Jho Low: Who was the billionaire fugitive who partied with Leonardo DiCaprio, Kim Kardashian and Britney Spears

A bespectacled Malaysian businessman with seemingly infinite wealth and very expensive taste, Jho Low sought to be the life of every party. Not satisfied with merely schmoozing Martin Scorsese by bankrolling The Wolf of Wall Street, this is the man who bought Kim Kardashian a sports car, flew Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx to Melbourne and back by private jet to celebrate the New Year’s Eve countdown twice in one night, and reportedly paid Britney Spears $1m to burst out of a cake and sing “Happy Birthday” to him. Like most people in the US, Cassius Michael Kim’s first exposure to the 1MDB saga was when whispers began surrounding the funding of The Wolf of Wall Street – the now defunct production company Red Granite Pictures diverted funds from 1MDB to help finance the film, along with projects including Dumb and Dumber To and the Will Ferrell comedy Daddy’s Home. “But a year or two later, you start hearing all these rumours about unsavoury financing deals, as well as this dude who’s hanging out with the actors who’s involved in all this shady stuff, and then seeing that unspool in real time in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.” open image in gallery Life of the party: Jho Low shakes hands with Jamie Foxx at a Hollywood event As more details began to emerge, and connections began to be forged between the Malaysian PM, the Malaysian wealth fund, and the mysterious playboy who was splashing cash on bottles of Cristal across elite Hollywood parties, Jho Low was starting to attract the wrong kind of attention. “If I could make sure those voices were heard, we’d land in an okay place.” open image in gallery ‘Everyone knows who the criminals are and who is innocent’: Xavier André Justo in ‘Man on the Run' Beyond the various threats made against the whistleblowers and journalists involved in breaking this story – Clare Rewcastle Brown was declared an enemy of the Malaysian state in 2016 for her part in publishing Justo’s revelations – it’s vital to remember that it is the everyday citizens of Malaysia who have lost the most.