Low Taek Jho famed as Jho Low, is a Malaysian fugitive businessman, wanted by authorities internationally in connection with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal (1MDB scandal).
He has been named the mastermind of the massive fraud, which prosecutors allege was a scheme to siphon US$4.5 billion from 1MDB into Low’s personal accounts.
He is the beneficiary of numerous discretionary trust assets said by the US government to originate from payments out of the Malaysian 1MDB fund.
Jho Low has maintained his innocence and contends that Malaysian authorities are engaging in a campaign of harassment and political persecution due to his prior support of former Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose part in the 1MDB scandal had led to Najib being convicted on seven counts of abuse of power, money laundering and criminal breach of trust.
Who is Jho Low?
Jho Low was born to a wealthy Malaysian Chinese family. He is of Teochew descent and he grew up in George Town, on Penang Island.
His family has traditionally maintained a low profile. His grandfather Low Meng Tak was a businessman born in Guangdong in China.
Meng Tak had interests in iron-ore mining and liquor distilleries in Thailand in the 1960s and 1970s, and in real estate in Thailand, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
Low’s father Tan Sri Larry Low Hock Peng founded investment holding company MWE Holdings.
Low was the youngest of three children. He attended Chung Ling High School and The International School of Penang (Uplands) before being sent to the elite Harrow School in London.
The school boasts notable alumni, including former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.
He took this opportunity to rub shoulders with students from powerful families, including royals from the Middle East and Brunei.
In London, he developed a “close relationship” with Riza Aziz, the stepson of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Jho Low then enrolled in the undergraduate program of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where he continued to develop connections with Malaysians as well as Kuwaiti and Jordanian interests and began managing money for his friends and family.
He graduated from Wharton in 2005. Low can speak Malay, English, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Teochew.
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Where is Jho Low now?
Meanwhile, the Malaysian and US authorities are still seeking to bring Jho Low, who has not been convicted of any offence, to trial. But with China denying he is even in their country there is little chance of knowing if he is alive or dead.
After the US authorities linked Low to the Malaysian fraud, he reportedly fled to Antarctica on his yacht, and in 2019 he was spotted at Disneyland in Shanghai.
But having made enemies across the globe, the party seems well and truly over for Low.
Malaysia’s anti-graft regulator has confirmed that it suspects alleged 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fraud mastermind Jho Low is hiding in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau and has not yet faced justice.
He first came to attention in 2016 when Singapore authorities alleged that a company linked to him had received more than $5m of 1MDB money. With the assistance of the Singaporean police’s Commercial Affairs Department, MACC seized the funds in the account.
It has taken years of digging by British investigative journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown and America’s FBI to uncover Low’s trail of corruption, which is believed to amount to more than £3.5BILLION and has added to his nation’s crippling debt.
Clare believes he maybe never will.
She tells The Sun: “I’m very sceptical Jho Low is still with us. He has so much toxic information about deals with China, and they can’t have him going to a Western court room to spill all this.”
Low’s financial involvement and production of fraud movie The Wolf Of Wall Street got the attention of journalist Clare who recalls: “I was waging a Twitter war with Leonardo DiCaprio from the launch of the movie, saying, ‘You better know there is suspicion about the money behind your movie’.”
Instead, the production firm’s lawyers threatened Clare with legal action, and DiCaprio thanked Low after winning a Best Actor Golden Globe for the film in 2014.
She continued writing about the 1MDB scandal on her website The Sarawak Report, named after a state in Malaysia. But that made her even more dangerous enemies.
Malaysia tried to place Clare on the Interpol Red Notice list for the “terrorism” of her reporting, but the international police body refused.
London-based Clare, 64, who is married to former PM Gordon Brown’s brother Andrew, was also followed by private detectives and warned her life was in danger.
She says: “I was sitting with my then 15-year-old son and got a message that I was being targeted by a hitman.”
Former Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, 76, and whistle-blower Xavier Justo, 55, a Swiss banker, claim in the documentary that they were jailed for exposing Low’s dodgy dealings.
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