KUALA LUMPUR – Baby-faced playboy Jho Low, a financier at the centre of Malaysia’s 1MDB mega-scandal, may find his days of hobnobbing with celebrities and splurging on property and art are numbered as the new government pledges to bring him to justice.
Suspected of being a key figure in one of the world’s biggest frauds along with ousted leader Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his cronies, the chubby, bespectacled businessman has become a lightning rod for public fury at the controversy.
As investigations into the controversy accelerated, the Malaysian took to a luxury yacht allegedly bought with stolen cash and sailed around Asia, until the vessel was seized off Bali recently as part of 1MDB-linked probes.
The Wall Street Journal reported that he was on the Thai holiday island of Phuket earlier this month awaiting the election results. His current whereabouts are unclear.
But time could be running out for the flamboyant 36-year-old after Najib’s scandal-mired coalition suffered a shock defeat at the May 9 poll in large part due to public anger at 1MDB.
The new government, headed by Najib’s ex-mentor Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has reopened probes into the sophisticated fraud and wants to haul Jho Low — whose full name is Low Taek Jho — back to Malaysia.
Datuk Abdul Razak Idris, a former senior officer from the anti-graft agency which led probes into the scandal until they were shut down under Najib, said he believed Low was the mastermind.
“He must be arrested and brought back to Malaysia so that we can bring back all the money parked abroad,” he told AFP.
Low, who held no official positions at 1MDB but is believed to have exerted great influence over the fund, has previously denied any wrongdoing. He could not be contacted for this article.
Precarious position
In a first move aimed at pressuring him, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng on Friday instructed tax authorities to probe Low and his family — many of whom remain in Malaysia — over 1MDB.
Malaysian social media lit up with delight at the prospect that a man who allegedly plundered state coffers was now being aggressively pursued.
“Jho Low is the key to all this 1MDB debacle,” read one post on Facebook. “Catching him is like catching the one ring that rules them all.”
Low’s current precarious position is a far cry from the image he once projected of an urbane, well-connected investment manager.
He was educated at elite British school Harrow, and during his time in England befriended Riza Aziz, Najib’s stepson, a friendship that helped him get close to Malaysia’s former ruling family.
He studied in the US and moved to New York, where reports of his profligate spending began to multiply.
The Department of Justice, which has launched lawsuits to seize assets allegedly bought with stolen 1MDB cash in the US, alleges US$400 million (RM1.6 billion) from the fund was sent to the US “for the personal gratification of Low and his associates”.
This is just one part of the vast fraud. The DoJ claims that some US$4.5 billion was stolen from the fund, which was set up in 2009 and overseen by Najib. Najib and 1MDB deny any wrongdoing.
As well as the yacht, Low is alleged to have used stolen cash to buy artworks by Monet and Van Gogh, high-end real estate and to give gifts to celebrities including DiCaprio and Australian model Miranda Kerr.
They have both turned the gifts over to US authorities and are not accused of any wrongdoing.
In a rare media interview with Malaysia’s Star newspaper in 2010, Low complained of being depicted as someone who led “an excessive kind of lifestyle”.
“Ultimately, I am Malaysian,” he said. “I am one who does not forget my country and I think there is a lot we can do for Malaysia.” — AFP
Straits Times says unaware of ‘hidden hand’ behind Justo ‘confession’
KUALA LUMPUR – Singapore’s Straits Times (ST) has refuted financial daily The Edge’s accusation that the former was involved with an arranged interview with ex-PetroSaudi executive Xavier Andre Justo in 2015 to present a false narrative.
The paper’s then-Indochina bureau chief Nirmala Ghosh insisted yesterday that he had been professional when approaching the story related to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal.
“If Mr Justo’s new claims are true, they are disappointing. I pursued the story as a professional journalist, trying various ways to get details on the case and access to Mr Justo. I put in a request to his Thai lawyer for an interview,” he was quoted as saying in ST.
“When I was told by the lawyer I could interview him, I proceeded in good faith and reported his remarks accurately. More often than not, in interviews, newsmakers tell their side of the story. This seemed no different.
“Whatever deals Mr Justo had made, or what his deeper calculation was, I was unaware of. To verify the claims and as per good journalistic practice, we asked for reactions from key people he named — and we used their reactions as well,” he added.
ST’s editor Warren Fernandez also defended the journalist, and said he was not aware of any hidden hand, nor was the paper party to any deals.
“Our approach to this story was standard and professional,” he said.
“Every news organisation was pursuing this story and trying to get to speak to Justo. Nirmal managed to get access, and got the story. He did a professional and creditable job. That was our only purpose in running this story.”
In 2015, ST had quoted Justo as claiming that he was offered nearly US$2 million (RM7.6 million) by a “prominent” Malaysian businessman and his colleague for documents stolen from PSI, though he was not paid the amount in the end.
Media tycoon Datuk Tong Kooi Ong and Ho Kay Tat, the publisher and group chief executive of The Edge Media Group, then publicly confessed to misleading Justo over the promised sum, insisting that it “was the only way to get hold of the evidence to expose how a small group of Malaysians and foreigners cheated the people of Malaysia of US$1.83 billion.”
The Edge reported yesterday that Justo claimed he was blackmailed to deliver a prepared confession by PetroSaudi director Patrick Mahony and UK private detective Paul Finnegan, who then allegedly arranged for an interview with Ghosh.
Justo is currently in Malaysia to assist investigations into 1MDB. – Malay Mail
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