Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World

Heists. There’s nothing new about financial fraud, greed and hubris, but the scale of it all provides quite a story in a book by Wall Street Journal reporters Tom Wright and Bradley Hope titled, Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World. You may have read their reporting about the Malaysia kleptocracy and the 1MBD scandal involving Goldman Sachs. The book tells us about a young Wharton graduate, Jho Low who knew how to game the system, heisted a fortune for himself and others, at least $4.5 billion, and got lots of senior executives to be swayed by his manipulation. While there’s an entertaining aspect to this story if your money is not at stake, here’s a scary takeaway (p.85): “His was a scheme for the twenty-first century, a truly global endeavor that produced nothing – a shift of cash from a poorly controlled state fund in the developing world, diverting it into the opaque corners of an underpoliced financial system that’s all but broken.” The barn door may still be open. Rating: Five-star (I love it) Click here to purchase Billion Dollar Whale from amazon.com.