Original subtitles

[indistinct chatter]

-[Pharrell] Come on! -[audience cheering]

There's fireworks right now.

Welcome to the Red Granite party.

The emergence of real film, real content,

and a change of the film industry forever.

[Scott] It was a very strange experience

because it was the, sort of, equivalent

of a big studio party.

It was just this heaving mass of people

and then stars everywhere.

Right, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio was there.

And then Kanye West comes on stage.

[Kanye] ♪ Get down girl Go ahead, get down ♪

♪ Get down girl, go ahead Get down ♪

[Scott] Jamie Foxx joins him and they do "Gold Digger".

♪ Get down girl, go ahead Get down ♪

[music playing]

[crowd cheering]

And the guy next to me is like, "That's like a million dollars

-burnt, right there." -[crowd cheering]

Give it up for Kanye West in the building right now.

[crowd cheering]

Red Granite forever.

It was, kind of, bizarre because no one actually knew

who Red Granite were. They just,

sort of, launched and suddenly they were here

at this massive party.

People were really, sort of, stunned, wondering,

who are these people?

[upbeat music playing]

[woman] These officials and their associates

conspired to misappropriate and launder

billions of dollars.

[man] In complex, money laundering schemes,

in a web of opaque transactions...

[woman] Including high-end real estate in New York

and Los Angeles.

[man] They used the money to pay gambling debts

in Las Vegas casinos.

A motion picture company

used more than 100 million dollars of that.

They rented luxury yachts.

A Park Laurel Condo

in New York City and a townhouse.

[music playing]

[man 2] Assets that kleptocrats

and other corrupt officials steal--

[man] Wire transfers totaling approximately

sixty-four million dollars.

Funds were used to acquire nearly 100 million dollars.

People who defrauded on an enormous scale.

Schemes whose tentacles reached around the world.

[intense music playing]

[upbeat music playing]

[Louise] In February 2013, I started an investigation

into illicit money flow coming into the United States.

The money was coming into high-end real estate

and it was coming through shell companies

where the owners could be hidden.

I decided to focus on the Time Warner Center.

It's an iconic building

of a much more global phenomenon.

[upbeat music playing]

[Louise] A lot of the money the very rich have

is invisible. You don't see people's bank accounts.

But real estate is very visual.

This is really a starting point for the story.

This deed for 80 Columbus Circle,

Time Warner Center, penthouse 76-B.

The owner...

80 Columbus Circle, parenthesis, NYC LLC.

No name of a human being.

Sale price, 30.55 million.

After Time Warner Center I looked

for shell company names in this same format.

Address, parenthesis, city, LLC.

And I found some. One Central Park West...

Parenthesis, NYC, LLC. And there's this one here.

Park Laurel, parenthesis, NYC, LTD.

The buyer is Sorcem Investments, Inc.,

another shell company,

signed by sole director of Sorcem Investments

named Riza Aziz.

Once I saw the name, Riza Aziz,

I looked him up and it was pretty easy to see

that he was running Red Granite Pictures.

And that he was in the process of producing

-Wolf of Wall Street. -[upbeat music playing]

My name is Jordan Belfort.

The year I turned 26, I made 49 million dollars

which really pissed me off because it was three shy

of a million a week.

[Gregory] The Wolf of Wall Street

is based on Jordan Belfort.

A very charismatic, smart individual

who set up a firm and stole money.

Nobody knows if a stock is gonna go up,

down, sideways, or in circles.

Do you know what a fugazi is?

Oh, fugazi. It's, uh, fake.

He wired the money around the world

as a part of a disguise to hide it,

um, and then used that money to acquire great wealth

and toys that come with it.

♪ But there's nowhere to go ♪

♪ And there's no way to slow If I knew... ♪

[Gregory] The parallels between The Wolf of Wall Street story

and the Red Granite story,

they're actually pretty stunning.

It really is a very strange turn of events.

[upbeat music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

[Leonardo] This has an incredibly hard film

to get finance from the onset.

You know, not many studios

are chomping at the bit to do an American epic

with Wall Street in the title,

let alone this, sort of, focus on hedonism

and debauchery and excess.

And for that reason I'm thankful to the people

that we, uh, ran into in Red Granite

that were willing to take a gamble

on making a very adult American epic

about, you know, the state of our culture.

[Riza] We're very excited. Very, very excited.

[Louise] Riza Aziz was a mid-level banker

at HSBC.

This was not a high-level person who would've made

tens of millions of dollars

that you would need to seed these movies.

And Joey McFarland, his partner at Red Granite,

was from Kentucky, had had some random real estate deals

in the Midwest.

And then had worked as a talent booker,

but again, not someone who was coming with...

tens of millions of dollars needed to seed a movie.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Louise] I've started talking to a number

of different sources in Hollywood

about Red Granite.

Who were these guys who had showed up

out of nowhere, really.

A Hollywood source played for me

a secret recording of Joey back from 2011

talking about Red Granite.

-[cluttering] -[Joey]

[Louise] It showed that Joey had a lot of self-confidence

and believed in his ability to get people big money,

to do what he wanted.

It also gave me some insight into Riza's family.

[Joey]

-[suspenseful music playing] -[indistinct chatter]

-[girl] Matt! Matthew! -[indistinct chatter]

[man] Congratulations, Margo. Congratulations.

[Louise] I was there at The Wolf of Wall Street

premiere after-party.

Riza was just out with the rest of the guests

sitting on a banquet.

He had a tall, beautiful, blonde woman

accompanying him,

not acting like he was the center of the action.

Leonardo DiCaprio was in the VIP area.

And there was a man there with Leonardo DiCaprio.

I said, "Who's that fellow?", pointing.

And they said, "Oh, he's a really rich man.

He's Jho Low.

He's provided the money for the movies."

And I said, um, "Oh. Well, how did he make his money?"

And they said,

"We're not sure but he's the man behind all the money."

[suspenseful music playing]

[Louise] A very easy, quick Google search

brought up the mysterious big spender of New York.

And he had been covered a few years prior

in The New York Post

for spending so much money on the club scene.

♪ Let me know, let me know ♪

♪ If you want the world We can make this work ♪

He was very sought-after by every club owner.

♪ I can lead the way, baby... ♪

[Tracy] If he was there, he was making your year.

[Elizabeth] Just one bottle after the next, after the next.

Like ten-thousand-dollar bottles of champagne.

[Tracy] He had an entourage.

Everyone was trying to woo him and be his best friend.

I thought he was, like, Malaysian royalty...

whatever that means.

You know, I didn't really know and didn't really care,

-to be honest. -[laughing]

[suspenseful music playing]

[Louise] So, 76B is one of the Time Warner penthouses

that was purchased in 2011 for 30.5 million.

Right up there, it's in the tower on the right.

And it's on the left side of the tower.

It's one of the most lavish penthouses in the building.

The renters of this unit used to be Jay-Z and Beyonce.

And we found that during the shooting

of Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio stayed in 76B.

And Joey McFarland spent a lot of time in the complex.

There were so many loud parties that there were complaints.

I had a lot of sources in and around this building.

And I was told that there was a young

Malaysian man who came to the showing of this unit.

And he told people he was buying it

for a group of investors

including the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

That young man was Jho Low.

Because of that connection,

I knew that this was a two-headed investigation.

It was an investigation of Jho Low

and it was an investigation of the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

-[speaking in Malay] -[crowd cheering]

[Nazir] Najib became prime minister in 2009.

Obviously, uh, he's my brother.

Uh, we were extremely proud, um, of his achievement.

Our family has been very much at the heart of government

in Malaysia since independence.

Our late father became, uh, the second prime minister

of Malaysia.

We were extremely proud. Uh, of, uh, what my father achieved.

And we wanted his legacy

to always be remembered correctly.

Najib took on the mantle.

Uh, and it was exciting in the early days.

[speaking Malay]

-[in English] I am a gentleman. -[crowd cheering]

[Tom] Najib is, uh, is a very interesting character.

He had very modern ideas for Malaysia

when he took power.

He promoted himself

as a moderate Muslim leader in the world,

as a friend to America.

So, on that level, very modern.

But having starting out as a supposedly reformist figure,

he ends up becoming

a more and more authoritarian leader.

[crowd cheering]

[upbeat music playing]

[Zunar] Prime minister controls the attorney general...

the judiciary...

the media...

and the election commission.

And we have been governed by the same political party

since independence.

One party for more than 60 years.

This is a very undemocratic system of process.

The prime minister and the wife of the prime minister,

they are very, very funny character.

They give an idea every day.

But in Malaysia there are two individual

who cannot be drawn to cartoon.

One is the wife of the prime minister...

and the second one is the prophet Muhammad.

That mean she is now on same level

of prophet Muhammad.

Because of my cartoons, I'm facing nine charges.

Which, uh, carry a maximum...

penalty for 43 years in prison, yeah.

[dramatic music playing]

[Louise] When I arrived in Malaysia,

my luggage was lost.

And when my luggage showed up, it was all ruffled through.

I was sensitive not to contact a lot of people before I went

because you know, you don't know

whose communications are tapped and so on.

And I went to Georgetown in Penang.

And I met with Malaysians who knew Jho Low

and his family when he was growing up.

[dramatic music playing]

[car horn blaring]

[Louise] I found out that the Low Family

is a wealthy but not extraordinarily

rich family, originally.

They became much richer through Jho's activities.

They had their ups and downs, he had falling-outs

with business partners, there was a renovation

on their home there that ended up in a lawsuit

over unpaid bills.

Larry had split off from his company

and, um, it was a bit of a depressed affluence,

and Jho really became the Low Family's...

hope for the future when he went off to Harrow.

[indistinct singing]

[man] The old schools change little through the years.

Old customs die hard within their walls.

There is still strolls in the wind on Harrow Hill.

[Tom] I think the big sort of transformative moment

for Jho Low is when his parents decided to send him

to Harrow Boarding School in the UK in the late '90s...

because he suddenly went from this, you know,

really backwater Malaysian island to...

the-- the school where Winston Churchill

-and others had studied. -[indistinct singing]

[man] Since the granting of the school's charter,

seven of Britain's prime ministers

have been educated here.

Sir Winston Churchill frequently revisited Harrow

as one of his most distinguished old boys.

[Tom] So, Jho Low then suddenly, you know,

studying alongside the King of Jordan's son,

the children of royalty and Arab businessmen's kids,

and these people were a lot wealthier than he was.

And I think that really gave him an eye

onto a different world of wealth...

and is probably pretty crucial in his, sort of,

psychological development.

-Hooray! -[man] Hip, hip.

-Hooray! -[Louise] In fact...

Jho became really good friends with Riza in London.

And he also got to know Riza's mother Rosmah.

And Rosmah was the wife of Najib.

Riza Aziz was the stepson of the Prime Minister

of Malaysia.

And friends with them all...

was Jho Low.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Louise] In September 2014,

I wanted to see if Jho and Najib would meet up in New York.

They were both in town during the United Nations

General Assembly.

My colleague, Stephanie Saul and I staked out

the Time Warner Center.

Stephanie stood outside and would tell me

when anyone was coming up.

And I was upstairs in the lobby

-of the Mandarin Oriental. -[elevator bell tings]

[indistinct chatter]

First, she texted me.

I stood at the ready at the elevator, out he came.

He walked over and sat in the bar.

A little while later she texted...

Again I was at the ready at the elevator.

[suspenseful music playing]

Najib walked around to the entrance

to the hotel rooms.

It was not more than two minutes,

Jho stood up from the bar...

walked over and followed Najib

up into the rooms.

I asked Joe and Najib's representatives about this,

they confirmed, they had been up there meeting.

They said it was a short social gathering,

end of story.

But you know, a lot was going on right then

in the story of 1MDB and this money trail,

and I do wonder what they were talking about up there.

[Tony] When Najib Razak took over

as the prime minister of Malaysia,

he came up with this idea to set up

an investment fund called 1MDB.

The trust fund that brings returns

for the future of the people.

And every cent of debt

came from Malaysian taxpayers.

When I found out that 1MDB invested

one billion US dollars

in a company called PetroSaudi...

the first thing you do is you check

who PetroSaudi is.

It is a fantastic name, petroleum at a point in time

a hundred and ten US dollars per barrel.

Saudi Arabia, the king of petroleum.

This has to be a jackpot company.

Then when you do a search on PetroSaudi,

you realize that the founder, Tarek Obaid,

there was no reference of him in Google,

any time before 2009.

And I discovered that he was only 32 years old.

It was then that we found out that when 1MBD

actually invested one billion in PetroSaudi,

PetroSaudi was barely a year old.

So, all those...

uh, little facts put together rang huge alarm bells

that there's something fishy with this investment.

And that's when I raised my first question

in March, 2010, in parliament.

Who guarantees this loan?

They said, "PetroSaudi guarantees the loan."

On a corporate guarantee.

What is the paid-up capital?

How much money do they have? What is their financial reserve?

Can you show us the statements such that

they can actually guarantee a one-billion-US-dollar loan?

Confidential.

[Nazir] I had always asked question,

why was 1MDB,

uh, not subject to the same oversight

uh, as the rest of the government companies?

So, uh, I then got hold of, uh, my other brothers,

uh, and we met Najib and told him

uh, that look, you know,

um, we are very concerned, uh, about this.

And how that somewhat conflicted,

uh, with the kind of values that our father had.

Public service,

uh, integrity, frugality.

Najib said he would look into the matter

and that he would fix any shortcomings at 1MDB.

[Louise] It came to my attentio 1MDB have raised bonds,

public debt with Goldman Sachs.

Debt that the people of Malaysia

would have to pay back.

Goldman Sachs was being paid huge amounts.

And anyone who's making atypically huge fees,

you have to ask why.

[computer keys clacking]

I thought, I can't wait to meet

with this person and we did meet.

And I got a lot of information about how close

Jho Low was to these transactions.

Jho Low popped up on everything.

And he's secretly getting consulting fees from 1MDB.

He's in the VIP area at The Wolf of Wall Street

after-party, and he's thanked in the credits.

Jho and Riza passing money between them,

behind shell companies and real estate.

And so, the very tight connection

between Jho Low and the Prime Minister's family

and the Malaysian people's money

was becoming very clear.

They were each pieces in a puzzle

and I put this whole puzzle together.

[Nazir] I read the New York Times article.

I was shocked, but also extremely embarrassed.

I didn't know Jho Low.

I think I shook his hand a couple of times

but I didn't know him.

Um, but the idea that he was in some way linked

uh, to my-- to my brother,

uh, and potentially spending

uh, Malaysian taxpayers' money really disgusted me.

[Louise] I knew that there were documents...

that...

were available, that were for sale.

That purported to show...

details of money moving between 1MDB and Jho Low.

Leaked documents.

Those were the smoking gun.

[Tony] This is a time of journalism,

of different parties working together

around the world to uncover this massive,

-massive scandal. -[indistinct chatter]

The work done by The New York Times

online whistle blower Sarawak Report,

and of course in Malaysia, you have the Edge publications

who got into trouble with the authorities.

[Ho] We will not apologize because we've not done

anything wrong. Okay?

We stand by everything we have published.

And I would like to add one thing.

None of the article we have published

has been challenged.

[Tom] The Sarawak Report came out with this bombshell

in February of 2015.

Seven hundred million dollars had been taken

from the fund under the guise of being sent to a joint venture

with a Saudi Arabian oil company.

[Tony] When Sarawak Report first published

the joint venture agreement between 1MDB and PetroSaudi,

it was explosive.

That was the first time we got a peek

into the hidden operations within 1MDB

on how they were scamming

the money from the Malaysian people.

It was depressing.

Uh, people were angry.

[Tom] The document showed that 700 million dollars

had ended up in, uh, in an offshore company

allegedly controlled by Jho Low.

For the record, do you have any involvement

or have you had any involvement

with 1Malaysia Development Berhad?

[Jho] I believe that this is a politically,

sort of, charged effort and to try and...

put the blame on me when, truly,

I have no decision-making authority.

[reporter] Why would you be a political target

in this unfolding scandal?

[Jho] Um, I think it's-- it's because it may have stemmed

from my 16-year friendship with Riza Aziz

who's, of course, the...

stepson of the Malaysian prime minister.

Um, and I feel like I'm just an easy target

and a victim because-- Perhaps, because of my age

and unfortunately from the things that I've done

in my early years of-- of partying that, you know,

I had a bit too much fun then.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Robin] The Jho Low birthday party was a spectacle

in-- in every sense.

They had hired at least 250

of the most gorgeous-looking models

from all over America to be cocktail waitresses

for this party.

And they were all identically dressed in-- in red.

They made a stunning visual impact.

And all of them were walking around

with-- with magnums of Cristal.

I remember standing at the bar with Britney Spears

as she was waiting her turn to go on to sing "Happy Birthday".

And then Jamie Foxx walks on to be the MC.

And now you're paying attention.

You're saying this is no ordinary party.

This was now big money.

I was introduced to Jho Low

and he was a super-rich playboy billionaire.

Holding court around Jho Low

were security people.

It-- it's like a wedding cake if you can imagine.

Mr. Malaysian money bags was at the very top

and then there were these tiers that came down

and you were either in tier one or tier two or tier three.

Paris Hilton who was ushered right into the intimate circle.

There was this huge turnout of celebrities.

Including DiCaprio. The list is endless.

You could run a movie credit scroll

on the screen of all the people that were there.

[suspenseful music playing]

This was the, uh, entrance to the party.

I went back to look at it the next day,

and it was like it never ever happened.

It had gone.

It didn't exist three days beforehand.

It didn't exist 24 hours afterwards.

I mean, it was a proper circus tent...

with a giant Ferris wheel inside.

I don't think I would be wrong if I described it

as the best and the most expensive party

that Las Vegas has ever seen.

To do what they did, a Ferris wheel,

amusement games, an arcade, security...

the food, the drinks, the gifts...

the stars, the celebrities...

that must've cost a hundred million dollars.

In the end none of it had really made sense

if somebody is spending that kind of money...

uh, that freely.

It cannot have come from legitimate sources.

[man] How do we define value?

[Tom] We interviewed Jho Low in the Journal in 2014.

And we wrote a story about him as an investor.

It is about how each deal changes a community,

a country, and the world.

[Tom] There's this video that Jho Low creates

as an attempt to portray himself as a--

as a jet-setting corporate titan.

[Jho] Our approach is to fundamentally question

how quality is created.

How to enhance value, identify synergies...

capitalize...

And the back story that he gave people

was that his family had a lot of money.

And he was investing money on behalf of his grandfather

and his father who had made, you know,

billions in iron ore mining in Thailand.

But as soon as people put real resources

into trying to find out about his grandfather...

you only need to trust a few people in Malaysia

and you realize he didn't have billions.

At least not-- He didn't inherit billions.

Then started to donate a lot of money to cancer centers,

to the United Nations...

and I think that, again, was an attempt to make it appear

that he was this real businessman.

So, the questions about where his money came from

he hoped would go away.

But we kept digging and in summer of 2015

came out with this much bigger story.

[Bradley] The Wall Street Journal came into possession

of secret documents that revealed

a very large payment of about 681 million dollars

paid into the-- the personal bank account

of the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

And that was a-- a big fact.

And it was a mystery that needed to be solved.

And then we came into possession

of these factory messenger transcripts between Jho Low

and one of the mid-level bankers that oversaw

the Prime Minister's accounts.

One of these descriptions refers to...

"681 American pies" about to come

into the Prime Minister's bank account.

The bank records show 681 million American dollars

are transferred in.

In this case, the "American pie" means

one million dollars. So, that was the code word.

Until that point we hadn't really connected

Jho Low to the transfer of the Prime Minister.

It showed that he was there stage-managing these discussions

and setting things up.

And it has really proved his instrumental role

in the case.

[Tom] He's asking bankers at AmBank,

the--a bank that he used and the prime minister used

to do things so compliance cannot see.

And he's asking, you know,

"Please move this money here, that money there."

He'd just tell them Najib wants this.

And he's very impatient, he's very distracted.

I'd say from reading the Blackberry messages

the general impression I get is that Jho Low

uh, is cutting a lot of corners.

I was very excited.

Because, you know, being a journalist for 20 years,

it's not everyday that you get, um, a story

about a sitting prime minister receiving stolen funds.

We wanted to make sure that we upheld

very high standards in reporting it.

And we're obviously getting pushed back

from the Prime Minister's office

saying, well, you know, this is not true.

So, it's very nervous to make sure that we were...

reporting it...

you know, everything was a hundred percent correct.

You can't mistakes on-- on these kinds of stories.

[Nazir] And I happen to be on holiday, uh, in LA,

and over breakfast I picked up the Wall Street Journal.

Uh, and I was stunned.

[woman] Well, a shocking development and allegations

for the first time directly linking

the Prime Minister to the 1MDB scandal.

Six hundred and eighty-one million US dollars.

Yeah. I was-- I-- I fell off my chair,

uh, to be honest.

This was now becoming an international story.

That was a magnitude of what was happening.

[man] Prime Minister, you look happy.

Can I ask you, sir, why you haven't resigned

over personal involvement in the corruption scandal

of global proportion, sir?

Are you going to resign, Prime Minister?

[crowd cheering]

[chanting in Malay]

[Tom] The 681 million dollars that Najib allegedly received

into his accounts

came two months before a really important

-general election in 2013. -[indistinct chatter]

It certainly looked like 1MDB had been a political slush fund,

in a way that he could spend money

and get reelected.

[Ambiga] I remember what happened

during the '13 general election

and we were wondering where all this money

was coming from

that was being poured into, uh, various constituencies.

There was money being, uh, given away.

Uh, there's vote buying in-- in many respects.

[indistinct chatter]

[Ambiga] 1MDB is people's money, which is why it's very irksome

that they would use the people's money

to ensure their own victory.

[thunder rumbling]

[Nazir] It's very, very hard to describe.

Uh, Najib is my brother. He will always be my brother.

And I love him as my brother.

We are close-knit family, but it seemed to me that...

his promise that he would look into it, uh, and make sure

there was no impropriety, uh, at 1MDB

uh, was not happening.

What I then decided to do was to campaign,

uh, to get various influential people

uh, to also, um, look into. uh, 1MDB.

I went to see politicians on both sides

and really urged everyone to make sure

that this is properly investigated,

uh, and the rule of law applies.

[Tom] In the summer of 2015 the central bank,

the attorney general,

the anti-corruption commission were trying to investigate 1MDB

and find out what had been going on.

[man] As police raided the offices

of Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB on Wednesday,

members of the prime minister's political party

appeared to be closing ranks behind him.

The Wall Street Journal's alleging investigators

have found fund transfers almost 700 million dollars

to Najib Razak's own bank account.

-[indistinct chatter] -[Tom] What we believed happened

is that the attorney general

was preparing a draft arrest warrant for Najib.

And, um, as the document was being prepared

the prime minister decided to remove

the attorney general who was investigating 1MDB.

[Nazir] Suddenly, there was a clampdown

on, uh, 1MDB investigations.

The Edge editor was held overnight.

Uh, The Edge was suspended for, uh, I think a few weeks.

Um, and at that time, um,

I began to also fear for my safety.

[clouds rumbling]

-[siren wailing] -[indistinct chatter]

[man] Protests on the streets of Kuala Lumpur

go into a second day.

[woman] These protesters are directing their anger

at one man, Prime Minister Najib Razak.

[Maria] You cannot allow a prime minister

and his cabinet to continue to plunder a country

just because they want to live in luxury.

[crowd chanting in Malay]

[Maria] This scandal will affect our basic services.

Cutbacks in the health services, Cutbacks in education.

Cutback in terms of the quality of our transport.

The cutback is a result of the corruption.

You know, these people

who are supposed to be our leaders

just do not care.

Whereas, the rest of the population

are more concerned with whether they can actually

put food on their table.

We urge all Malaysians

to demand for Najib to step down.

And the institutional reforms to be implemented to end

all the corruptions that is happening in this country.

The prime minister must tender his resignation.

[indistinct chatter]

[dramatic music playing]

[Anis speaking Malay]

-[music playing] -[crowd cheering]

[indistinct chatter]

[woman] Well, there is a report that production company

Red Granite has been accused of using 100 million dollars

that had been diverted from the 1MDB fund

to finance The Wolf of Wall Street.

[Alex] I think even before anyone knew anything

about the connections to Malaysia

before any of the dots really had been joined between 1MDB,

people were wondering where the hell they got that money.

Yes, this is Alex from The Hollywood Reporter.

How are you doing?

So yes, well, I wanted to speak to you about, um,

about the company Red Granite...

Well, I had been trying to speak to anyone

involved in Red Granite.

We wrote a story about Red Granite

that was published, um, yesterday.

Obviously these-- there's, um, a growing investigation

into the company.

Former employees, anyone that's dealt with them

from other films.

And they all have a lot of things to say

and they're all absolutely fascinating,

but I can't say any of them

because no one will go on record.

The amounts of money that are being talked about are vast.

Two hundred and thirty, two hundred and forty million

ended up with Red Granite.

Hollywood is actually quite a small place

I mean, everyone knows everyone.

You know, you don't want to really be the whistle blower,

you don't want your name out there as the person

that talks about stuff.

DiCaprio, from what we understand

hasn't said anything.

Obviously, he earned potentially upwards of 25 million

from-- from The Wolf of Wall Street.

You know, if you want to continue to function

in the industry, probably best to-- to keep your mouth shut.

I mean, did you have any direct dealings

with Riza and Jho Low?

[phone ringing]

Can we go on the record with that?

[man]

But Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese

are the biggest filmmakers on the planet.

They make award-winning, Oscar-winning films.

People love them.

How long before they say, "We didn't know."?

Or, "Oh, God, this is terrible.

We should never have done this."

They're going to have to say something at some point,

like public figures.

[indistinct chatter]

[Patrick] So, we're gonna get the opposition figures

of Malaysia, and get their reaction.

[ringing]

Hello there.

[Patrick] Thank you so much for talking to us.

Um, this is Patrick from The Hollywood Reporter.

-Can you hear me? -[Patrick] Yup, I can.

Yes, okay.

[Patrick] So, we're at the Cannes Film Festival here.

-And-- -[Tony]

[chuckles] You should come next year.

-[stammers] -[Tony]

Oh, okay. I imagine you're very busy.

Um-- No?

Oh, I see.

Wow. What is the backstory to that?

Wow.

So, um...

Wolf of Wall Street, um, for the people in Malaysia

who have seen the film,

do you think they have a bitter feeling about it?

[suspenseful music playing]

Well, good morning all.

Good morning, and thank you all for being here.

And we are here to announce a significant step

in our ongoing work to combat global corruption.

And today, the department of justice

has filed a civil complaint.

And our complaint alleges

that from 2009 through 2015,

these officials and their associates conspired

to misappropriate and launder billions of dollars

from 1MDB.

The co-conspirators laundered their stolen funds

through a complex web of opaque transactions

and fraudulent shell companies with bank accounts in countries

around the world.

1MDB was created by the Malaysian government

to promote economic development

with the ultimate goal of improving

the well-being of the Malaysian people.

But, unfortunately, sadly, tragically,

a number of corrupt 1MDB officials

treated this public trust as a personal bank account.

-[indistinct chatter] -[woman]

No, no, no. Hang on first.

Uh, we have to...

um, establish...

uh, the facts for this, yeah? And this is a civil action.

This is not a criminal action.

But, uh, I want, uh, to see it, categorically,

uh, that, uh, we are serious about good governance.

-[woman] All right. Thank you. -Thank you.

[man] ...Najib Razak said the government

will give its full cooperation

to international parties investigating issues

surrounding 1MDB.

[Alex] The Wolf of Wall Street earned just shy

of 400 million dollars internationally.

But the idea of a film of that magnitude

being seized, and then owned by the US government,

was not anything I've ever heard of before.

The Hollywood angle, it's because it was such

a growing story, and it was all unraveling,

it was something that requires a little bit more investigating.

So last night, um, I was given a new update.

Jho Low, the man at the center of this--

of the whole, uh, 1MDB scandal,

Jho Low bought a 31-million dollar penthouse,

uh, in the Time Warner building in New York.

The real estate agent representing the seller...

was Robert De Niro's son.

-No way. -Raphael De Niro.

And Robert De Niro met

with the Malaysian prime minister and his wife

in 2000-- and, uh, 2009 and 2010, I believe.

And they're-- At first in New York

and, um, and then he went over to Malaysia...

and had lunch with Rosmah Mansor,

the prime minister's wife.

[Patrick] We should check that out.

[woman]

-[Alex] Hello? -[indistinct]

-Hey. Mr. DeNiro... -[DeNiro]

...very nice to speak to you.

I wanted to talk to you about this, um,

you know, this Malaysian corruption scandal.

[Alex]

[DeNiro]

[Alex] Riza. Yeah.

[DeNiro]

[Alex] Okay.

[DeNiro]

[Alex] Okay. Where was that?

[DeNiro]

[Alex] Okay.

[DeNiro]

[Alex]

[DeNiro]

[Alex]

[DeNiro]

[Alex] I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.

I didn't actually meant to annoy you, I'm--

[Alex] One thing that I found fascinating

is that when I speak to the biggest names

in Hollywood,

I just don't think people are aware.

Then no one actually then they go,

"Oh, God, yeah, we heard about that scandal maybe."

But then they don't turn and look at

its actual effects in the country

that it's hurt the most.

[dramatic music playing]

[Anis] The story, it opened my eyes,

as it goes international and so embarrassing.

It also hit me hard.

Small country like Malaysia

now known because of global corruption.

It drive my eagerness to know and explore more

about Malaysia's political landscape.

[speaking Malay]

Yeah.

All of the questions of 1MDB

have been left unanswered until now.

I don't understand why the prime minister acts

as if nothing happened.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Zunar] I started a magazine called Gedung Kartun.

It is hundred percent political, uh, cartoon,

where we talk about issues like, uh, corruption.

But the government banned the magazine immediately.

Then the eight officers came to my office

confiscated that more than 500 copies

of the magazine, and banned the magazine.

During the interrogation, I told them...

"Look, you can ban my books, you can ban my cartoon,

but you cannot ban my mind.

I will keep drawing until the last drop of my ink."

But after the 1MDB scandal in Malaysia,

I'm not sure whether I'm the one who going to

end up in prison...

or the prime minister and the wife.

I'm lucky to have her, actually.

She's very cartoonable. [chuckles]

She carry a lot of handbags and also ring, and shoes.

People call her Imelda Marcos of Malaysia,

or Imelda Rosmah. Uh, you know, she like to shop.

[Tom] Najib had a credit card,

and he'd spent 130,000 dollars in a Chanel store in Honolulu.

And we knew from the documents we had

that this credit card was being funded,

um, by 1MDB money.

When they were in the Chanel and trying to make a purchase,

there was some problem with the credit card...

and Najib communicated with Jho to let him know that,

via Blackberry messages.

Because Jho was running Najib's accounts.

[Tony] But what has triggered this new wave of interest

for the ordinary Malaysians, especially in the villages...

is the fact that the money from 1MDB...

Twenty-seven million dollars of it

was actually used to buy a diamond necklace

-for the prime minister's wife. -[birds chirping]

With 1MDB money, he bought a diamond,

twenty-two carat. Twenty-seven million US dollars

for the wife of the prime minister.

You know, it's 120 million ringgit

for the diamond.

And, uh, average teacher gets paid 3,000 ringgit a month.

And that's, uh, twelve months a year.

That's 3,333 teachers you can finance

with that one diamond for an entire year.

That's a lot of teachers. [chuckles]

That has aroused the degree of, um, anger.

Uh, Malaysians are, by and large,

desensitized to corruption, um, but the scale of it,

I think, is waking people up.

[dramatic music playing]

[Anis speaking Malay]

[both speaking Malay]

[Andrew] The Malaysian people were defrauded

on an enormous scale.

This is the largest autocracy seizure

in US history.

That was alleged in the complaint,

funds were stolen under the pretense

of having 1MDB

invested in oil exploration joint venture

with a foreign partner.

But this wasn't a legitimate investment, for 1MDB

or for the Malaysian people.

Instead, the funds transferred to the Shell companies

were used for the personal enrichment

of the corrupt officials and their associates.

-[suspenseful music playing] -[crowd cheering]

Obviously...

[rapping]

[Paris] This is fuckin' nuts.

[Andrew] They used the money to pay gambling debts

at Las Vegas casinos.

They rented luxury yachts.

Among the purchases was a bombardier jet

with a purchase price of about 35 million dollars.

The US Justice Department is looking to seize

540 million US dollars in assets

bought with money stolen from Malaysian state fund, 1MDB.

[Andrew] Among the assets, uh, jewelry,

worth millions of dollars, gifted to model Miranda Kerr.

And artworks by Picasso and Basquiat,

gifts to actor, Leonardo DiCaprio.

Jho Low has allegedly embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars

from 1MDB to support a luxurious lifestyle,

and buy such extravagant gifts.

A spokesperson for DiCaprio said,

"He will support all efforts to assure that justice is done."

[man] They spent millions on properties,

some of which are subject to seizure and forfeiture,

based on the complaint filed today.

[GPS] Arriving at 1423 Oriole Drive on the left.

[Alex] Here we go.

This is the mansion that Jho Low

bought for himself as a little treat

in, uh, 2012 for about 39 million dollars.

It's mentioned in, uh, justice department rulings

as, uh, one of the mansions that he, uh,

that he bought with allegedly stolen Malaysian money.

Um, it's quite a vast palace of a house.

Just around the corner from his good friend,

Leonardo DiCaprio.

Did he ever actually live in it? I mean, was it ever--

[Kevin] He never-- he moved furniture into it,

there's furniture in there now.

-[Alex] Really? -[Kevin] But no, he had a big

Oscar party when he first bought it

because some of the neighbors went,

-and told me they were up there. -[Alex] Right.

Looked around, thought it was great.

-[Alex] Yeah. -Yeah.

They got to rub elbows with Leo,

-and his other neighbors. And-- -[chuckles]

You haven't never seen him, have you?

No. Nobody's seen him in two years, apparently.

-Yeah. -[both laugh]

That's-- why, you looking for him?

-Yeah, yeah. Well-- -Yeah. You should.

Go ask Leo. I'm sure he knows.

He's probably hiding in Leo's basement.

[both laugh]

It's a bit cobwebby as well.

Nothing living there for a while.

Looks a bit quiet.

There's no one in.

[intense music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

[Tom] We don't have full visibility on what

Jho Low's doing right now.

And he's certainly, sort of, gone under the radar.

We have the number of this guy, right,

who probably was there, so I'm gonna--

I'm gonna call him. I'm just trying to, like,

work out when to do it because I don't wanna--

I mean he could-- you know what I mean?

There's a certain amount of risk associated with it, right?

I'm just gonna try to find, um, equanimity.

The boat is believed to be owned by Jho Low

through an offshore company.

Now we know that this boat was over at the marina,

but it's left.

[man]

[Louise] You-- where is Jho Low?

I don't know where Jho Low is. Do you know where Jho Low is?

[man]

Well, do you have any information about where he is?

[keys clacking]

Uh-huh. Why is that?

Right. So, you think the government of Malaysia

is hiding Jho Low?

No. I understand.

[Alex] The local guys told us that the Equanimity,

Jho Low's boat, is out there.

If you look over there, I guess that's Yama Point

and it's, uh, a kilometer or two off of that, uh, out at sea.

So you can't see it so easily from the mainland

and I guess the headland here is all forested,

so it's pretty secluded spot they've got out there.

So, we think it's sort of...

trying to sort of hide in plain sight,

so that no one really knows what's going on.

Uh, a bunch of skiffs have been going out

and, uh, a captain came from the boat,

uh, yesterday,

and they've been taking provisions out there.

I'm no yacht expert,

but it's certainly a super yacht,

and it has a launch pad for a helicopter, multi decks,

I think it's, like, 180 feet.

And I think it has a crew of 30 people,

so it's definitely a yacht you would notice.

[indistinct chatter]

[Alex] Yeah. We saw the boat off of the pier

east of Phuket.

It was anchored offshore, and then, all of a sudden,

around 10:00 pm in the evening,

starts setting off to the south at a rate of knots

and takes off into the open sea.

This is, uh, marine tracking,

you see all the boats, uh, moving around in real time,

and, uh, it looks like the boat's gone...

around the southern tip of Phuket, and...

was doing 12 knots which is, you know,

fairly fast speed.

And then, here, it's, uh, stopped,

and that's 21 hours ago.

So, I imagine they've turned off their identification.

-Uh, it's gone. -[indistinct chatter]

[Anis] We, as the young generation,

have to do something, rise up.

[speaking Malay]

[man speaking Malay]

-[indistinct chatter] -[man speaking Malay]

[Anis] Mm-hmm.

[man speaking Malay]

[suspenseful music playing]

[crowd screaming]

[indistinct shouting]

[man speaking Malay]

[indistinct chatter]

[Anis] I saw the violence with my own eyes.

So, I know the risk.

Two days before the rally...

I feel insecure.

I realize that someone keep following me.

When I organizing student meeting,

they keep, uh, company at the back.

I hope that I will be safe until the rally.

[man speaking Malay]

[indistinct chatter]

[Anis speaking Malay]

[chanting in Malay]

Thank you.

We don't have a specific comment on anyone

who hasn't been named so far.

We are essentially describing the tracing of the assets,

the use of the funds,

and who was involved in the transactions.

[woman]

Our agreement is only to draft the complaint

as we always do in civil forfeiture matters.

You'll see that this is a complaint that is against

the actual property or assets.

[Anis speaking Malay]

[speaking in Malay]

[all chanting in Malay]

[Anis speaking Malay]

[Anis chanting in Malay]

[all chanting in Malay]

In October of 2015, my LA field office

joined the investigation, specifically focusing

on Riza Aziz.

And Red Granite Pictures.

The real question is this,

was all this legal?

Absolutely fucking not.

[man] Approximately 238 million was wired

to Red Granite capital in Singapore,

an entity controlled by Aziz.

This money was then used to fund

Red Granite Pictures operations,

including the production of the film

The Wolf of Wall Street.

[Gregory] If it's proven that in fact the money

was embezzled from the government of Malaysia,

transferred around the world,

and ultimately went into the funding of a movie

about the story of a man, who stole money

and moved it around the world,

that's the ultimate irony.

The parallels between Jho Low and Jordan Belfort

in The Wolf of Wall Street are amazing.

In the early days, very disciplined,

very creative, very charismatic,

but, unfortunately, I think the-- the intoxication

of power and wealth,

it led him on a very deadly path.

When these guys tend to get the money that they get,

they forget the definition of the word excess.

I know we're a little unorthodox,

we're a little loud in the way we do things.

But you gotta understand, we're the new guys on the block,

you know, trying to make a name for ourselves, but...

I want you to understand, we don't...

do anything illegal.

[Gregory] Money bought him power,

bought him access.

It bought him recognition, it bought him status.

It bought him anything that crazy sums of money can buy.

[man] From Saudi Arabia to Malaysia,

to the heart...

[Leonardo] To me, this is absolutely

a cautionary tale,

and if you're gonna submerge yourself

in the attitude of people that had been very destructive

or a con, I mean, we've got to understand what entices them,

and we've got to be honest and authentic about

the portrayal of who these people are.

[crowd cheering]

[Joey] I think whenever

you're dealing with a young person,

who-- who's-- who's put in a position

to make an enormous amount of money,

and doesn't have the discipline to control it,

there's a little bit, you-- you know,

of empathy that you feel for them,

but at the end of the day, you know...

we're all-- we all have to, uh--

we all have to pay for the actions we do,

and that's, kind of, how our story ends.

And you know what I was just thinking, too?

The fucking hero that I'm gonna be back at the office.

When the Bureau seizes this fucking boat,

because, I mean, fuckety-fuck-fuck,

-Jordan, look at this thing. -[both laughing]

[intense music playing]

[man] We will not allow the massive, brazen,

and blatant diversion of billions of dollars

from 1MDB,

and the alleged laundering of those funds

through US financial institutions

to continue.

[woman] Indonesian police and the US Federal

Bureau of Investigation or FBI

inspected a luxury yacht on Thursday

on the island of Bali.

[speaking Malay]

[Tom] There categorically would have not been

a 1MDB scandal without Jho Low.

He is behind the scenes, running the fund.

But what exactly did Najib know about it?

It's unclear and more reporting needs to be done

about exactly what did he know about billions

that-- that-- that investigators are looking into.

[dramatic music playing]

[crowd cheering]

[woman] Nearly 15 million Malaysians will vote

in general elections that will determine

if the National Front Coalition

can extend its 60-year grip on power.

They will choose between Prime Minister Najib Razak...

or the opposition led by 92-year old former leader,

Mahathir Mohamad.

Anger over the 1MDB fiasco led to the return of Mahathir.

[speaking Malay]

He has galvanized a fractured opposition

to out what he calls a government of thieves.

But the odds are stacked against them.

[chanting in Malay]

Well, against the odds,

Malaysia's former ruler Mahathir Mohamad

is once again set to take control.

[crowd cheering]

[man] He's lead an opposition coalition

to a shock victory.

[man] Disbelief and euphoria

as long suffering supporters of Malaysia's opposition

finally realized what seemed a near impossible dream.

[crowd cheering]

[indistinct chanting]

I accept the verdict of the people.

Well, that's it. Six decades of one party rule is over.

We feel as if we're breathing new air today.

[man] How do you feel now?

No. I feel very, very happy, you see.

It's-- the feeling is just awesome.

[Nazi] For Malaysia, uh, I was very happy.

Um, because it was gonna happen--

it was gonna happen peacefully,

uh, and I was very proud, uh, of my country.

But at the same time...

I've been through a very eclectic set of emotions.

It's very, very hard to describe.

The Malaysian government has slapped a travel ban

on ousted Prime Minster Najib Razak,

just as he was about to leave the country

on a private jet.

[man] Dr. Mahathir is bound to go after

the billions of dollars allegedly stolen in the 1MDB

corruption scandal.

I am not sure whether I'm the one

who going to end up in prison...

or the prime minister and the wife.

[chanting in Malay]

-[indistinct chatter] -[cameras clicking]

[Nazir] I was in a board meeting,

uh, when my phone kept ringing

because my brother was being arrested.

You can...

never prepare...

for the sins of...

your brother being charged.

-[indistinct chatter] -[cameras clicking]

[Nazir] It was painful to watch.

Uh, I felt very sad. Uh, I felt very sad for him.

Uh, I felt especially sad for my mother.

[man speaking Malay]

[woman] Police officers conducted

a three-hour raid on former premier

Najib Tun Razak's safe house

in precinct ten.

[man] The boxes filled with handbags, jewelry,

and cash kept on coming.

[man 2] Seventeen million dollars

worth of designer handbags

and so much cash, it took twenty-two officials

with six counting machines

three days to get through it.

[intense music playing]

[music continues playing]