Actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s ties to Jho Low, the Malaysian financier turned fugitive who is accused of embezzling over $4.5bn from Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB, has created controversy.
The details regarding the relationship between DiCaprio and Low were revealed earlier this week by news agency Bloomberg. The report citing FBI documents from 2018 said Low met DiCaprio at a nightclub in 2010 and both of them established a close relationship.
The economic offender Low, who is wanted by international agencies, and the actor worked together on several projects. “I was working for him and that business also translates into being social. And so we saw each other more, and there was more interaction,” DiCaprio told the grand jury.
The FBI report revealed that DiCaprio and Low exchanged ideas to form a $1bn mega-fund for more film-making, build a Warner Bros theme park in Asia where the rides would be themed on DiCaprio’s movies and develop an eco-friendly resort in Belize.
The report revealed that the two were close enough to have met each other’s mothers and DiCaprio even called him “my man”, while Low referred to him as “L-Dogg”.
The report revealed that Low financed the 2013 Oscar-nominated movie The Wolf of Wall Street and showered DiCaprio with luxury gifts. The gifts contained Marlon Brando’s $600,000 Oscar statue, as well as a $9m Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, according to the report.
A New York Times report from 2018 revealed that DiCaprio returned those gifts after allegations surfaced that Low syphoned billions of dollars from the Malaysian state fund.
DiCaprio told the FBI that Low’s wealth came from an unknown person from Abu Dhabi who was referred to as “whale of whales” and Low was also known as the “Mozart of the business world”.
Low has been charged by the US Department of Justice with “back-channel lobbying”, accusing him of trying to influence the US government into dropping the probe into him and others involved in the 1MDB scandal.
Authorities suspect Low is hiding in China.
Read all the Latest News here