The Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope – A Review

Money. Lot of money. More money than God. Most of all, money.

It is easy to have that kind of money in hand to splurge on private jets and yachts and diamond jewellery and alcohol and partying and Hermes bags and mansions and movie making… if the money is originally stolen from taxpayers. Isn’t it?

That’s the crux of this fantastically detailed and very well written book. Our “hero”, Jho Low, a relatively unknown Malaysian from a fairly humble yet definitely rich background, decides that the money he has isn’t enough, that there’s a lot more money he can actually vie for in this world. And thus begins his quest to cosy up to the then Prime Minister of Malaysia and his wife and a bunch of other cronies to wipe off some 4.5 billion dollars from the face of Malaysia.

Setting up 1MDB, a Malaysia based fund that will invest in infra projects, Jho Low uses a web of bad actors across the world to siphon off the money, a few hundred million at a time, paying off his partners-in-crime (literally), surrounding himself with the who’s who of Hollywood and musicdom, and snapping up rare art and gems like it’s nobody’s business.

This books makes me so angry I have to take copious breaks to cool down before getting back. Is it the burning of taxpayer money that riles me up? Or, the absolutely pointless usage of it, with no intent to invest even an iota of it in something gainful to give back to the coffer? Or, is it the number of investment bankers across highly regarded and well branded companies like Goldman Sachs wanting to be in on it, facilitating the movement of, not millions, but billions of dollars across the globe to “safe havens”? Or, is it that Jho Low hasn’t yet got his due?

It is all of it and a bit more.

Yes, of course none of this should shock me because. the world is full of crooks and goons. But, it still shakes me up, both in anger and amusement, because, it is apparently that easy to con us gullible people.

Recommended. Both for content and form.