The Billion Dollar 1MDB Heist: Jho Low Meets Leo and Marty

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Elizabeth Dutton, Sarah Burnette.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
What are you doing girl?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Just sitting here waiting for me, sitting in my own filth?

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Nice? Do you like my filth?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I love your filth?

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Heay, right back at you, girl, Thank you. I got
a question, not about your filth. The question is simple, straightforward,
right to the point. Do you know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I do know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Is it about your filth?

Speaker 4 (00:23):
It is about my filth. It's about the filth that
I spread in the world. Oh, so, mashup's ridiculous. It's
ridiculous when rude dudes dip into the mashup pool, not
in suggestions, but in participation. We got an email from
rude dude Tom and it reads Terry ps. As an aside,

(00:46):
Terry the assistant actually forwarding emails around.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
They're good.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Not to tell you, Terry. Oh ya, anyways, let me
read it.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
Hi, Guys love the show. It's always entertaining. I'm a
native wiscons tonight and a lifelong PBR drinker.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Do with that what you will. Thanks to you.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
I heard about the Grillos PBR and found some at
my local quick trip. What I have to say, it's
actually pretty good. I attached a picture of a nearly
finished can feel free to use this if you'd like.
Thanks for the mashup. And there's a picture of a
nearly finished can Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Look at that. Tom a mash up team. And I
didn't even grimace once you took one for this because
you took one for the team.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, and I think it's interesting. He's like, he says,
it's actually pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Okay, So I trust him for Tom. Yeah, I was
like that, that sounds good for Tom.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
I think that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Thank you, Tom, honestly, thank you. That is good.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
It's not only awesome, but you know what else it is?
What ridiculous? Oh yeah, there it is over to you, Zarin.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Okay, Well, Elizabeth, I want to talk to you about
something that near and dear to my heart. Marlon Brando
got an Oscar statuette for the Best Actor for his
starring roleing on the Waterfront, right okay and leaving the
whole like you know, Elia Cason, non American activities out
of it. I still love that movie, right, great film.
Leonardo DiCaprio used to own that Oscar really before he

(02:12):
had an oscar of his own before he won I
think for The Revenant or whatever. He had that oscar,
but sadly he no longer owns it.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Did he get it a yard sale?

Speaker 3 (02:19):
No, and he didn't resell it. Instead, he was seized
by the Department of Justice, which means the US government
now owns Brando's oscar for on the waterfront.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
What.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yes, Elizabeth, this is all part of the story I
want to tell you today, the behind the scenes, real
life story, crime story no less of the Wolf of
Wall Street the movie. Oh there's a whole crime story
bigger than that one behind that movie, and it features
a man named Jolo Jolo. Yes, this is Ridiculous Crime,

(03:14):
a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous. Elizabeth. Yes, Now, I've flirted be telling you
this one for a long time, you know, and well
today is finally that day we get into the rampant

(03:37):
international embezzling scheme that financed the Wolf of Wall Street.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
Oh so you're not going to tell the story of
the dude who was Wolf of Jordan Belford.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, he shows up in this story. So he is
in this story.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
He is not the focus, not at all.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, talk about irony. Right, you can make a movie
about financial crimes by paying for it with wait for it,
financial crimes. No, no, quick question. Have you seen The
Wolf of Wall Street? Yes, okay, you know. It's about
a real life crimer named Jordan Belford and he is
the wolf of the Wolf of All Street. The movie
basically covers his rise and fall and him being a

(04:13):
financial crimes mastermind. Right, and he wrote a memoir and
then Marty Scorsese he turned it into a story that
became an OSCAR nominated film.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, Marty, Marty your friend on that kind of basis.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
We're in a film watching group, Elizabeth and a kickball group.
Marty's really good in senders. Yeah. So this whole you know,
Wolf of Wall Street is intended to be a cautionary
tale about greed another irony. Now, the film has one
of my favorite Matthew McConaughey scenes where he and Leonardo
DiCaprio is sitting there there in some skyscraper having like
a business launch. In Matthew McConaughey, he's doing blow at

(04:47):
the table and then he makes Leo do that tribal
beat on his chest. I love that scene. That seems
not in the script. By the way, Leonardo DiCaprio saw
Matthew McConaughey doing that for his warm up exercises, and
he's like, put to put that on camera.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Warm up.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, because Leo, say, was a producer for the film,
so he could make those kind of calls. Sure, yeah,
that's his warm up. A lot of people like the
Denzel talks about that beating on his body a little
bit to get loose, you know, like, yeah, you really
want to be in your body as an actor.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Did he also hunt? Doesn't he hunt?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, he's hitting his chest and humming.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh my god. Anyway, I was like embarrassed for him
in that.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
I vote him and everything he does. So anyway, the
summer of twenty thirteen, Leonardo DiCaprio had just finished shooting
The Wolf of Wall Street. Right early talk was this
film's a lot for the Oscars. They've done it again,
better than the aviator. Blah blah blah. Now that's this
helps explain Leo's excitement and his like, you know, self

(05:42):
serious tone and his confidence when he spoke with Deadline
later on that same year, in December twenty thirteen, right
Leo was telling Deadline about his latest film, a dream
project that he'd been trying to make for a while,
and he's both the star and the producer, and he
tells Deadline and I quote everything Jordan and this book
was so raw. The crash of two thousand and eight

(06:03):
was a huge motivator for me as well, to want
to really see what's going on in our culture that
creates people like this. Greed is a timeless virtue. I've
been talking about greed a lot in interviews, and you
can't pinpoint it to any specific time period, or any civilization,
or even just human beings. It's a fundamental characteristic of survival.

(06:23):
As we are progressing into the future, things are moving
faster and we are way more destructive than we've ever been.
We have not evolved at all, Well, said Leo. Well
said an, So greed is bad. We're still subject to
its seductive siren call. Gotcha.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Because he lives a monastic lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
He's an environmentalist, wall he cares about things bigger than him.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Just not paid for any So, Elizabeth, there's.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
A great cosmic irony that Leo partners in this film
were the masterminds of international fraud, of palooza and an
orgy of embezzlement and other financial crimes. And as they said,
far far bigger than what Jordan Belford had ever done. Really, Yes,
and when he gave that interview, Leo was knee deep
in the greed, like just surrounded by it, sinking deeper
and deeper into it. It was all around him, but somehow

(07:11):
he missed it, just didn't see it. Wow, somehow this
highly intelligent, very sensitive actor never recognized the look of
real life greed when it was the one buying him
champagne at a casino.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
But zaren he was talking about it a lot in
the interviews.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, also, as he pointed out, totally.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
He wanted you know, he's thinking about greed. But he
still missed it when that same greed gave him a
Jean Michel basciat painting worth nine point two million dollars. Yes,
it's just as a gift. He missed it when it
bought him Marlon Brando's oscar. Right, but we're getting ahead
of ourselves. It's time to meet our man of the hour.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Jolo Jolo like Jello, but Jolo.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Jolo j h o Oh Joe l Ow jo Lo Oh.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
So two words, two words yes, mister Low Yes now
Low Comma Joe h Ok. I'm doing the math yes
in my face.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
To give you a sense of his character. Back in
April of twenty thirteen, just after The Wolf of Wall
Street was filming done filming, it had wrapped, Jo Loo
was partying in New York and he nearly lost his
life to buster rhymes.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, I mean who among the By.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
The way, this story is going to keep doing that
where I'm going to say something and all of a
sudden a celebrity pops up. You do not expect I
like that. So the story goes this socially awkward thirty
year old financier Low Tayke Joe aka Jo Lo because
he's Malaysian of Chinese ethnicity reverse exactly. So. He was
at Jungle City Studios in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan.

(08:40):
He was there in the studio. He was there to
record a vanity track called Void of a Legend. To
do with that what you.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
Will, He's in the recording studio.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
What's the genre rap?

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Of course, Elizabeth Yes, financial guys love rap. It's all
about the Benjamins. That's as far as they're concerned. So
Jo Lo had paid the rapper and producer Swizz Beats
to help him record his Vanity project or mister Yes himself.
And also there that night was Pharrell Williams and Buster.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Rhymes No Yes, So this is horrible.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
So they're all together in this studio in Chelsea in Manhattan,
twenty thirteen, indulging Jolo, indulging Iman. At one point, quite
visibly drunk, Jolo looks at Buster Rhymes across the studio
and he yells out at him, yo, I own you.
You're my bitch? WHOA yes. Well, by the way, it's
never good to tell black man in America that you

(09:35):
own him. I don't think I need to explain.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
That anything further. I don't want yes.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
But then, but also because I don't know if you
you don't play fantasy sports, but I see this often
in fantasy sports, because people will talk about how they
own a player, and then they forget how they talk
about that amongst their friends, and then there they're at
a game or some social function and they see a
player that they have on their fantasy team and they
yell at this real life person, I own you man,
I need more points this weekend. Once again, do not

(10:01):
yell at a black man that you own him. I'm
just saying it's never going to be a good one.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Let's just avoid that completely, right, So, or just avoid
fantasy sports. Okay, Well that's my thing about That's my
complaint about football is the plantation mentality.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
There is that, yes, anyway, so off of that.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
In this case, Joe Lo, as I said, was drunk
and he was all hyped up on the fact that
he had just purchased Emi Music Publishing. Wait what yes,
he bought it for one hundred million dollars.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
How does this guy?

Speaker 3 (10:30):
And he wanted Buster Rhymes to know he owned his
publishing and thus in his mind he owned Buster Rhymes.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right, But then also you're my bitch.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, he was drunk and he was like a financi bro.
So he's like, let me put you in your place.
I own you, right, So Jolo's uh, we'll call it joke.
Taunt did not land. He was about to result in
an epic beatdown when Pharrell Williams had to like step in.
He had to calm down Buster Rhymes and tell him
like being.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Happy, he gotta be happy, and then they punched him.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
They So there you go a glimpse at the character
of Jolo.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Right, that is incredible.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
But I've got more for you because I also have
an eyewitness account, not from the gossip press or from like,
you know, some hip hop outlet. It's like, oh, we
got the latest news that nobody will tell you, right right,
This friend of mine, he works as a DJ. He
did work as a DJ in Las Vegas, right, and
he was working there back when Joel was a regular
at the daytime rooftop pool parties that they have at

(11:27):
the casino.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
Dear.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, yeah, so back then.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
He was called a super vip. Jolo not my friend,
my friend Jeff, he was a DJs. I said, So,
he tells me the story about working a private party
for this super vip.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
So he did, he go and he gambled along. He
was a whale.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
There's a whal.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
So according to my friend Jeff, and I quote, I
see this very heavy set Asian guy wearing one of
those a whole yacht caps and he's sitting in this cabana.
They had bottles and all the bottle service girls were
huddled around this area to party. There was a special
DJ that had come in, so I continue to do
my job. At one point, Joe Lo grabbed a microphone.
There was like a wireless handheld that was sent to

(12:04):
his cabana for him to say what he wanted or whatever.
He says. Everybody in the pool. Everybody, I mean everybody
in the pool, and I thought, I'm not getting in
the pool, but I'll film this. So I grabbed my
cell phone. I started filming everybody doing what this VIP wanted.
And I mean eighty percent of the people in the
pool were staff. Everybody did what this guy told him

(12:25):
to do, and they all got in the pool fully dressed,
and I'm filming it. So what did he catch on camera?
Great question, Elizabeth, We may never know. Well again, according
to my friend Jeff and I quote, this Asian guy
came up to me and said, the you doing. I
stared at him blankly. I didn't know what the problem was.
People had cell phones out filming stuff at the club
all the time and no one ever had an issue

(12:46):
with it. But this was like a major deal. I
started getting emails on my phone immediately from different management
people in the casino and the club. The Asian dude
got really abraced with me, so I apologized and he
made me erase the phone. I learned later that it
was what's called a blackout event. That's when there's a
high security and no one's allowed to film or photograph

(13:07):
or record anything. This guy low was throwing away so
much money that he was just hemorrhaging money. It was
beyond trying to burn money. Brewsters millions is the only
thing that comes to mind. Why would one literally burn
piles of money for what reason? If you had that much,
you just wanted to get rid of it as much
as you can before you die. That's one thing that

(13:27):
was not this. This story is another thing, Elizabeth. Yes,
so that's an eyewitness account.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Was just the money to say this is a blackout event?
Did he did? He rent the hole basically.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
The club yea yeah, and the rooftop pool club, I mean,
and then he had the staff, didn't have people had
the staff getting the pool like pretend to be having fun.

Speaker 4 (13:51):
That sounds like hell on for I would just start
throwing people off the roof. If I could throw myself.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
I throw everybody.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Someone's coming off that roof.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Someone's out of here.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
So now we're back to the essential question, Who the
hell is jo Lo? I'm happy to tell you I
have answers, lots of answers. So low Taik Joe was
born in Malaysia in nineteen eighty one. He was born
a son of privilege. He's gobad numbers, sharp minded, you know.
So his family sent him to Harrow. It's a private
school in London, so old that it was founded by

(14:26):
a charter from Queen Elizabeth the first way back in
fifteen seventy two.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
So his classmates were the sons of kings and the
nephews of prime ministers from around the world. Right, It's
where everybody sends their you know, special boys. Elizabeth. You
might say that the British private schools are a lot
like prison. Yeah, They're a great place to learn to
be a better criminal.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
True.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
I mean I wouldn't say that, but you might.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Say I'll say anything there.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
So anyway, jo Lo, he said of his private school days,
they absolutely shaped his future. In an interview with The
Toronto Star, he said, and I quote, there were a
few key relationships which I started to develop there. Harrow
had lots of children of prominent European, Asian and Middle
Eastern families. That's when I met the former King of
Jordan's son, among others.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah right, So those.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Early heady days at Harrow, they were the key that
unlocked the man and criminal he would become. Or, as
Joel put it in his interview with The Toronto Star,
that's when I felt that I built the core foundation
of contacts for the future. That's quite important because that's
when you know them as friends and you build the
trust level for the future, as opposed to meeting someone
during the course of your business life. He's like, get

(15:32):
them WHI they're susceptive.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
You see some of the terrible things they do as youth. Yeah, right,
and hold it over.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
This is really why you want your kids to go
to an elite school. Not the education, it's for the connections. Comply.
So Adri attends Harrow. Joel transfers to Wharton School of
Business here in the US, which coincidentally is also the
president's alma motern Apropos of Nothing but Cress. At Wharton,
Jolo made a name for himself on campus. His nickname
was the a Great Gatsby.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
He made his own nickname, did he did he.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
I don't know about that, but she'd give you some
idea of how he was perceived by.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
A question that's not a nickname.

Speaker 5 (16:10):
No.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
In short, it was known that, just like Jay Gatsby,
jo Loo was a schemer, a striver, an operator, and
a social.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Media like the lamest nickname everyone.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
No now Jolo for instance, to give you an example
of his Jay gatsbying around, he once invited his Wharton
classmate Avanka Trump to go on a gambling trip with
him and some of his friends too where Atlantic City.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
You see, Jolo had a big time crush on Avanka,
and he thought she might go for a guy like him.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
Oh, I'm having like a sliding doors moment of like
an alternative reality.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Evanka politely declined the invite, but the way Jolo later
told the story, he explained her rejection was far less
about him and more about her father. You see, Jolo
told his friends that Ivanka said quote she'd never set
foot in one of her father's skeevy casinos. So that's
from Jolo. I didn't say that. So at this point

(17:05):
in his story, Joo moves on to his next crush,
someone who was also a rich, mildly attractive blonde daughter
of a famous American family. He started angling for Paris Hilton.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Oh dear, clearly the.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Man had a type. Now. Yeah, his roommates at Wharton
later recalled that Jolo loved to watch House of Wax.
Now if that name doesn't sound familiar, it was Paris
Hilton's debut movie. Yeah, now, he watched it over and
over again, apparently just all the time. So now, Joo
didn't know it back then, but one day, a drunken

(17:37):
Paris Hilton would be photographed at a casino with his sweaty,
alcohol flushed face pressed against her shoulder. That was all
become Elizabeth. That's the future we have to look forward to.
So back to his college days. After Wharton, Lowe returned
to Malaysia. There he tried his hand in a few businesses.
None of them were successful, but he did orchestrate the
sale of a skyscraper, so that had to make his

(17:58):
parents proud, right, I mean, oh, you.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
Sold that long, daddy.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
So after that, he then partnered with a man named
Reza Aziz. He was a friend of his he had
met back when they're both attending private school in London.
So we're now working together in Malaysia, jo Loo and
Aziz won the backing of Aziza's stepfather, this man named
Najib Razak. Now you see, at the time he was
the Defense Minister of Malaysia, and then in a very
short time he was elected Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yes. And then working together, the three men conspired to
create a Sovereign Wealth Fund for Malaysia. It's basically a
state owned development investment program, right, and this was just
after the financial meltdown of two thousand.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
And eight, perfect timing.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
But these men, they saw opportunity Elizabeth where the rest
of us saw ruined. They saw the saints for the future.
So they used, you know what, there's big deals to
be made, there's steals to be lifted, fraud to be purchased.

Speaker 5 (18:52):
Right.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
So in two thousand and nine, Jol returns to America
with the backing of the Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund, and
he's over there looking to make big deals. Doesn't take
long for the New York gossip pages to find him, so,
like page six of the New York Post, they spot
Jolo out making an ass of himself all across the
Manhattan nightclub scene. This is like in November of two
thousand and nine. In his very first news story, Jolo

(19:16):
is pictured sweaty faced, champagne.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Drunks, sweaty all the time. He's often I can get
pretty spitzy, but like.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, it's just kind of his like MESHI, It's like,
look I'm dancing, I'm having fun. It's hot in here.
So he was basically the New York Post covers him,
he's just like this another finance bro in Manhattan, right.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Just a dewey man.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
You look at the photo of him, you'd never imagine
this guy would become the mastermind of an international money
laundering scheme to steal billions of dollars. Right in the
very second sentence in the very first story I ever
written about, Jolo reads like the opening line of a
fairy tale about a money launderer. As the Post reported, quote,
a Jolo comes around once in a lifetime, marveled one

(19:59):
into veteran. Oh no, yes, To be clear, the industry
wasn't an investment banking or finance. It was nightclubs. You
don't get like him coming out exactly so, this Malaysian
international man of mystery had become modestly famous for downing
champagne and chasing long legged models. Yea, As the Post noted,
and I quote, Lowe just celebrated his twenty eighth birthday

(20:22):
in Las Vegas, a four day affair that started out
last Wednesday at Caesar's Palace, where sources said the swimming
pool was stocked with bikini clad party girls and surrounded
by caged lions and tigers.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Ew Right.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
So, after that pool party, to start the debauchery, his
birthday entourage hit up a nightclub in the casino, where
Paris Hilton and Usher danced the night away with Jolo
and drank with him and his friends. Hell Also, Jamie
Fox reportedly gave Jolo a sports car for his twenty
eighth birthday.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
What Yeah, where did that come from?

Speaker 3 (20:54):
Don't I'm talking to me. You're just going to keep
popping up on a swivel.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Now.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
At the end of that New York Post article, a
friend of Low's tried to dispel any mystery about Jolo,
but instead only enlarged it because the friend said, and
I quote, he's not an arms dealer and he doesn't
want all this publicity. It's always fun when you have
your friends trying to clarify that your perpetually drunk friend
is not an arms dealer.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
I've never had anyone say, you know, the thing about Elizabeth,
that she's not an arms dealer.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
One thing you can say about Elizabeth not an arms dealer.
Now they do. Now that we've met our crimer of
the day, let's take a little break, and that's the messages.
We will get high and low with Jolo and we're

(21:55):
back Elizabeth. Hello, you ready for more Jolo?

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (21:58):
More twenty ten celebs in young Hollywood.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
This is so great. Who else is gonna pop up?
It's like whack a mole?

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Oh wait for the rest of these moms. Oh no, okay,
so where were we? All Right, it's two thousand and
nine and the gossip rags have just learned the name
Jolo right well after the New York Post spots him.
Next came Gawker's coverage.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Right, rip Gocker, What I miss Gaker? We could use
Gaker right about.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Desperately need a Gaker right now. So Gawker publishes their
first story on him six hours after the New York
Post story drops.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Nice, They're like.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
We're on it too, So they had more details from
that epic Las Vegas Casino birthday party. The one yeah,
well was Gawker reported and I quote Meghan Fox was
flown out to Vegas to hang out with the birthday boy,
who routinely surrounds himself with models.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
So did he like hire Meghan Fox.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
He's hiring everybody, and he's paying everyone.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
The thing about these celebrities that you know they did,
I mean you have. It used to be that celebrities
didn't want to do commercials, huh, and so.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
They did them in the foreign countries.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Yeah, and now they don't care, they'll plug anything.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
They just get paid.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
But they also do all these weird appearances, in these
personal appearances, pay to have them go wherever.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah. It used to be like, oh, like you know,
so and so went over and and went to Oman
for this, but like you know, Leader's sons birthday party
and then performed. And it's not even like j Lo
is in Qatar anymore. Now it's like you can get
them to come down for like your furniture stores opening,
if you're willing to pay them one hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
You got enough money.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, so okay. So as also, Goker had another great
quote about Joe Lo. They I think, provide some interesting
color about how Jolo quote rents several apartments in the
Park Imperial on West fifty seventh Street in Midtown that
housed him and his staff, including several bodyguards. Famous neighbors
include Daniel Craig and Sean Combs. Oh yeah, birds. It's

(23:47):
key to remember that this was again two thousand and nine,
just one year earlier. The entire world's economy had melted down,
so not many people were in the mood to throw
money around.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
When he has multiple apartments. Yes, yes, that's obscene.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
No one knows where the money's coming from. People are wondering,
is he an arms dealer? What's his story?

Speaker 2 (24:04):
They don't even they don't care, He don't care.

Speaker 4 (24:06):
They liked it was he an arms dealer, because that's
a fun, exciting little bit of gossipy, don't They don't
give a toss when no where it comes from.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
Also, but the people were talking about like, okay, this
is when Las Vegas began to seriously court international gamblers,
as you well know, because they needed to stay in business.
And so what was true for like Vegas casino general
managers was also true for Manhattan nightclub owners. Naturally, they
were both more than happy to protect a man's privacy
or a person's privacy, you know, the Jolo's privacy in particular,

(24:35):
because he was saving their asses as far as they
were concerned, Like we need a guy like.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Him at bottle service markup.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, exactly. So you know, like nobody, as they said,
nobody was throwing money around like Jolo. So people were
ready to protect him, possibly from himself, but at least
like the wrong people seeing him. Yeah, So back to Jolo.
The year is twenty ten now, so Jolo grows even
more flagrant. Now remember his crush on Paris Hilton, who's
now party?

Speaker 2 (25:00):
I remember that?

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Well. In twenty ten there were now rumors in print
that Jolo was paying Paris Hilton a million dollars to
hang out with him and to party in places like
Sant Trepez. And he apparently rented a yacht from the
billionaire Paul Allen. Oh wow, he's like mega yacht. Tattoose
is what it called three hundred three foot yacht. It's
the kind of boath that has a movie theater and
a parking spot for your helicopter. Right, that kind of

(25:24):
boat and so then the rumors hit the press that
Paris Siltan was dating him or you know, at least
spending time with him, and so she denies them, right,
she has her reptil the New York Post.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
They are friends, they're not canonling.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah, just he pays her for her time.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
If someone like, let's think of it like a if
some guy, some some random eccentric guy said I'll pay
you a million dollars or no, let's like, let's say
some bodacious babe or not so bodacious babe. I guess
if we're going to do equivalents said I'll give you
a million dollars Aaron to come party with me on

(25:59):
the Mediterranean, and would you do it?

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Would you go?

Speaker 3 (26:02):
I would need to know more information, like you know, what,
what is this party? Why do you want me? When
do I get the money?

Speaker 4 (26:08):
You see?

Speaker 2 (26:09):
The hangout?

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Like I'm not signing NDA's you know, there's a lot
of stuff that I do.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
I bet you ye, Betty Adam.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Oh yeah, totally. It's a whole lifestyle. So like I'm
not it's not the money part there, Like I don't
mind being like, oh, a paid person, but it would
be the fact that, like I have, I have morality
about that, Like I'm not you can't pay me to
do something I don't want to do, right, But if
you want to just pay me to like party on
a yacht, if I was into partying on yachts, I'd
be like sure. And obviously Paris Hilton is in Joy's party.

(26:35):
You're not asking her to do anything she doesn't like doing.
So if I was something equivalent, like he's Aaron you
want to come to my fantacy football draft, I'd be
like sure, for a million.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Dollars, come ride mountain bikes with me?

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Yeah, there you go, right, So that makes it a
little easier, I get it.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Okay, So at this point, now the New York Post
they find some of Paris Hilton's friends who claimed Jolo
is actually only paying her one hundred thousand dollars each
time they hang out. Oh yeah, that's why. Yeah I
came up with that number. So believe whatever and whoever
you want. But the point is jo Loo was using
Paris Hilton and paying her so he could get famous
and also gain access to real stars in big, big money.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
So, according there's a whole book about him called Billion
Dollar Whale. And according to Billion Dollar Whale, which was written,
by the way, by a pair of Wall Street Journal reporters,
great a good book, jo Lo was with Paris Hilton
when she celebrated her twenty ninth birthday. Their entourage partied
in Vegas at the Palazzo, and Jolo gave his longtime
crush a Cartier watch. And then, as the book reports,

(27:31):
Low quote handed her two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
in gambling chips and asked her to join him at
the baccarat table.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
And her birthday party. Yes, I mean this sounds sir.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Million dollars join me at the baker rote.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Too, and she just accepts it, of course.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
And that's not all because, back to the book Billion
Dollar Whale, Quote, between October two thousand and nine and
June twenty ten, a period of only eight months, low
and his entourage spent eighty five million dollars on alcohol,
gambling in Vegas, jets, renting super yachts, and to pay
playmates and Hollywood celebrities to hang out with them. Eighty
five five million million dollars in eight months. That's more

(28:10):
than ten million dollars a month.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
I just Oh my god, I.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Need to ask you another question, Elizabeth. Sure, if you
stole a billion dollars from the people of Malaysia, what
would you do with it?

Speaker 2 (28:21):
A billion dollars from the people of Malaysia.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
You asked me a question, that's my question for you.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
Well, I guess I got to figure out how to
make sure they don't come at me.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
What does this assume they can't?

Speaker 4 (28:32):
So they can't because I'll say, like half of it
is my is to pay for my standing army, oh
and then smart and the rest, you know, just chilling. Well,
I'm reading people to burritos, like I just pay a burrito, like.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Picking up like people's vet bills, oh yeah, yeah yeah,
going down to a vet hospble and hanging out.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Just yeah, and just be like how much how much
do people owe you this month?

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Put the card down there?

Speaker 2 (28:57):
It is there, it is.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
They do stuff like that, you know, school field.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Trips, well, lunches, I know you are, Okay. I got
a more specific second question. How much of that same
billion dollars would you use to bankroll the sequel Dumb
and Dumberer two.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
I'd say probably around zero dollars.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Well, it turns out that movie was bankrolled by Jolo.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
That was also the Malaysian Wealth Fund.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
Really the first time people began to take notice of
Jolo's Hollywood aspirations also was the first time people began
to make concrete legal claims against him.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
You know, just think about like the person who reeled
him in and like when he said yes, I'll do
it and starts transferring money, and like all the people
that that that, like the guy who secured the funding
is telling, oh, yeah, how excited, Like You're never going
to believe how much money I got.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, just how he keeps spiraling. So in this why
it's the summer of twenty thirteen, right just after Leonardo
DiCaprio finished filming The Wolf of Wall Street in the
like autumn of twenty.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Twelve, and that long.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah, So at this point, Joe Lo gets sued by
the producers of Dumb and Dumberer two. See the producers
alleged in their lawsuit against Joel's production company Red Granite,
and I quote Red Granite is s funded with moneies
that include proceeds from offenses against a foreign nation that
involve bribery public officials or misappropriation, theft or embezzlement of

(30:22):
public funds by a public official. Plaintiffs are informed and
believed that public officials in Asia and the Middle East
have taken bribes and or misappropriated, stolen or embezzled funds,
and that those ill gotten funds have been invested in
Red Granite. That pretty much lays it all out right
in the language. So what's the story of this production company,
Red Granite? Fantastic question, Elizabeth. You see, back in twenty ten,

(30:45):
jo Lo and his school friend Reza Aziz, they decided
to get into the film business. Yeah, neither man had
any experience in Alloa.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Why not?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
But in fact Aziz had been a banker in London,
so he thought, Oh, after the financial collapse of two
thousand and eight, he decided to get out of banking.
He's like, I'm going to get into the picture business.
These are very similar, luckily for him. In two thousand
and nine, his stepfather, the newly elected Prime Minister of Malaysia,
formed something called one MDB, which stands for one Malaysia
Development baarhart Or Bank. Now that's the aforementioned sovereign weal

(31:17):
fund I told you about. Yeah, that Jolo conspired along
with his buddy disease and his stepfather to create It
was designed to quote invest in green energy and tourism,
to create high quality jobs for all Malaysians. But really
it was a big piggybank for them to loot. Yeah,
this is where it starts to resemble our more modern
money laundering schemes. You see, the Malaysian government partnered with

(31:39):
a Saudi investment firm called Petro Saudi, and that all
made perfect sense on paper. Since Malaysia is a predominantly
Muslim nation, it's also conservative, and it's an oil producer
just like Saudi Arabia. They're like, we have similar business interests.
So the investment deal was Malaysia and Petro Saudi contributed
two point five billion dollars to the new one MDB

(31:59):
investment fun.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
So this is for green energy.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, because back then that's what Sudi Raby was talking
about the future was going to be green energy. So
sensibly this was for new infrastructure as well as oil
development projects because they're not going to leave their money
maker behind. So meanwhile, behind the scenes, seven hundred million
dollars was directed into a shell company called good Star,
which was a company owned and controlled by Jolo. So

(32:24):
there are all these the mini bribes and payoffs to
Malaysian officials to grease the wheels of their conspiracy. Not
to mention the fees paid international investment banks like Goldman Sachs,
because the investment banks executives helped make this scheme pass
compliance and beat all the regulators and what they would do.
And as you might imagine, with all that graft and
outright theft, it didn't leave much money for the needed

(32:45):
green energy and infrastructure projects or the quote high quality
jobs for all Malaysians. But anyway, back to Red Granted.
In twenty ten, using the money embezzled from one MDB
and dispersed through Low's front company, Good Star, Aziz took
a cut of hundreds of millions of dollars and he
bought himself a production company and he named himself co
founder and CEO. And then to make their name on

(33:07):
the Hollywood scene, Joe Lo did what he did best.
He threw an epic party to announce their new production company,
Red Granite, and in May of twenty eleven, at the
Conns Film Festival, Red Granted announced that they had just
purchased the rights to the Wolf of Wall Street and
they intended to make it with DiCaprio and Scorsese. This
was huge news, yeah, because, as the Hollywood Press reported

(33:28):
it at the time, DiCaprio had finally found someone to
pay for his dream project. He'd been wanting to make
this for years, and the Wolf of Wall Street had
been mired in development, had gone into turnaround. It had
been just been bobbing around Hollywood for a while. It's
always deemed basically too expensive because it had a hard
R rating and it also had one hundred million dollar budget,
so it was a risky investment as far as all

(33:50):
the calculus they use. So back in two thousand and nine,
no one in Hollywood was willing to take that risk
because nobody has any money, right, And all of a sudden,
this guy, when Red Granite comes along and he goes
to cons and announces it, we're making it. We're doing
the Wolf of Wall Street. And to make sure people
had all eyes on the Red Granite party, they flew
in Kanye West to perform. And when you know it,

(34:10):
Forarrell Williams opened for Kanye.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
What does he buzzing around?

Speaker 3 (34:14):
So you got Bradley Cooper and Leonardo DiCaprio dancing in
the crowd right. And later on when Kanye took the stage,
Jamie Fox joined him and together they performed gold Digger,
with Jamie Fox doing his own like you know bit
from the race. So it was quite the spectacles. When
I'm telling quite the party, you would have loved, I love,
I mean hate. In an interview with Collider producer Reza Aziz,

(34:38):
he spoke to the many questions about what an amateur
like him was doing in cons or in Hollywood, and
why some neophyte like him was producing a movie with
one of the greatest living directors, and how he'd managed
to partner with one of the world's most famous, respected
leading men. And obviously the answer was quite simple.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Money money.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
So Aziz called The Wolf of Wall Street a compelling
story about quote a guy who comes from nothing, gets
everything overnight and becomes rich. And in that journey from
nothing to everything, he gets sidetracked with all the drugs,
the hookers and the alcohol, and once he gets to
the top, he gets taken down by the government.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
That's an aspirational story.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
He also promised that once again, quote when you see
the film, it's a good snapshot of what American capitalism
is like kind of an indictment.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
He's like, and that's complimentary.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, so I guess true words were never spoken, right,
But that doesn't answer the question. How did Joe Lo
and Riza Aziz impress Scorsese and DiCaprio enough to work
with them? I said, money, But there's more to it. Okay,
let's take a break and after these messages, we will
get back into the more. Back, Elizabeth, we are back

(36:08):
to enjoying Jo Lo and this crazy tour. S okay, Well,
back to my man, Reza Asease. He had an interview
with Collider, the media outlet that covers like entertainment and uh.
In that interview, he credited his businessman's efficiency for his success,
with the.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
Straight efficiency, all efficiency.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
He said, explaining how he got into the Wolf of
Wall Street and got Marty and Leo to come together
on the project.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yes, he said, and.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
I quote, we bought the script in the book rights
from Warner Brothers and signed Leo on, and then waited
for Marty to finish with Hugo and signed him on.
Once you get those two guys on board, it's a
fast moving train. Right after it's been a great ride
so far.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
At least he like didn't mix his metaphors that if.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
You asked the actual Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belford,
who oh yeah, brought into all this.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
He's got to be making money off of it.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
Oh, he told The Hollywood Reporter in twenty fourteen. A
little bit later quote Leo just refused to let it die.
And after the option expired in twenty eleven, Scott Lambert
called a meeting with everybody, me, DiCaprio's manager, rick Yorn, Leo,
and Alexandra at the Polo Lounge and Leo goes, We're
gonna get Marty, and then I start hearing about Red Granite.

(37:25):
They buy it. They announced it con They said, listen,
we're gonna make Marty an offer he can't refuse. Isn't
that cute?

Speaker 2 (37:32):
I love it there at the Polo Loune.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Right, the Hollywood newbies are gonna make a Godfather reference
about them pressuring Martin scor Sasey into making their film
So Good at the polou.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
At the Polo Anywhere, Pink and everywhere.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
So before filming began for New Year's Eve in twenty twelve,
Joe Lo and Disease Jamie Fox, DiCaprio, and his co
star Jonahill. They all celebrate New Year's together in Australia.
Then they hopped on a private jet and they flew
to Vegas where they promptly celebrated the New Year a
second time. Isn't that amazing, Elizabeth?

Speaker 4 (38:04):
You know, it's the concern for the environment by up,
you know.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
But see, they had enough embezzled money to celebrate New
Years twice. Sure, I mean, if time is money, why
not cheat time?

Speaker 4 (38:14):
But too, you know, at least Leo drives a prius
of course offset all that.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
So in the fall of twenty twelve, the winter of
twenty thirteen, they filming The Wolf of Wall Street, right,
And then when they get done, to commemorate the fact
that they wrapped jo Lo and Reza z Eve, they
gave Leonardo DiCaprio a very personal birthday gift, something that
had eluded him thus far. It was an Oscar. That's right.
Red Granite presented DiCaprio with the Oscar statuette that Marlon

(38:41):
Brando won for on the waterfront.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
So why didn't Marlon Brando have this?

Speaker 3 (38:46):
There's a bunch of interesting stories, backstories both of his Oscars.
He also had another Oscar, the one he got for
The Godfather. Apparently that one also got lost to the
wind and ended up with Charlie Chaplin of all people.
I don't know why this one was. What happened to it?

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Yeah, like did he get.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
So?

Speaker 2 (39:03):
I know he doesn't care, but I'm just curious.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
Like if he I wish I had an answer for it.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
He gave it away to someone else?

Speaker 3 (39:08):
No, I do not know, but I do know that
it cost them six hundred thousand dollars to buy it
from the new owner interested. But what's six hundred grand
between friends? You know?

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Exactly?

Speaker 3 (39:18):
So Joe Low and Rizozis they hoped that that oscar
would bring good luck to Leo and their film. And
you know, if you allow me to momentarily fast forward
to the Oscars. That next following year, DiCaprio was nominated
for Best Actor for The Wolf of Wall Street. The
film was nominated for Best Picture, and sadly neither.

Speaker 4 (39:36):
One you look at how badly everyone knew that Leonardo
DiCaprio really wanted an Oscar and to give him one
that's not his, like exactly, it's like, no, he doesn't
want the statuette, you ding.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
He he wants the award. He wants everyone to he
wants the accolade.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Here's a tiny gold man. You like tiny gold man?
Here you come.

Speaker 4 (39:59):
It's like, well, here, Marlon Brando one one, you had it,
but we bought you.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
Marlon Brando, you can have his. So that makes you happy? Brando,
but he bust up his hair.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Does that make you happy? So back to the gifts
for Leo, because there's others, as I pointed out, and
many of twenty thirteen. A little bit after this, DiCaprio
held this art auction for his environmental charity because he's
into that. Jolo attends the auction, he snaps up two
pieces of art to support his friend's cause.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Of course, of course this sparks this art.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
Buying frenzy for jo Lo. So earlier in March he
bought his very first piece of art, and it was
Jean Michel Bosquiot's collage painting Redman from nineteen eighty two.
He bought it for nine point two million dollars. And
then two days after DiCaprio's art auction in May, jo
Loo bought another Basquiocht dust Heads, the very famous painting. Yeah,
that one cost him forty eight point eight million dollars.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Was it wrecked?

Speaker 3 (40:52):
It was a record at the time for a work
by Bosciot. What yes? And then that June Jolo grabbed
a Rothko that set him back about any one point
five mil. Oh, my god, Elizabeth, he was hooked. He
got the bug.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
I just can't these.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
I can't get my head around the prices and the
fact that like Malaysia's buying these, not knowing.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
For the good jobs in Malaysia.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Green in phasis helping.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Next, Joo picked up works from Picasso, van go Or
van Goch, Monet, Liechtenstein, Warhol, and some more Bosciots. Then
he gave his good friend Leonardo some of his new artworks.
According to the art news outlet Artsy, they reported that
quote Lo had decided to gift a few works, the
nine point two million Bascuiote brought from Namad and the

(41:36):
three point two million Picasso from the Monaco art dealer,
along with a Diane Arbus photo purchased for seven hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, all to one person. The handwritten
note said, dear Leonardo DiCaprio, Happy belated birthday. This gift
is for you, creepy happy belated bird.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Happy dear Leonardo DiCaprio.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
You're so close, Leonardo DiCaprio. I laughed at that one
when I read it, too. So at this point, not
long after this, it's now the start of twenty fourteen,
and Jolo begins to date the Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr. Okay,
and naturally he was quite generous with her, as he
was with all.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
His closes quote unquote date.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
No, I don't know. So for Valentine's Day, Jolo ordered
a diamond necklace worth roughly two million dollars be created
custom for her and then hand delivered to curR. And
for Kerr's birthday, which was just a short time after
Valentine's Day, jo Lo created a nineties themed night and
for that he paid Salt and Peppa and Vanilla Ice
to perform at her birthday party. Oh, Leonardo DiCaprio and

(42:38):
Jamie Fox were at the party.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Jamie's not missing any of this are.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Champagne He's It was apparently an epic night.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Oh sure.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
In my experience, I'm always suspicious of someone who wants
to hire Vanilla Ice to perform. It just seems like
a red flag total nineties night Vanilla Ice and I really.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Disappointed the Salt Pepper, But I mean they got bills.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
They got bills. Yeah, you know. So you know what
Elizabeth I forgot to tell you about was Joe Lo
also gave Kerr an enormous sea through one hundred percent
translucent grand piano around this same time. This piano was
so big that contractors had to build new walls around
the piano once they got it into place in her
Hollywood Hills mansion. So they knocked down walls, they put

(43:21):
in the piano, they built new walls.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
This is just obscene, obs.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
And ridiculous, like what they're doing with the money. I'm like,
you bought a translucent piano?

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Obscene?

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Why have you ever seen one? No?

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Who cares?

Speaker 3 (43:37):
Now you are you wondering? Didn't any of these Hollywood
veterans and supermodels suspect that Jolo was buying their friendship,
their time, their romance. Didn't they see that he was
basically love bombing them?

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, they know, they don't care.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
No. At the time, the only person who seemed to
see Joe Lo for the criminal he was was his
fellow con man, the og Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Baumber. Yeah,
he knew Low was from the word go. For instance,
when he first met Jolo and a Z's he told
his girlfriend, these guys are criminals. Wow, one day meets
the first time he meets you. That's his reed. As

(44:10):
Bellefort later recalled, quote, they flew me to cons for
four or five months after they bought the movie, and
they wanted to announce it in con It hadn't even
gone into production yet, and they threw a launch party.
They must have spent three million dollars on the launch party.
They flew in Kanye West and I said to Anne,
this is a scam. Anybody who does this is stolen money.
You wouldn't spend money you worked for like that.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
That's a really good pointing.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
A read like that, right, drag queens and criminals like
at this, I will listen to.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
It, Jordan, the soothsayers.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Yes. At one point, Bellford turned down half a million
dollars of Low's free money he was throwing around. As
Bellefort tells it, quote, So then the movie goes into
production and I'm spending a lot of time with Leo
and these guys wanted to meet me for dinner and
they wanted me to go to Vegas with Leo. They
offered me money and everything to go to Vegas. I'll
lot of money, like five hundred thousand dollars, which I

(45:03):
really could have used. I was like, I can't do it.
Leo went, Margo went, that's Margot Robbie.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
So why didn't Jordan Belford take the easy money like
everyone else? Fantastic question.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
I know.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
Well, but as we've established he knew better. What Let's
leave it to him to explain. As he put it, quote,
I refuse to go, and because of that, I'm not
mentioned in the articles. I've learned my lesson. It's all
red granite. They tried to offer him money and give
me things. I never even spoke to these guys. I
was like, I don't need these people. I knew it.
It was so obvious.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
So he's like, that's dirty money. I don't want no
part of it. Yeah, he's gonna stay me in the future.
I'm looking out for future joys and brushes.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
He doesn't need to to go back.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
No, he doesn't want to get tired with that brush
of crime again.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Anyway, it was this point obvious to those with eyes
to look, you know, but apparently not obvious to everyone
like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Fox and many others. Okay, let's
take another little break, and after these messages we'll hear
how Jolo was brought low once some other clear eyed
folks take a look at the mountain of evidence of corruption, fraud, embezzlement,

(46:09):
and outright theft.

Speaker 6 (46:11):
Back in two and two. We're back, Elizabeth, we are back.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Sorry, and I know I've hit you with a crazy
cocktail of figures and dates.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
We're talking about all of this money flowing and how
absolutely disgusting and o'b seen it is, the amount of
money spent on ridiculous things. And then I'm remembering back
to Leonardo DiCaprio lecturing everybody on greed. Yes, and he's
you know, people don't know these guys in their take

(47:00):
all this money to them.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
This is why I don't go by anything people say,
only by what they do. So true, it just always
works out because it's so easy to say things. So
it is you. I mean, it's literally to open your
mouth and exhale some air. I mean, that's how much
effort it takes, but to actually have a consistent pattern
of behavior, which is why I really came away from
this story respecting Jordan Belford so much.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
That's where I am right now. I'm thinking, like.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
He turned down the money, he would not take the trips,
he would not be associated.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
With smell right. And now these other guys they know
it too.

Speaker 4 (47:30):
It's deep in their hearts. Yes, and yet they're willing
to overlook it. And why, I don't know. Let's ask
Leo what his favorite topic is this?

Speaker 3 (47:37):
Maybe why you know, at the beginning of the last century,
no one really wanted actors to marry into their families.
They didn't trust actresses. Only recently, only when like movies
that came about, did we start actually talking about actors
in high regard and high esteem. Before that, everyone's like
they do what for money? They lie? I don't trust them.

Speaker 4 (47:54):
But it's like that projection of like, oh, all these
people who are so greedy?

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Ye yeah, oh yeah, of course, Well you know, so
checks projection. Now I got asked, are you ready to
hear how criminal gravity gives a good art tug to Joba? Yes, okay, Well,
the credit for ending this orgy of money, fame parties,
high price gifts. It belongs to two people. One was
a wronged banker and the other was an investigative reporter.

(48:18):
I liked both a right, so, Elizabeth meet the first,
the banker, Xavier Justo. He was a Swiss banker, but
not just any old Swiss banker. He was friends with
the co founder of Petro Saudi Oh, which means he
traveled to rarefied air. For instance. Justo was friends with
Tarek Obayat, who was a well connected Saudi national, really
good friend of his. The two men party together often

(48:40):
in Geneva. This is all during the early aughts, like three,
two thousand and nine, two thousand and eight, like right.
So at that time, according to the Guardian, Justo was
quote running a large financial services firm Thin and four
and the owner of a Geneva night spot named the
Platinum Club.

Speaker 4 (48:56):
I don't trust people who are like oh, I party
with them in filling the blanks. That's like in another country.
It's like people who summer places.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
You don't trust that no lines draw you.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
Know, I just it tells me that everything I need
to know. But party with you know, honestly, even if
it's like, I party with filling the blank person.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
At and it's in your town. I'm like, that's still
you party with them.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
No, you go out and you leave the house to
meet them.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
I mean, who does that? You go out in public?
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 3 (49:32):
You got to be perceived. Yeah. So in two thousand
and six, while he was doing well for himself, Justo
ended up loaning his friend Tarek Obayad thirty thousand dollars.
Not only that, he also let him use a desk
at his financial firm thin In for to start a
new company called Petro Saudi.

Speaker 4 (49:49):
Well that's the other thing is if you're running with
like high up Saudi's.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Gotta say you don't trust it little shady Well, they're
he's not known for doing like the best things. No,
there's interesting stories that you come out of La about
the rental houses that they have, like in Beverly Hills.
Like I used to be a house painter, and let
me just tell you, you got crazy stories down in La
about like the well, all the mini Saudi. There's like
hundreds of Saudi princes. So they come over and they

(50:16):
act like a Saudi prince and they rent these mansions
and we would have to go in and paint to
clean up what had happened. We're like, what happened here,
and they would be like, you don't want to know. Oh, yeah,
it was a big bad oh. So at this point,
one of the co founders of Petro Saudi was a
Saudi prince, Prince Turkey Ben Abdullah and Elizabeth. Since you
hear Ben Abdullah means he was the son of King

(50:37):
Abdullah and Abdullah Ziz. So he was a legit Saudi
prince of the late king King Abdullah, right, right, So
he's like a real legit prince, but he didn't make
it to like a crown prince. So he's like one
of the many out there just spending fortunes doing whatever
they want, buying up you know, soccer teams, f one clubs,
night clubs in Vegas. They're just on a buying spree
at this point in time, right.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
There have to be some who are doing good, and
sure people always hear about.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
The yes, but on this show the other one. So
Justin gets brought into this social circle of the Saudi
prince and in two thousand and nine, oh by Ed
his friend. He was on a three hundred foot mega
yacht that's docked off the coast of Monaco, and on
board with him are jo Loo, Prince Turkey, and the
newly elected Prime Minister Najeb of Malaysia. Yeah, so the

(51:27):
men discuss their business investment opportunities, ways for the two
oil rich nations to investor Petro dollars. They told you
about that earlier. And by this point Jolo and the
Prime Minister they have created the wealth fund, the one MDB,
and so the Prime Minister was the chairman of the
board of that. Jolo was an unofficial advisor. But in
that one business meeting on the super yacht, this spurred

(51:47):
a wave of business deals, right, just a bunch of
stuff followed. So months after the meeting, Prime Minister Naseeb
travels to Saudi Arabia and there he concludes some of
the deals. He signs a major deal between Malaysia and
Saudi Arabia, the two nations. They announced this new joint
venture worth two point five billion dollars. The men claim
that Petro Saudi and one MDB would quote make strategic

(52:10):
investments in high impact projects. That's some empty words.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
Nothing.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
Petro Saudi pumps one point five billion into the partnership,
one MDB adds a billion of theirs, actually the Malaysian
people's money, and Elizabeth, you want to guess what happened next, No,
you don't have to because you already know. According to
the Department of Justices two hundred and fifty one page
criminal complaint and quotes, Low and his associates cost seven

(52:35):
hundred million of that one billion that was to be
invested in the joint venture to be sent to an
account at RBS Coots Bank and Zurich held in the
name of good Star Limited. That was the money I
told you about.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Earlier, thered million, right.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
So then later on, once again, according to the DOJ,
approximately three hundred and thirty million in additional funds were
wired at the direction of one MDB officials to the
good Star account. So they got a cool billion dollars
to play with. Now, as we hear over and over again,
it's not exactly easy to send that kind of money around, right,
because it generates paper trails. And then also you have

(53:09):
got compliance officers at international banks and they have to
personally sign off on such large transfers away, right, But
they can be got around.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Apparently everyone can.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Because according to the DOJ, one MDB officials represented, including
to Deutsche Bank in Malaysia, the Good Star was a
wholly owned subsidiary of Petro Saudi. This was not true.
According to banking records, Good Star was a company controlled
by Low and Low was also the Good Star accounts,
a beneficial owner and sole authorized signatory. At the time,
Lowe was a twenty nine year old with no official

(53:42):
position with a one MDB or Petro Saudi. So just
give a billion dollars to our unofficial advisor. So to
get around bank regulators and compliance officers, Joel relied on
a network of business associates. This still managed to set
off alarm bells amongst the international bankers. Talk was going
back bouncing around the globe right and as the DOJ

(54:03):
describes it. Quote in an email dated September twenty eighth,
two thousand and nine, a banker at BSI and Lugano wrote,
I don't like the transaction at all, in particular the
role and involvement of mister Low Tayak Joe looks and
feels very suspicious to me. The joint venture then approached
JP Morgan Swiss about opening an account without disclosing the

(54:23):
same details about the structure of the investment. The joint
venture open an account at JP Morgan Swiss on or
about September thirtieth, two thousand and nine. So basically, they
skirted money laundering and embezzlement concerns by going bank shopping.
They found a bank that would not look too closely,
and JP Morgan Swiss was like, that's us man, we
like to it. So now, at one point, when bank

(54:46):
folks were asking pointed questions about the missing funds and
loan repayment schedules, one unnamed Saudi official he claimed in
a letter two bank regulators that the alleged financial improprieties
quote should not in any event be construed as an
active corruption, since this is against the practice of Islam
and I personally do not encourage such practices in any

(55:07):
matter whatsoever. This is merely a personal token of appreciation
of Lowe's good work in promoting in the Middle East.
So this was a tip. They're like, this is a
tip man, billion dollars. Good guy's good. Yeah, kid's good.
Twenty nine year old if you were partied with him.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Yeah, he's really living the tenants of this line.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
So now skip forward to twenty fifteen, a short six
years later. By then, rumors had been building. Everybody, No,
and you can only write so many letters of like
he's done good work promoting and bus Remember there's that
Swiss banker Justo who I mentioned earlier. Well, you see,
back in two thousand and nine, Xavier Justo had agreed
to come to work for Oby Ed at Petra Saudi.

(55:45):
The friend he loaned the thirty grand too. Yeah, and
then for a couple of years he watched as this
Saudi national who Justo once called a little brother, he
made millions upon billions upon billions for himself and his
business partners with the Petro Saudi one mdbn laundering scheme.
And then, according to Justo, his friend's behavior changed. Soon
enough they would get into rageful fights. Oh yeah, yeah,

(56:09):
like lots of like you know, shouting and fighting. Right, So,
by March of twenty eleven, Justo opts to step away
from Petro Saudi. Yeah, that took some negotiations, but in
the end Petro Saudi agreed to a severance package with Justo.
The company would pay him six point five million Swiss francs.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Okay, just to bounce right.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
But then after they came to terms. Petro Saudi was like,
you know what, I don't like that deal, so the
informed Justo will actually give you four million Swiss francs
oh right. Trouble was, Justo still had access to the
Petro Saudi servers, so he downloaded all of the data
he could and he hung on to it, waiting for
the right moment to get his revenge. Finally, of September

(56:49):
twenty thirteen, Justo decided it was time to get his
revenge and get the money owed to him, so he
sends an email to Petro Saudi. He tells him I
got gigabytes of evidence of criminal conspiracy to embezzlem billions,
so you're gonna pay me my money.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
This led to get this Elizabeth a furious exchange of emails.
They went back and forth, insulting each other, threatening each other.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
I love email site totally.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
At one point, a rep from Petro Saudi warrened Justo,
that quote troubles me so much. Is the way in
which I see this situation ending with the destruction of you.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
In an email.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
Yes, so that torret that pushed Justo to share what
he knew and all the data he had he chose
to go to an intrepid environmental reporter. Uh, Elizabeth, meet
the second person, Claire Rooecastle Brown.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Hello.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Normally she'd be the sort of person that Leonardo DiCaprio
would like and esteem and invite to a charity auction. Right,
A good point. And she's a retired British journalist. Would
move back to Malaysia, where she'd spent the early years
of her life. She wanted to return to that tropical existence.
And you know, even though she missed London, she was like,
I really miss Malaysia. So when she gets back to Malaysia,

(58:04):
she finds that it's not what she remembers. There's an
active bit of deforestation going. She's like, you're savaging the environment,
this beautiful place, this oasis. So as a retired journalist,
you know, she does what she does best. She puts
her journalism hat back on. She starts calling attention to
the issue. So she starts a blog. She starts reporting
on the corruption and the maufeza she finds, and she
keeps digging and digging until she finally reaches the Prime

(58:26):
Minister of Malaysia.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
She's just gonna blog it out.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
She's like this goes right to the top. In an
interview with Fraud Magazine, which by the way, we need
a subscription to magazine. Rucastle Brown fraud Magazine. I think
it's a British outlet, they said, Ruecastle Brown told Fraud Magazine,
and I quote, I was following a strand that concerned
me about what was going on and how our global

(58:49):
systems were being managed to the enormous disadvantage of people
in the environment and what appeared to be a very
dodgy practice. Of course, what I found is every time
I uncovered the correct I was just getting higher and higher.
The reason why nothing was being done about any of
these appalling actions was because the corruption went right to
the top. So Ok. Thanks to her independent diligence, people

(59:12):
began to leak info to her for her reporting, and
one of those people was Xavier Justo, who had plenty
of avacs to share with the investigative reporter. There went
right to the top.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
He's got thumb drives for days, right, I.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Mean literal days. But you know what, Elizabeth, rather let
me tell you more about this.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Close your eyes.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
I want you to picture it. It's afternoon in Malaysia
and you are in Kuala Lumpur. In your apartment, out
on the balcony, working on your laptop, you absent mindedly
fan the perspiration blooming on your shoulders and arms and
gathering in the pits of your elbows. You, Elizabeth, are

(59:55):
investigative reporter Claire Rucastle Brown and you're checking your email.
The city sounds bubble up to where you were seated
on the balcony, and iced tea sweats through a glass
on the table next to your open laptop. You scan
read an email from a source about some background info
on an upcoming interview. After that, there's an email from
your editor about your last submitted article. It's a disagreement

(01:00:18):
about whether a person moves towards something, or if a
person moves towards something with or without an S. On
the end, the editor is willing to admit you were
both right. There is no right answer. It's a matter
of taste. You smile to yourself and close the email.
You don't need to respond to that one right now.
You enjoy a long, slow sip of the still ice
cold iced tea, and then you move on to the

(01:00:41):
last email, the final one you have to clear before
you're back to in box zero. You click on the
email and you begin to read. You take another sip
of iced tea, but you stop. Suddenly, you nearly choke
on the iced tea, until finally you blow a spit
take across your laptop. It spouts like the spray of
a breaching killer whale. After you regain your breath and

(01:01:02):
dab up the iced t you just spit on your laptop.
You go back to the email and read it again,
this time knowing what's coming. You don't do a second
spit take, but you do gold like a cartoon character
in a haunted house. The email you see is from
a Swiss banker who says he possesses a stolen cash
of emails and financial reports and data that altogether would

(01:01:25):
paint a damning picture of the Malaysian Prime Minister, a
Saudi prince, the firm Petro Saudi and the wealth fund
one MDB and their multi billion dollar scheme for high finance,
money laundering and outright theft. You read further and the
email lists names, key figures, dates, amounts, deals made, partnerships

(01:01:46):
forged and protected by a shield of shell companies. It's
all there, and it's all convincing. The whole world goes quiet,
The city sounds fade away, the birds and the buzz
of insects disappears from your ears intil all that's left
is the sound of your heart beat, and then a
soft explosion, like a bomb just detonated inside your skull.

(01:02:08):
It's followed by what sounds like a fuzzy underwater echo
of the blast, which fades away as the birds and
insects and the sounds of the city all rushing back
and return. Just like that. You know this is a
major world changing story. You type out a quick response
to your new source. Your fingers shake with that electric
tingle of excitement thrilling through your body. You decide to

(01:02:29):
keep it grief. You finish the email and end it
by saying how much you look forward to learning more
and seeing what data and evidence the source has. If
you handle this one right, this story could be the
biggest story of your life. Elizabeth. This is how Claire
Rucastle Brown, and a pissed off banker came together to
bring down a multi billion dollar crimes Free. Now, it

(01:02:53):
did take some work to earn Justo's trust, and there
was his money to consider. Justo was gonna get paid.
He was like, I'm here for the money. He demanded
two million American for the full story if he would
trade the evidence, the data, the cash of emails. But
he was going to get paid.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
He get paid for it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
That took some time to arrange, but they managed to
arrange the two million dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
Once they had a promise to pay him in place,
Justo trusted Rucastle Brown and he hands her the stolen
cash of emails and he gives her key insights into
the whole sprawling money laundering scheme. And then on February
twenty eighth, twenty fifteen, Rucastle Brown publishes her first story
that exposes the one MDB billion dollar robbery. She titles

(01:03:34):
her article Heist of the Century.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
And this is on her blog.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
Yeah, so the very next day the world changes. The
sovereign wealth fund one MDB. They denounced the story. It
was all around the world. They claim it's fraudulent. The
well fund reports it's It not only recouped the initial investment,
but it also earned a tidy reported profit of four
hundred and eighty eight million dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Okay, Elizabeth, none of that was true.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
You can't imagine That led to The New York Times
asking some questions about Joe Lo, Reza Z's, and their
time in Hollywood because the knew they were connected to
all of this. In February twenty fifteen, The Times reported
that reza Z's insisted to them that there's no Malaysian money.
That's a quote that meant no Sole and Ken exactly.
It was being used to operate Red Granite or to

(01:04:19):
pay for its film productions. Elizabeth, this too was a lie. Yeah,
Suddenly everyone knew that DiCaprio and Jamie Fox and the
whole gangs. What they all seem to miss when they
were hanging out with Joe Lo is that he is
a movie level villain.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Yes, exist.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
So in July twenty fifteen, The Wall Street Journal publishes
an in depth investigation into Low A Z's read granted
one MDB Petro Saudi, tying the whole scheme together. Then
the Department of Justice launched its investigation, which resulted in
that two hundred and fifty one page complaint that lays
out the whole sordid affair. Now, as part of the
DOJ's indictment of Low, the FEDS also filed an asset forfeiture.

(01:04:59):
That meant lee Ardo DiCaprio, he lost his Basquiete painting,
he lost his Picasso, he lost his Marlon Brando Oscar.
They were all seized by the government.

Speaker 4 (01:05:08):
Yes, now I'm wondering. You said that like Leo had
sold a painting at his auction.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
He had a charity auction for an environmental group. So
people are basically selling. He was just raising money from
the auction.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
I see. And then he but he got one of
those paintings.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
Jolo bought one for him.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Interesting, Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
He's like here you go, buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Now, Jolo, by the way, he gets indicted by the
DOJ in Absentia and to this day, twenty twenty six,
he remains on the LAMB. No rumors and evidence suggested
he's hiding out in China since they have no extradition
treaty with either America or Malaysia. Yeah, there was some
talk a while ago that Malaysia would trade some deal
making with China if they could get their hands on Jolo,

(01:05:50):
but that did not occur.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
So interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
Now Jolo's friend stepdad, Riza Aziza's stepdad, the now former
Prime Minister of Malaysia. His assets were seized. He was
an easy target. He couldn't fast enough, and he was
in prison for fifteen years for his part in the scandal.
So he saw prison time. And I guess I should
mention Prakazel Michelle otherwise known as Praz from the fujis

(01:06:16):
the one who's not white left Jean or Lauren Hill. Well,
you see, there was a second Department of Justice complaint
against Jolo, not the first that he was part of
because he Praz got caught trying to bribe the first
Trump administration to drop the charges against Jolo. Yes, what so?
According to the DOJ, Praz was part of a criminal

(01:06:38):
conspiracy to wire and distribute millions to lobby against Jolo's
prosecution under Trump. One turns out Praz worked with Elliott Brody,
one of President Trump's campaign fundraisers. Yes, the kind of
guy who focuses on big donors. Right. Together, these two
established bank accounts to distribute funds to lobby the Trump

(01:06:59):
administrator to kill the DOJ investigation. That one did go
to trial, and poor Praz has now been sentenced to
fourteen years in federal prison. What that of all the
folks involved. Praz from the Fujis catches prison time. It
just doesn't seem fair. I mean, I'm not saying excusing
what he did, but he doesn't fair all the people

(01:07:20):
to catch prison time. It's praz from.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
The It is fourteen years, fourteen years.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
In federal prison. I mean they're low security but still
federal prison. Yes, and get much less time. Yah, don't
get me started. Obviously, one day, Joe Low's story will
make a very fine movie. Yes, it may be a
better film than Wolf of Wall Street.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
But who's going to start it?

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
I know I he could win an Oscar. I mean,
it has all the elements to be a great drama.
The question is is, though, who would you cast to
play Leonardardo DiCaprio, Does he play himself? Who do you
cast to play Paris Hilton or Martin Scorsese? Do you
get to play Marshy.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Now Timothy Salome there.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
I like that call. As far as we know, DiCaprio
did nothing criminal. I want to be very clear about that.
In many ways he got played, whether knowingly or not.
DiCaprio casually ambetted this massive fraud because he wanted to
make his dream project. In the wake of this multi
billion dollar legal scandal, Discaprio has said very little to
nothing at all. The FEDS did, though, ask the actor

(01:08:19):
to secretly testify before a grand jury. Yeah, he did
comply with that, but since it was before a grand jury,
we don't know all what was said. In a prepared
statement from his REPS, DiCaprio said of Jolo and his
whole involvement quote, both mister DiCaprio and the Leonardo DiCaprio
Foundation continue to be entirely supportive of all efforts to
assure that justice is done in this matter. Mister DiCaprio

(01:08:40):
is grateful for the lead and the instruction of the
government on how to accomplish this unreal So it's telling
that the most honorable person in this whale of a
tale is a convicted criminal. Yes, but Jordan Belfort called
it from the jump. He saw it, didn't pretend it
was something else, didn't try to benefit from it. As
Bellefort said, they tried to offer me money and give
me things. I was like, I don't need these people.

(01:09:03):
That's the spirit you should. No one rich needed them, right,
But people found ways to use Jolo, which only furthered
his crime. So essentially their own designs and greed and
desires capitulated to his and and furthered them. So basically
's greed inspired greed and others. And it was like

(01:09:25):
it was like an STI, only it was a criminal
infection just bouncing around Hollywood. So Elizabeth, what's our ridiculous
takeaway here?

Speaker 6 (01:09:32):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Man?

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
You know the intoxic I mean, it's an age old
the intoxicating quality of money and wealth, right, but seeing
it kind of all just laid out like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
That is just disgusting. The numbers you're throwing around.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
And what they did with it, like an invisible piano.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Mean, that's what you want.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
I mean, we already know that modern art is money
launching basically, so you see all that, and like you
see these eye watering rices that things go for. But
just like the throwing money around. And I'm really struck
by your friend's story of him forcing the staff into
the pool.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
And being satisfied with the paid smiles.

Speaker 4 (01:10:14):
Paid smiles, and you know, you think about it, it's
like you're working your staff at a party at a
rooftop bar in Vegas. You know, you have like a
uniform that you wear, so you've got like the shoes
that you wear to work. Well, now you know, I
don't know if they were able to kick their shoes off,
but all these things that like they have to demean themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Yeah, is entertainment.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
A casino pool like rooftop pool party waitress and you've
just now hopped into a pool and splashing around. I mean,
I feel bad for them, But when I say this,
I think it's pitiful. I mean Jolo that he could
be satisfied by all those fake smiles and act like
he's really winning it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Like, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):
He took all these form allagi people's money just to
get some kind of feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
That's pitiful, right, So there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
That's mine, and thank you for asking. Of course, anytime
in the movie for a talkback, watch this one down,
produce a d what you got for us? I got
a good one for you. Oh God, I.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Love get.

Speaker 5 (01:11:19):
Hi's Aaron, Hi Elizabeth. I just wanted to say thank
you for keeping me well entertained on countless nights spent
on my cannabis farm. It's fun listening to a crime
podcast while I do things that would be considered in
many states, but not the one that I live in,
to be quite criminal. Indeed, again, thanks for keeping me

(01:11:41):
well entertained. I hope y'all have a lovely evening evening
and have a nice dinner.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
Oh, thank you so lovely.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
See everyone what a cannabis farmer is.

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
It's beautiful, just making joy and wishing people happy day exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
I'm glad we can keep you company.

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
Thank you as always. You can find us online if
you'd like more Ridiculous Crime on Instagram we have pictures
there images of everything we're talking about. And on Blue
Sky you can go over there and check us out
as well. It's Ridiculous Crime. Also, we have our account
Ridiculous Crime Pod on YouTube. Go check that if you
like watching and listening to your podcast. We have our
website ridiculous Crime dot com which has a bunch of

(01:12:19):
merch and fun stuff for you to check out. Go there.
It is quite a kick. And also the iHeart app
download leave a talkback. We'd love to hear your voice here.
Maybe you'd like to.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Hear your voice here, so do it, do it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:32):
Oh. Also, we have our email email Ridiculous Crime at
gmail dot com and please start your email. Dear producer day.
We appreciate you, thank you for listening, and we will
catch you next Crime Ridiculous Crime. It's hosted by Elizabeth
Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by Leonardo DiCaprio's

(01:12:54):
auctioneer to the stars, Dave Ridiculous assistant is Jamie Foxx's
piano player, Tarry Maldonado. Fall research is by Miranda Kerr's
piano cleaners, Marisa Brown and Jabari Davis. Our theme song
is by Thomas Lee and Travis Stutton. The host wardrobe
provided by Botany five hundred producer. Dave's wardrobe provided by

(01:13:15):
Mister Guy of Beverly Hills. Guest hair and makeup by
Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Hey, how
did you meet? Jo Lo Boland and Noel oh Man.
I was at this great pool party.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Brown CUI say it one more time?

Speaker 4 (01:13:40):
curR.

Speaker 1 (01:13:42):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more Podcasts.
My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Zaron Burnett

Elizabeth Dutton

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Dateline NBC

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