For Jho Low's 31st birthday celebration in November 2012, he allegedly splashed millions of US dollars to get Britney Spears to briefly pop out of a fake birthday cake, for South Korea's Psy to do a live show, and for Alicia Keys' husband to arrange things.
This was part of the book "Billion Dollar Whale" shared by DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang in a speech at Teluk Intan, Perak today (Sept 15).
Lim cited the book about how Low had allegedly hosted a circus-themed extravaganza that would be known in Las Vegas as the most expensive private party ever held.
The party supposedly included an indoor Ferris wheel, circus performers, and a who’s who of Hollywood – including stars like Leonardo DiCaprio.
Spears reportedly took a six-figure sum in US dollars for her brief cameo while Swizz Beatz, Low’s producer friend and husband of Keys, received US$800,000 (RM3.31mil) for an evening's work.
"Low arranged for every aspect of the event to be paid from the 1MDB bonds," Lim claimed in his speech during the opening of the DAP Teluk Intan service centre.
The book “Billion Dollar Whale” is written by the Wall Street Journal’s two award-winning journalists Tom Wright and Bradley Hope.
Why was the book titled as such? Lim said he initially thought it was because of Jho Low’s size and appearance. But he discovered the answer in page 3 of the book:
“Casino operators and nightclubs refer to their highest rollers as ‘whales’, and one thing was certain about Low, he was the most extravagant whale that Vegas, New York and St. Tropez had seen in a long time – maybe ever”.
Low also supposedly stayed at the most opulent "Chairman Suites” at Palazzo in Las Vegas, priced at US$25,000 (RM103,000) per night.
Another book mentioned by Lim is that by Clare Rewcastle Brown: “The Sarawak Report – The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose”.
Lim said, "The more I read the two books, the angrier I became... how tens of billions of Malaysian ringgit and the future of the present and future generations of Malaysians could be so easily and irresponsibly stolen and pawned away!"
"I thought I had known more than ordinary Malaysians about the criminality and moral turpitude of the 1MDB scandal, but I was completely floored by the scale and scope of the immorality and brazenness of the two protagonists of the 1MDB scandal which transformed Malaysia into a global kleptocracy."
He claimed that the two were Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the "real operator" of 1MDB, Jho Low.
Lim cited former US Ambassador to Malaysia, John Mallot, that the 1MDB scandal is even worse than what one had thought.
As John Mallot wrote in his recent article on “Billion Dollar Whale”:
"Jho Low put Malaysia on the map, but for all the wrong reasons.
"The Najib in this book is incompetent and uncaring and doesn't care to learn the details - as long as he gets money for his political purposes, and as long as his wife, Rosmah, is happy and gets what she wants.
John Mallot added, “The authors talk about Imelda Marcos and the 1,100 pairs of shoes that were found after Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown in the Philippines.
“But even if each pair of shoes was worth US$1,000 (RM4,140), that still is only a million dollars. The Malaysian police say that all the ‘loot’ confiscated from the Najib family home and condos added up to US$273 million (RM1.13bil).”
Lim said, "Those who claim that 1MDB is fake news, an elaborate international conspiracy to topple a freely-elected Prime Minister in Malaysia should just read these two books."
He added that the two books should also be translated into Malay, Chinese and Tamil.
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