Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
Wow! I've been watching true-crime documentaries on Netflix. It's not my most favorite genre, but I like true stories and Netflix is presenting several of them to me. Latest is Man on the Run. Wow! 1MDB -- "One of the biggest corruption stories in history" -- played out 2009-2018. And I'd never heard of it! (I suppose Google News Headlines must have presented pieces of the story from time to time, but I never clicked.)
1MDB was the sovereign wealth fund of the Malaysian government, but Najib Razak, the prime minister, and others led by Jho Low were using it as personal checking accounts. The spending on lavish parties, jewelry, superyachts, etc. was flabbergasting! Leonardo Di Caprio among others was paid $250,000 to attend a party, Britney Spears paid $1,000,000 to sing a special song. As just one more example, gorgeous supermodel Miranda Kerr (married for a while to Orlando Bloom) was given $8,000,000 of matching pink diamonds for Valentine's Day on holiday aboard Jho Low's superyacht.
The spending was so utterly lavish that it could not be concealed. But how to put the criminals in prison? After all, at the center of corrupt officials was the Prime Minister himself. And the ruling party was so popular among the lower classes, they were still favored in the 2018 general elections! To prevent that the former PM Mahathir, representing the elite, joined forces with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was still in prison on a trumped-up sodomy charge. The government party lost, Mahathir became PM again at age 93, and arrests followed. Goldman Sachs paid a $2.9 billion fine for its role. (However Najib is not in prison; Jho Low is in hiding, perhaps in China.)
Hero of the prosecution was the U.S.'s FBI. Apparently if U.S. dollars are involved the FBI feels it has jurisdiction! This is another way the U.S. serves as "policeman for the world"; perhaps I should be ashamed but this gives me a tinkling of pride.
BUT, it was a close thing. Najib Razk almost won re-election, with the support of low-information voters. This reminded me of the present political situation in the U.S.A.; in fact that connection is why I'm posting this.
1MDB was the sovereign wealth fund of the Malaysian government, but Najib Razak, the prime minister, and others led by Jho Low were using it as personal checking accounts. The spending on lavish parties, jewelry, superyachts, etc. was flabbergasting! Leonardo Di Caprio among others was paid $250,000 to attend a party, Britney Spears paid $1,000,000 to sing a special song. As just one more example, gorgeous supermodel Miranda Kerr (married for a while to Orlando Bloom) was given $8,000,000 of matching pink diamonds for Valentine's Day on holiday aboard Jho Low's superyacht.
The spending was so utterly lavish that it could not be concealed. But how to put the criminals in prison? After all, at the center of corrupt officials was the Prime Minister himself. And the ruling party was so popular among the lower classes, they were still favored in the 2018 general elections! To prevent that the former PM Mahathir, representing the elite, joined forces with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was still in prison on a trumped-up sodomy charge. The government party lost, Mahathir became PM again at age 93, and arrests followed. Goldman Sachs paid a $2.9 billion fine for its role. (However Najib is not in prison; Jho Low is in hiding, perhaps in China.)
Hero of the prosecution was the U.S.'s FBI. Apparently if U.S. dollars are involved the FBI feels it has jurisdiction! This is another way the U.S. serves as "policeman for the world"; perhaps I should be ashamed but this gives me a tinkling of pride.
BUT, it was a close thing. Najib Razk almost won re-election, with the support of low-information voters. This reminded me of the present political situation in the U.S.A.; in fact that connection is why I'm posting this.
