Low Taek Jho is being hunted by governments around the globe for his role in the $4.5 billion looting of Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB.
Jho Low, as he’s often called, is a 36-year-old Malaysian who’s sought by U.S., Swiss, Singapore, and Malaysian authorities.
Last month, the Malaysian government issued a warrant for his arrest and cancelled his passport.
Low (pictured above from his Instagram account) may be traveling on a passport from the Caribbean islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Singapore Straits Times said.
According to the South China Morning Post, Interpol issued a red notice for Low’s arrest in 2016 at Singapore’s request.
In Asia, he’s now the most famous white collar fugitive. News outlets in Singapore and Hong Kong speculate about Low’s whereabouts and report alleged sightings around the world.
Last week, the Straits Times wondered if he had fled Macau for mainland China after Malaysian police tried to send a team to the former Portuguese territory.
China denies he’s there.
Low has also supposedly been seen in Phuket, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Shanghai since the 1MDB scandal broke.
Wherever Low is, traveling has gotten trickier.
His $250 million yacht, Equanimity, was seized in Bali earlier this year. In April, U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer ruled that the yacht could be sailed from Indonesia to the United States. The DOJ filed a forfeiture order on the yacht in 2017.
Earlier this month Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak was arrested in Kuala Lumpur in connection with the 1MDB scandal.
Low has denied breaking any laws and said he had an informal consulting role at 1MDB.
____
Harry Cassin is the managing editor of the FCPA Blog.
1 Comment
If Low has a Saint Kitts and Nevis passport, what would it take for Saint Kitts and Nevis to revoke that one? I assume he likely obtained it through the citizenship-by-investment program, and it sounds like he's hanging out somewhere other than the Caribbean in places that don't require a visa, so it would seem to me the next step towards catching him would be to get his other passport revoked.
Comments are closed for this article!