As Prime Minister Najib Razak prepares to confront the country with a belt-tightening revised new budget for 2016, Sarawak Report can inform Malaysians how some of its missing development funds have been spent.

Fugitive billionaire Jho Low, who stole hundreds of millions from 1MDB, has been recorded on social media entertaining his gang of friends and co-conspirators to the most extravagant imaginable partying and waste in a series of New Year bashes across the globe.

The jaw-dropping debauchery even included renting two jumbo jets so that the looters could “double-countdown” 2013 – by celebrating New Year in both Sydney and Las Vegas on the same day.  As one admiring hanger-on commented:

“Only JL can manage this for double countdowns 2013” 

The revellers also gloried in wasting millions of dollars in gambling chips… money that could have bought food and education for thousands of Malaysian kids.

The 15 hour long journey from Sydney to the US was capped by a chauffeur driven limo ride from the plane to the Vegas venue for their greedy second countdown.

Jasmine Who?

Significantly, as the trail of party pics and instagram records make clear, one member of this inner circle of Jho Low party groupies is none other than the diminutive Kuching lawyer and ex-UBG/1MDB employee Jasmine Loo.

Loo is wanted by the Malaysian authorities for questioning over her role in channelling hundreds of millions of ringgit from 1MDB into Sarawak’s UBG buy out by Jho Low.

So far she has evaded arrest and is believed to have abandoned her flat in a swanky Manhattan block in New York (which at US$4 million would appear to be well out of the normal price range for an already retired 30-something Malaysian legal executive).

However, this very New Year, Jasmine was again hanging out with Jho Low’s top celebrity friends Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz in the posh French ski resort Courcheval.

The pals have been on several trips together, according to a mass of instagram evidence, which shows a sickening level of excess at the expense of ordinary Malaysians, whose money Jho Low looted from the 1MDB development fund controlled by his so-called ‘Big Boss’, Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Also in the same party of ski revellers was none other than the Wolf of Wall Street producer and partner of Najib’s son Riza Aziz, Joey McFarland.

In a schmaltzy comment on their cosy line up, Keys’ brother exclaimed this band of friends have bonded over the years to become “family”.  There is one common denominator, who brings all these hangers-on together and that is Jho Low.

Sarawak Report has identified the core contingent of Jho Low’s party-guests, who have been pictured time and again at these gatherings since the original 1MDB heist of hundreds of millions of dollars in 2009.

These include the former celebrity booker cum film producer Joey McFarland and actors from Red Granite movies such as Jonah Hill; Jasmine Loo herself; the sons of Najib Razak and their close pals from Thailand; some key employees of Low’s Jynwel Capital, including his brother Szen Low and deputy Seet Li Lin, as well as the likes of Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz, Jamie Foxx, Paris Hilton and Leonardo Dicaprio.

All have either participated in Low’s theft of Malaysia’s cash (like Loo and Seet) or enjoyed the fruits of his money through excessive partying and gambling and payments to their various charities and PR activities.

Indeed, with Jasmine in the know and on the run it appears that Jho Low has decided to keep this mousey nobody of a local lawyer as part of this ‘close family’ – even if that means including her in his key celebrity circle of flash Hollywood big shots.

Private Jumbo hire so Jho Low’s crowd can celebrate a global NY

The level of debauchery and extravagance by the Jho Low ‘family of friends’ is best described through their own testimony.

In 2013 Hollywood rapper/actor Jamie Foxx (a regular beneficiary of Jho Low’s largesse with Malaysia’s stolen money) went on television to brag about the excesses of their New Year’s partying.

He had a “friend with some money”, Foxx coyly explained to gasping show host Jonathan Ross.  That friend had hired two private jumbo jets, so that the well-paid celebrity pals could first enjoy New Year in Sydney and then fly to welcome it in a second time in Las Vegas!

“I got a friend, you know he got some money and he flew me, Leonardo Dicaprio, Jonah Hill and some other cats and we flew to Australia right.  And we did the countdown in Australia then jumped back on a plane and then did the countdown in Vegas.  That’s crazy! That was nuts!”

There is no doubt that the “friend” was Jho Low, because it was the same “family” of hangers on who indulged in this event – bragging to their pals “only JL can manage this”.  

True to form Joey McFarland was there to party in Vegas, whilst the party in Sydney on board yet another grandiose yacht involved the entire Jho Low family, before the revellers filled two entire jets for the 15 hour trip to Vegas

The circle of friends were gushing their thanks to the “Low family” for the supposedly fabulous occasion hosted by them on the fancy yacht in Sydney.

Sarawak Report has established that by this date not only had Jho Low himself siphoned over US$1 billion directly from 1MDB, he had passed some US$530 million of that money from the company Good Star’s account into his private account at BSI Bank in Singapore.

Information from Switzerland has also indicated that his father Larry Low was a recipient of some of the remaining multi-millions from the Good Star account, a matter currently under investigation by the Swiss authorities.

Not so Halal

It is worth noting that these humongously extravagant events have always involved extensive debauchery at the expense of Malaysian taxpayers, who are being increasingly lectured and harangued about ‘halal’ values by the government of Jho Low’s patron Najib Razak.

As the photos amply show, money that ought to have been spent on milk and education for Malaysia’s poorest children has been splurged by the millions on gambling chips and the world’s most expensive wines and champagnes for wealthy stars like Leonardo Dicaprio.

Dicaprio’s PR machine meanwhile works overtime promoting his image as an environmentalist and indigenous rights campaigner.

The common themes of these party events, as insiders have detailed to Sarawak Report, is the hiring of women in a state of extensive undress, drunkenness, the availability of drugs and massive gambling.

 

None of Jho Low’s circle of sychophants in Hollywood have yet responded to the information about 1MDB.

To the contrary, Leonardo Dicaprio is gearing up to star in the next Red Granite movie for millions of dollars, whilst Alicia Keys has also taken millions for her charities from Low and was there with her family this very New Year in Corcheval with all Jho’s pals.

More skiing with the in-crowd for Jasmine – Whistler 2012/3

Back in 2013 the Jho Low ‘family of friends’ went on celebrating it large in lavish style following their Sydney/Vegas New Year extravaganza, according to their bragging instagram records.  After the “double count-down” the party travelled on for a week of further spectacular merry-making at a top ski resort, Whistler in Canada.

Their party host, Jho Low, had planned out this further week of organised luxury, clearly again at his own expense and sent his guests a full itinerary for the trip:

Unlike his guests the tubby Jho Low has not been photographed on the slopes himself, mainly contenting himself with the apres ski it appears.

The highlight of this Canada trip, according to gushing instagram uploads, was a trip to an “ice castle” decorated with 10,001 red roses in mid-winter for their delectation.

“Only J L can make these happen” gushed Jho Low’s ecstatic hangers-on once again!

Is PM Najib Razak really so willing to let the Orang Asli and Orang Ulu suffer, just so that these pampered kids and celebrity side-kicks can have their fun?  Sadly, the answer seems to be yes.

Hanging onto the party waggon from start to end was none other, of course, than Jamine Loo:

And in February 2015, Jasmine Loo hit the slopes of Whistler once again thanks to her ‘family’ status with Jho Low and his current top celebrity Alicia Keys, according to the same records on instagram.

Throughout all this frolicking the pictures leave no doubt about the close connections between this group of Jho Low groupies, who describe themselves as “the boys”.  They include his business colleagues, such as brother Szen Low and Seet Li Lin, as well as two wealthy Thai brothers from the Songthaveepol family, who have recorded these events – and also the son and stepson of Najib Razak.

Indeed, the Malaysian Prime Ministerial connection is frequently alluded to on the tell tale instagram accounts located by Sarawak Report.  The party puppies have even landed themselves a trip on Malaysia’s publicly funded prime ministerial jet – a freebie that could only have been authorised by Najib himself.

Invitations and dinner line ups with Jho Low’s ‘Big Boss’ also feature on the Songthaveepol brothers’ instagram records – these extravagant playboys are Malaysia’s hangers on, benefitting from public funds to an extraordinary degree, courtesy of 1MDB and its pilfered funds.

Destination Vegas!

The destinations of Jho Low’s party set also make an extremely telling insight into 1MDB’s business connections, which he has so excessively mixed with his own pleasure.

Sarawak Report has already investigated and detailed the fraudulent tycoon’s close connections with Abu Dhabi’s sacked former Aabar/IPIC boss Khadem Al Qubaisi, who has invested billions into nightclubs in Las Vegas and beyond, through his questionable Hakkasan Group.

Hakkasan’s night clubs have provided a repeat venue for many of Jho Low’s expensive jaunts.  Just a few weeks ago the gang were all over at Wet Republic, one of the chain’s newest openings

Al Qubaisi has also invested huge sums in the South of France, where Jho Low’s groupies have also regularly hung out, especially on the luxury yacht circuit.

Jho Low took delivery of his own personal super-yacht Equanimity in 2014, but before that his gang of friends were treated to several extravaganzas aboard various hired boats.  As they proudly announce, this is Jho Low’s “style”, meaning disgusting extravagance with money stolen from the poor of Malaysia?