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Business. Politics. True Crime. Nonfiction. HTML:Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this "thrilling" (Bill Gates) New York Times bestseller exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century" (Axios). Now a #1 international bestseller, Billion Dollar Whale is "an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale" (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history. In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude�??one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund�??right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street. By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the U.S. Department of Justice continued its investigation. Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world… (more)
User reviews
The book goes through the complexity of how Low arranged for starting the main fund and offshoots then siphoned off his billions on phony accounts and structures. Aided by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Swiss bankers among others Low seemed to encrypt his on Midas Touch.
Still on the run as the book ends abruptly, it is not clear whether Low will be brought to justice. The massive scale of this crime and the length of time it played out is truly amazing and shows how little it takes to scheme one's way to a fortune using the available willing world financial institutions.
The Whale of the title (a reference to what clubs and casinos call their big
It's a well-written book, which helps to explain the financial flows just as well as it characterises Low's big-spending habits. One thing I found very curious was the way that Low managed to attract some genuine A-list celebrities to hang out with him. I mean, it's easy to imagine Hilton and the other Z-listers in the book making as much money as possible while they can. But Alicia Keys? Jamie Foxx? The authors explain how Leonardo di Caprio and Martin Scorsese were happy to work with Low because they got complete creative control of their work. (Low's company famously financed The Wolf of Wall Street, which it turns out Warner Bros were not willing to support because they didn't think an R rated film would make its money back. This meant that Scorsese got to crash a real Lamborghini in the opening scene - Warner Bros would have demanded he use a replica. One fascinating snippet is that one of the people who saw through Low very quickly was Jordan Belfort, the subject of Wolf of Wall Street, who after one of Low's parties apparently said "This is a fucking scam ... You wouldn't spend money you'd worked for like that.").
In a strange way, Low is a vacuum at the heart of the book. Other than wanting to be seen and to throw parties, it's hard to know what drove him. Perhaps if he ever stops being a fugitive from justice and comes to trial, we will be able to find out more.
Book was written a bit too early as it missed the trials of the Goldman Sachs partners involved.