Nice summary of the guy:
-----------
Jho Low is an ethnically Chinese guy born to a well-off family in Malaysia. He went to a bunch of super fancy private schools where he hung out with the children of Saudi Sheiks, British real estate developers, and heirs to the throne of the Sultanate of Brunei, before going to Wharton Business School. Despite by all accounts being soft-spoken and somewhat shy (and terrible around women), Low had an amazing talent for networking. He spent tens of thousands of dollars per month at Wharton throwing massive parties in Philadelphia clubs where he would invite all his rich friends and sororities from other schools to hang out, all on his dime.
After graduating from Wharton, Low attempted to use his school connections be a middle-man between Middle Eastern (mostly UAE and Saudi Arabian) investors and Malaysian development companies, but to little avail. He actually did set up a bunch of deals, but kept getting screwed out of his fees. His luck changed when he got close to Riza Aziz, the stepson of future Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak. With this connection, Low convinced one of the Malaysian kings (there are seven of them) to set up an oil-based sovereign wealth for the country financed by Middle Eastern money, and for Low to manage the fund.
So basically Low was handed control of $4 billion. And he took it. Practically all of it. Low set up dozens of fake companies in places like the British Virgin Islands and the Seychelles with legitimate sounding names that were actually shell companies owned entirely by Low (one was "BlackRock Asia," which had nothing to do with the famous American hedge fund). And then Low proceeded to spend literally billions of dollars of Malaysian people's money. It's estimated that at one point, Low had more liquid cash in his possession than any person in all of history.
The book's authors make an interesting comparison between Low and Bernie Madoff. The latter stole much more money, in the tens of billions, but he kept a relatively small percentage of it because he had to keep the ponzi scheme going by continuously paying off old investors. When Madoff was arrested, his net worth was only about $850 million. But Low just had to pay off a few close associates (most notably, the wife of the Malaysian Prime Minister, whom he bought $100+ million worth of jewelry for), so Low literally had billions of dollars at his personal disposal, almost over night.
What did Low do with the money? Party. Party a lot. A significant chunk of the book just recounts Low's party exploits, including:
- Low got into a spending competition with a Belgian billionaire at a nightclub, which Low "won" by spending $2 million on champagne.
- Low threw what might be the most expensive party in modern history in Las Vegas, with a price tag in the tens of millions for a single night.
- Low hosted a party where he flew around the world in a private jet on New Years to celebrate the holiday in Australia and Las Vegas.
Best of all, Low cavorted with famous people. Leonardo Dicaprio, Paris Hilton, Alicia Keyes, Jamie Foxx, Busta Rymes, and Miranda Kerr are all characters in the book. All were "friends" who were paid to hang out with Low, and apparently did so quite a bit, especially Dicaprio, who in a bit of supreme happenstance, got Low to almost single-handedly finance the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. Later on,
Miranda Kerr started seriously dating Low, despite she being a 10/10 stunner making millions of dollars per year as a super model, and Low being a short, pudgy Asian dude, who by all accounts was awkward with women (models at parties were often paid extraordinary fees by Low and then were shocked when he didn't hit on them).
Aside from partying, Low spent hundreds of millions of dollars on art (Picassos, Van Gohs, etc.), homes (I think he had close to a dozen homes dotted throughout the world), movie production (financed Red Granite, a surprisingly legitimate production company), private jets, and his very own super yacht.
Eventually the financial schemes started to collapse when too many media outlets were asking questions. Low panicked, stopped talking to his co-conspirators, and sailed to international waters on his mega yacht. He is still at-large, wanted by most of the world for criminal corruption, but gets refuge from a few friendly governments, including China and Thailand. Currently, he lives comfortably in Bangkok where he invested in a big shopping mall and is presumably paying off the Thai government to shield him from extradition.
All told, after multiple rounds of bullshit fundraising for the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, Jho Low stole something like $3.5-4.5 billion from Malaysia, and spent more than half of it.
There's still a ton more to describe about Jho Low's story, like how Goldman Sachs was instrumental in Low's money laundering, and how many weak-willed bankers let clearly fraudulent transactions go through, and how hopelessly corrupt basically all rich Asian people come off in the book, but I'll leave those alone for now. I had a few key take aways from the book:
- I remember reading in another SSC thread about how the drivers of most political change are a narrow band of people in the upper-middle class. These are the people who are wealthy, but spend time around even wealthier people, and therefore get envious and want to tear down the system. Jho Low is no revolutionary, but he's an interesting case study in that paradigm. Low's father sold a piece of a textile company for $15 million before Low was born. The kid grew up in a mansion and went to elite private schools, but despite his own wealth, he was dazzled by the unfathomably wealthy people around him. We have no way of knowing exactly what Low's motivations were, but all accounts indicate that he was desperate to be liked and respected.
-
There are rich people, and then there are rich people. Leonardo Dicaprio is the former but not the latter. His net worth is $245 million according to some Googling, and yet even he is willing to hang out with some nerdy, awkward guy for money. This is something the book brings up a lot - even people accustomed to wealth, like Paris Hilton who was born an heiress, were simply astounded by Jho Low's spending habits. He would show up at a club and just spend more than everybody.He would bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on single hands of poker. He would hand out handbags worth tens of thousands of dollars to random girls at parties. He would send strangers private jets to give them lifts. There is a level of wealth that even the wealthy can't resist.
The best example in the book is Miranda Kerr, who IMO, comes off like a gold digger. The book says that the year she met Low, she made $8 million off her supermodeling, but she wanted to become an entrepreneur and needed financing for a jewelry business. So she started dating him.
- Big fraudsters like this never end up happy. Inevitably, no amount of partying can make up for the anxiety, fear, and paranoia induced by covering up big scams. Low was described as initially being extremely cheerful and generous, but eventually flying into constant rages and berating everyone around him.
- "Who you know" can get you anything and anywhere. Another common occurrence in the book is someone meeting Low in a boardroom or at a club, asking "who the fuck is this guy," but then having his fears assuaged as some Goldman Sachs banker or famous celebrity comes up behind Low and introduces him. As long as Low had respectable and famous friends, no one bothered looking past his surface.
-----------
source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/...uccessful/
They are making a movie of the guy also:
https://deadline.com/2018/11/malaysian-f...202497747/
![[Image: crazyrich1.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/jAnC6e/crazyrich1.jpg)
![[Image: crazyrich2.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/nwy5sK/crazyrich2.jpg)
![[Image: crazyrich3.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/kSYS6e/crazyrich3.jpg)
![[Image: billionwhale1.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/hijaRe/billionwhale1.jpg)
![[Image: gettyimages-674189414.jpg]](http://static3.uk.businessinsider.com/image/5b4ce3337708e903f84c152a-2338/gettyimages-674189414.jpg)
![[Image: biggrin.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
first i've heard of this guy though, good read.
