 2: And this is on her blog.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the very next day the world changes. The
Speaker 3: sovereign wealth fund one MDB. They denounced the story. It
Speaker 3: was all around the world. They claim it's fraudulent. The
Speaker 3: well fund reports it's It not only recouped the initial investment,
Speaker 3: but it also earned a tidy reported profit of four
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty eight million dollars.
Speaker 2: Okay, Elizabeth, none of that was true.
Speaker 3: You can't imagine That led to The New York Times
Speaker 3: asking some questions about Joe Lo, Reza Z's, and their
Speaker 3: time in Hollywood because the knew they were connected to
Speaker 3: all of this. In February twenty fifteen, The Times reported
Speaker 3: that reza Z's insisted to them that there's no Malaysian money.
Speaker 3: That's a quote that meant no Sole and Ken exactly.
Speaker 3: It was being used to operate Red Granite or to
Speaker 3: pay for its film productions. Elizabeth, this too was a lie. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Suddenly everyone knew that DiCaprio and Jamie Fox and the
Speaker 3: whole gangs. What they all seem to miss when they
Speaker 3: were hanging out with Joe Lo is that he is
Speaker 3: a movie level villain.
Speaker 2: Yes, exist.
Speaker 3: So in July twenty fifteen, The Wall Street Journal publishes
Speaker 3: an in depth investigation into Low A Z's read granted
Speaker 3: one MDB Petro Saudi, tying the whole scheme together. Then
Speaker 3: the Department of Justice launched its investigation, which resulted in
Speaker 3: that two hundred and fifty one page complaint that lays
Speaker 3: out the whole sordid affair. Now, as part of the
Speaker 3: DOJ's indictment of Low, the FEDS also filed an asset forfeiture.
Speaker 3: That meant lee Ardo DiCaprio, he lost his Basquiete painting,
Speaker 3: he lost his Picasso, he lost his Marlon Brando Oscar.
Speaker 3: They were all seized by the government.
Speaker 4: Yes, now I'm wondering. You said that like Leo had
Speaker 4: sold a painting at his auction.
Speaker 3: He had a charity auction for an environmental group. So
Speaker 3: people are basically selling. He was just raising money from
Speaker 3: the auction.
Speaker 2: I see. And then he but he got one of
Speaker 2: those paintings.
Speaker 3: Jolo bought one for him.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: He's like here you go, buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, Jolo, by the way, he gets indicted by the
Speaker 3: DOJ in Absentia and to this day, twenty twenty six,
Speaker 3: he remains on the LAMB. No rumors and evidence suggested
Speaker 3: he's hiding out in China since they have no extradition
Speaker 3: treaty with either America or Malaysia. Yeah, there was some
Speaker 3: talk a while ago that Malaysia would trade some deal
Speaker 3: making with China if they could get their hands on Jolo,
Speaker 3: but that did not occur.
Speaker 2: So interesting.
Speaker 3: Now Jolo's friend stepdad, Riza Aziza's stepdad, the now former
Speaker 3: Prime Minister of Malaysia. His assets were seized. He was
Speaker 3: an easy target. He couldn't fast enough, and he was
Speaker 3: in prison for fifteen years for his part in the scandal.
Speaker 3: So he saw prison time. And I guess I should
Speaker 3: mention Prakazel Michelle otherwise known as Praz from the fujis
Speaker 3: the one who's not white left Jean or Lauren Hill. Well,
Speaker 3: you see, there was a second Department of Justice complaint
Speaker 3: against Jolo, not the first that he was part of
Speaker 3: because he Praz got caught trying to bribe the first
Speaker 3: Trump administration to drop the charges against Jolo. Yes, what so?
Speaker 3: According to the DOJ, Praz was part of a criminal
Speaker 3: conspiracy to wire and distribute millions to lobby against Jolo's
Speaker 3: prosecution under Trump. One turns out Praz worked with Elliott Brody,
Speaker 3: one of President Trump's campaign fundraisers. Yes, the kind of
Speaker 3: guy who focuses on big donors. Right. Together, these two
Speaker 3: established bank accounts to distribute funds to lobby the Trump
Speaker 3: administrator to kill the DOJ investigation. That one did go
Speaker 3: to trial, and poor Praz has now been sentenced to
Speaker 3: fourteen years in federal prison. What that of all the
Speaker 3: folks involved. Praz from the Fujis catches prison time. It
Speaker 3: just doesn't seem fair. I mean, I'm not saying excusing
Speaker 3: what he did, but he doesn't fair all the people
Speaker 3: to catch prison time. It's praz from.
Speaker 2: The It is fourteen years, fourteen years.
Speaker 3: In federal prison. I mean they're low security but still
Speaker 3: federal prison. Yes, and get much less time. Yah, don't
Speaker 3: get me started. Obviously, one day, Joe Low's story will
Speaker 3: make a very fine movie. Yes, it may be a
Speaker 3: better film than Wolf of Wall Street.
Speaker 2: But who's going to start it?
Speaker 3: I know I he could win an Oscar. I mean,
Speaker 3: it has all the elements to be a great drama.
Speaker 3: The question is is, though, who would you cast to
Speaker 3: play Leonardardo DiCaprio, Does he play himself? Who do you
Speaker 3: cast to play Paris Hilton or Martin Scorsese? Do you
Speaker 3: get to play Marshy.
Speaker 2: Now Timothy Salome there.
Speaker 3: I like that call. As far as we know, DiCaprio
Speaker 3: did nothing criminal. I want to be very clear about that.
Speaker 3: In many ways he got played, whether knowingly or not.
Speaker 3: DiCaprio casually ambetted this massive fraud because he wanted to
Speaker 3: make his dream project. In the wake of this multi
Speaker 3: billion dollar legal scandal, Discaprio has said very little to
Speaker 3: nothing at all. The FEDS did, though, ask the actor
Speaker 3: to secretly testify before a grand jury. Yeah, he did
Speaker 3: comply with that, but since it was before a grand jury,
Speaker 3: we don't know all what was said. In a prepared
Speaker 3: statement from his REPS, DiCaprio said of Jolo and his
Speaker 3: whole involvement quote, both mister DiCaprio and the Leonardo DiCaprio
Speaker 3: Foundation continue to be entirely supportive of all efforts to
Speaker 3: assure that justice is done in this matter. Mister DiCaprio
Speaker 3: is grateful for the lead and the instruction of the
Speaker 3: government on how to accomplish this unreal So it's telling
Speaker 3: that the most honorable person in this whale of a
Speaker 3: tale is a convicted criminal. Yes, but Jordan Belfort called
Speaker 3: it from the jump. He saw it, didn't pretend it
Speaker 3: was something else, didn't try to benefit from it. As
Speaker 3: Bellefort said, they tried to offer me money and give
Speaker 3: me things. I was like, I don't need these people.
Speaker 3: That's the spirit you should. No one rich needed them, right,
Speaker 3: But people found ways to use Jolo, which only furthered
Speaker 3: his crime. So essentially their own designs and greed and
Speaker 3: desires capitulated to his and and furthered them. So basically
Speaker 3: 's greed inspired greed and others. And it was like
Speaker 3: it was like an STI, only it was a criminal
Speaker 3: infection just bouncing around Hollywood. So Elizabeth, what's our ridiculous
Speaker 3: takeaway here?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 4: You know the intoxic I mean, it's an age old
Speaker 4: the intoxicating quality of money and wealth, right, but seeing
Speaker 4: it kind of all just laid out like.
Speaker 2: That is just disgusting. The numbers you're throwing around.
Speaker 3: And what they did with it, like an invisible piano.
Speaker 2: Mean, that's what you want.
Speaker 4: I mean, we already know that modern art is money
Speaker 4: launching basically, so you see all that, and like you
Speaker 4: see these eye watering rices that things go for. But
Speaker 4: just like the throwing money around. And I'm really struck
Speaker 4: by your friend's story of him forcing the staff into
Speaker 4: the pool.
Speaker 3: And being satisfied with the paid smiles.
Speaker 4: Paid smiles, and you know, you think about it, it's
Speaker 4: like you're working your staff at a party at a
Speaker 4: rooftop bar in Vegas. You know, you have like a
Speaker 4: uniform that you wear, so you've got like the shoes
Speaker 4: that you wear to work. Well, now you know, I
Speaker 4: don't know if they were able to kick their shoes off,
Speaker 4: but all these things that like they have to demean themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is entertainment.
Speaker 3: A casino pool like rooftop pool party waitress and you've
Speaker 3: just now hopped into a pool and splashing around. I mean,
Speaker 3: I feel bad for them, But when I say this,
Speaker 3: I think it's pitiful. I mean Jolo that he could
Speaker 3: be satisfied by all those fake smiles and act like
Speaker 3: he's really winning it.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: He took all these form allagi people's money just to
Speaker 3: get some kind of feeling.
Speaker 2: That's pitiful, right, So there you go.
Speaker 3: That's mine, and thank you for asking. Of course, anytime
Speaker 3: in the movie for a talkback, watch this one down,
Speaker 3: produce a d what you got for us? I got
Speaker 3: a good one for you. Oh God, I.
Speaker 2: Love get.
Speaker 5: Hi's Aaron, Hi Elizabeth. I just wanted to say thank
Speaker 5: you for keeping me well entertained on countless nights spent
Speaker 5: on my cannabis farm. It's fun listening to a crime
Speaker 5: podcast while I do things that would be considered in
Speaker 5: many states, but not the one that I live in,
Speaker 5: to be quite criminal. Indeed, again, thanks for keeping me
Speaker 5: well entertained. I hope y'all have a lovely evening evening
Speaker 5: and have a nice dinner.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so lovely.
Speaker 2: See everyone what a cannabis farmer is.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful, just making joy and wishing people happy day exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we can keep you company.
Speaker 3: Thank you as always. You can find us online if
Speaker 3: you'd like more Ridiculous Crime on Instagram we have pictures
Speaker 3: there images of everything we're talking about. And on Blue
Speaker 3: Sky you can go over there and check us out
Speaker 3: as well. It's Ridiculous Crime. Also, we have our account
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Speaker 3: like watching and listening to your podcast. We have our
Speaker 3: website ridiculous Crime dot com which has a bunch of
Speaker 3: merch and fun stuff for you to check out. Go there.
Speaker 3: It is quite a kick. And also the iHeart app
Speaker 3: download leave a talkback. We'd love to hear your voice here.
Speaker 3: Maybe you'd like to.
Speaker 2: Hear your voice here, so do it, do it.
Speaker 3: Oh. Also, we have our email email Ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 3: gmail dot com and please start your email. Dear producer day.
Speaker 3: We appreciate you, thank you for listening, and we will
Speaker 3: catch you next Crime Ridiculous Crime. It's hosted by Elizabeth
Speaker 3: Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by Leonardo DiCaprio's
Speaker 3: auctioneer to the stars, Dave Ridiculous assistant is Jamie Foxx's
Speaker 3: piano player, Tarry Maldonado. Fall research is by Miranda Kerr's
Speaker 3: piano cleaners, Marisa Brown and Jabari Davis. Our theme song
Speaker 3: is by Thomas Lee and Travis Stutton. The host wardrobe
Speaker 3: provided by Botany five hundred producer. Dave's wardrobe provided by
Speaker 3: Mister Guy of Beverly Hills. Guest hair and makeup by
Speaker 3: Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Hey, how
Speaker 3: did you meet? Jo Lo Boland and Noel oh Man.
Speaker 3: I was at this great pool party.
Speaker 2: Brown CUI say it one more time?
Speaker 4: curR.
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