WSJ: US$155m of 1MDB funds went to ‘Wolf of Wall Street’

Investigators in two countries believe that US$155 million (RM603 million) from 1MDB went to production company Red Granite Pictures to make the 2013 hit movie ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, according to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report.

The money from Malaysia’s troubled investment fund was transferred to Red Granite in 2012 through a circuitous route involving offshore shell companies, said WSJ, according to people familiar with the probes, and supported by documents reviewed by the global financial daily.

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s stepson Riza Aziz, 39, is the chairman of Red Granite, a production movie house set up on 2010.

Despite being virtually unknown, Red Granite raised US$100 million to make ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, a sex- and drug-fuelled story of a penny-stock swindler starring Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio.

“The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued subpoenas to several current and former employees of Red Granite and to a bank and an accounting firm the company used, according to people familiar with the subpoenas,” said the WSJ report.

A spokesperson for Red Granite said that the company was “responding to all inquiries and cooperating fully” with the investigations. He said the production house had no reason to believe the source of its financing was irregular.

Riza (far left in photo) had previously denied that Red Granite was funded by money originating from Malaysia. He said in a 2014New York Times interview that its main investor was Abu Dhabi businessman Mohamed Ahmed Badawy Al-Husseiny.

“Mr Al-Husseiny is an American who then headed Aabar Investments PJS, which is an arm of an Abu Dhabi sovereign-wealth fund known as IPIC. The state-owned firms did business with 1MDB. For instance, IPIC guaranteed some of the Malaysian fund’s bonds.

“In connection with the IPIC guarantees, 1MDB reported in corporate filings that in 2012, it sent $1.4 billion to Aabar as collateral,” said WSJ.

According to investigators, the money did not go to Aabar but to “a separate, almost identically named company that Mr Al-Husseiny had helped set up in the British Virgin Islands, called Aabar Investments PJS Ltd”.

“The investigators believe about $155 million of this money then flowed to Red Granite Capital, a firm Mr Aziz had formed to fund the film company.”

WSJ said documents show three transfers to Red Granite Capital in 2012 - US$60 million, US$45 million and US$50 million.

Of this, US$105 million was booked by Red Granite Capital as a loan, while the other US$50 million was moved to the company through intermediaries.

“Among the intermediaries, according to people familiar with investigations and the person familiar with 1MDB: Telina Holdings Inc, a company that had been set up in the British Virgin Islands by Mr Al-Husseiny and his boss, Khadem Al Qubaisi.”

Since the launch of the global investigations, both men were removed from their posts in Abu Dhabi.

According to WSJ, the US$50 million loan from Telina Holdings has been repaid, citing people familiar to the investigations.

While the Red Granite spokesperson told WSJ that the company “has been repaying and will continue to repay all its loans”, it is unclear whom Red Granite would repay the US$105 million loan.

The British Virgin Islands firm that extended it was liquidated last June, said WSJ.

“Red Granite had no reason to believe at the time that the source of Aabar’s funds was in any way irregular and still believes the loan to be legitimate,” WSJ quoted the film company spokesman as saying.

‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ went on to make about US$400 million at the box office and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture.

“There is no indication any profits from it flowed to 1MDB or Malaysia,” said WSJ. Those involved did not respond to numerous requests for comment by WSJ.

[More to follow]

-Mkini