Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World Hardcover – September 18, 2018

Wow! A Phenomenal Read. For the average reader with little understanding of how financial markets and shell companies work, this book can be a difficult read, but fortunately the authors have supplied basic explanations of mechanisms such as securities and global events such as the housing bubble to non-American readers. The story that the authors have managed to piece together is complex and spellbinding, a true work of relentless research and courage which can only benefit future generations. I am also moved by the sympathy that the authors have for the Malaysian people -- failed financial system, failed judicial and legal systems, these will create an uncontrollable number of victims of ordinary Malaysian people. The failure of reputable financial institutions to report fraud as it was being carried out; the failure of national anti-graft commissions to root out corruption and deliver justice back to the people; the failure of justice to protect those who are championing for noble causes such as transparency and kindness -- these prompted so many questions on the purpose and effectiveness of political systems that exist around the world. And when we think about how the seized assets are going to line up the pockets of some other greedy person anyway instead of going into sustainable R&D projects or addressing critical social and infrastructural concerns, one wonders: what would we like if there was no greed? If the $4.5B corrupted from the funds went into real projects with real social impact, what would the world look like now? Should we pity the Malaysians for the better future that could have been theirs? The fund is gone, the debt is there, and the story is real -- a story that should be remembered for generations who seek answers on why they had to sacrifice their better future so someone can enjoy champagne, jewels, luxury homes and parties. And then what shall we say of the shameless entertainment industry who could care less where their money came from? Of firms who have forgotten the moral aspect of the economic system as they chase and lust after profit? What about the tyrants who feel so immeasurably untouched and remain free to this day, yet will destroy livelihoods and families of ordinary folk for the smallest of mistakes? This book is thoroughly thought-provoking and I have nothing but praise and admiration for the authors. Thank you so much for bringing this story to the general public, now I'm off to re-read this book to better understand everything.

Tom Wright and Bradley Hope’s Billion Dollar Whale is an imperfect but still essential read for those interested in the 1MDB scandal and chronicles of financial malfeasance and fraud in general. But there are some limitations to be aware of in this otherwise briskly reported book: Unlike other recent chronicles of lies, power, and politics gone wrong like Bad Blood, Black Edge, or Dark Money, you will not find a meticulous appendix or a voluminous list of citations and references. Instead, Wright and Hope focus the bulk of their narrative on the life and lies of Jho Low, the man who orchestrated the massive theft of money from 1MDB, the so-called sovereign wealth fund.Deciding to focus on Low is perhaps the greatest strength and weakness of the book. The authors tell at times exceedingly long and vivid anecdotes of Low indulging in his vices (parties, celebrities, gambling, mansions, art, jewelry, etc.), so much so that there are times where one wishes Wright and Hope brought the same narrative detail and word count to the arcana of their financial crimes. For example, in one early section of the book Wright and Hope cite the first of many “rumors in banking circles” as early as 2009 that “Low had siphoned” millions in bond money in one of his earliest schemes. It would have been helpful to learn more about who and how such “rumors” were propagated and why no one did anything. Well before the end of the book, the long accounts of Low’s debauched parties in Aspen, Las Vegas, the yacht Equanimity he had built with stolen money, and elsewhere begin to blur together.As Low’s crimes grow and more institutions and individuals are brought into his circle of graft his parties risk overshadowing the more important part of the book: how these crimes were possible, what kind of culture and systems made such lies go unchecked for so long, and how many of the 1MDB scandal’s perpetrators still walk free and unpunished even today. Low proved astonishingly adept at taking advantage of lax oversight, making the right social favors, and the willful ignorance of corruption in the face of political power and money. But none of his crimes would have been possible had he not been aided and abetted by those in power and used to the systemically corrupt politics and ethnic tensions in Malaysia who deployed money meant for its citizens to a global coterie of bankers, lawyers, businessmen, and hangers-on all too eager to take some of the cash Low was bringing to bear and ignore glaring compliance issues.Finally, the most disturbing and saddening conclusion the Wright and Hope’s reporting seems to reach is how such stories of crime and corruption are not solely the problems of developing countries. The problem is global, the rot is widespread, and the sickness runs deep. My running tally of the banks in the book whose internal compliance and due diligence teams raised issues only to have them overridden includes not just Goldman Sachs, but JP Morgan Chase, Coutts, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, BSI (a small Swiss bank), and more. Both accounting firms KPMG and Deloitte issued audits that allowed the fraud to continue further. White shoe law firms like Shearman & Sterling helped facilitate the flow of hundreds of millions of stolen dollars into the United States to launder ill-gotten gains. This is an incomplete list of institutions where leaders chose to ignore warning signs. The perpetrators have used their power and money to fight back against the law, both internationally and domestically. Justice has yet to be rendered on Low and his conspirators. Wright and Hope suggest the dismal possibility that few individuals will be held accountable and that these large companies have adapted to weather even billions in financial penalties, risking a repetition of the same mistakes.

Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, reporters for the Wall Street Journal have written a fast-paced account of one of the epic frauds of recent years. Jho Low, a Malaysian who started out with very little money, a degree from Wharton, and a ton of chutzpah managed to con his way into the use of hundreds of millions of dollars of the Malaysian government's money. Wright and Hope did a monumental job of tracking this story through its many twists and turns. Their writing is clear and they manage to write in a way that allows the reader to keep straight the very large cast of characters.A very enjoyable book, although I have two minor beefs: First, apparently reporters can't write this type of book without injecting into the story all sorts of things--like what people were thinking, the exact temperature and conditions on a particular day, how people reacted to somebody's statement or action--that there is no way they could actually know. I guess the style is to write these books as novels even when they aren't.Second, the book had more than its share of typos. Particularly since this paperback edition has some new material, there was presumably an opportunity to correct errors, but the opportunity wasn't taken. There also are a lot of usage errors. These errors indicate that the book was poorly copyedited and that some sections may even have been drafted by somebody who is not a native English speaker.