Tom Wright and Bradley Hope
Tom Wright and Bradley Hope
Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood and the World. The Inside Story of Jho Low and the 1MDB Scandal
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Gordon Brown, the former chancellor of the exchequer and prime minister of the United Kingdom, calls it the “theft of the century”. Clare Rewcastle Brown’s (his sister-in-law) The Sarawak Report provides a detailed account of the “heist” and the complex ways in which staggering sums of money were siphoned off from a Malaysian sovereign wealth and investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (better known as 1MDB), presided over by the then prime minister Najib Razak. Eye-watering sums of money ended up in the pockets of public officials and their collaborators to finance “a ten-year binge” at the expense of the Malaysian taxpayer.

Baru Bian, a Sarawak member of parliament for Selangau, inland of the major urban settlement of Sibu, introduces Brown’s book by drawing attention to the flaws in the global economic, financial and legal systems. He points to the ease with which those unscrupulous individuals who have a detailed knowledge of the ways international financial capitalism operates, and who have access to it through personal networks enjoyed by the rich and powerful, can exploit the system for personal gain. They do so by taking advantage of the lack of cross-border regulation. The result? Capital, some of it borrowed on the basis of spurious guarantees, can flow into shell or virtual companies and trusts with the express purpose of laundering money and evading tax. The favourite sites of extraterritorial transactions have been such havens as the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles and the Cayman Islands, though regulations concerning financial transparency are becoming increasingly difficult to navigate in former tax havens like Zurich. Moreover, the agents of deception drawn into these webs of ill-gotten gain also comprise reputable international companies based in London and other major financial centres that wittingly or unwittingly provide their services and expertise to global bandits. The system has indeed spawned an uncaring and unaccountable kleptocracy.

• Tags: 1MDB, Bradley Hope, Clare Rewcastle Brown, Issue 14, Malaysia, Najib Razak, Tom Wright, Victor T King