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Billion Dollar Whale

By: Bradley Hope, Tom Wright
Narrated by: Will Collyer
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Publisher's Summary

Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this "thrilling" (Bill Gates) New York Times best seller exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century" (Axios).

Now a number-one international best seller, Billion Dollar Whale is "an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale" (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history.

In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude—one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund—right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street.

By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the US Department of Justice continued its investigation. Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Bradley Hope and Tom Wright (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"The story of a massive international financial scandal.... As the authors amply prove, the scandal reaches far beyond Low. To succeed, he relied on the naivete, greed, and generally immoral conduct of huge banks as well as corrupt governments." (Kirkus)

"Even the most skilled fiction writer would have trouble conjuring the corrupt and colorful protagonist of Billion Dollar Whale. Bradley Hope and Tom Wright's gripping portrait of Jho Low and his enablers throughout the global financial system will both fascinate and enrage you." (Sheelah Kolhatkar, staff writer at The New Yorker and New York Times best-selling author of Black Edge)

"Wright and Hope transform their investigation of a mind-boggling financial fraud into a nonfiction thriller.... This is an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

What listeners say about Billion Dollar Whale

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Amazing Story

Fascinating story and very well written. Couldn’t stop listening to it. Recommend anyone in business to listen to it as a warning case study.

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Amazing, remarkable tale of hoodwinkery and theft

Can't wait for this to come out as a 4-part Netflix docuseries - I'll pay to watch it. Low was a global-level scammer and thief, and as far as I know, he's still out there conniving and planning his next heist. You have to read this in all its thorough, greedy detail to believe it. Even then you sometimes will think... "Surely not - surely the ARAB KINGS and PRESIDENTS OF NATIONS won't be fooled..." but yes, they are fooled to the tune of millions. Such wasteful extravagance as had never been seen before - seriously. Engrossing story from a master crook.

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Financial crime isn’t just fictional wolf of Wall Street!!!!!!

Absolutely well written and really well researched book. I will highly recommend it. A must read to see how crime of 21st century was taken place and how powerful people get away with it most of the times.

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Good book but narrator needs to learn how to pronounce words better

Narrator needs to learn how to pronounce some non-English words better. Not saying they have to sound like a native or lose the North American accent but at least ask someone to write the words out phonetically.

For example, narrator completely butchers the word Malay. It’s not even a proper non-English word, it’s a word British people used to describe the local Melayu people.

Otherwise good book.

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Great listen

Great listen, unbelievable amount of greed and corruption. Hopefully Loh will be behind bars soon.

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Loved it!

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, the writers and narrators have done a superb job of illustrating the story! Well done!

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