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Billion Dollar Whale

The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World

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Billion Dollar Whale

By: Bradley Hope, Tom Wright
Narrated by: Will Collyer
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About this listen

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

Now a #1 international bestseller, 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 U.S. 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. Banks & Banking Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions Corruption & Misconduct Crime Politics & Government True Crime White Collar & Corporate Crime Business Wall Street Exciting White Collar Crime

Critic Reviews

A Fortune magazine Best Book of 2018
A Financial Times Best Book of 2018
"As Bad Blood is to biotech, Billion Dollar Whale is to international finance... a wonderful read... Thrilling."—Bill Gates
"What a blast to read! A true life thriller that reads like a Hollywood movie, Billion Dollar Whale traces the exploits of the most mercurial, mysterious big player in history. Jho Low is Gatsby with twice the bank account and ten times the ambition, and the stories surrounding his exploits leap right off the page!"—Ben Mezrich, NewYork Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and BringingDown The House
"If you like global intrigue, financial crime, wealth porn, and absurdity, Billion Dollar Whale, by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, is for you.... It almost seems made up. Still, anyone who has followed the news out of Malaysia will know that the story is all too real."—The New Yorker
"Wright and Hope deliver a scintillating and prodigiously reported tale of a globe-spanning modern Gatsby and his audacious fraud."—Jesse Eisinger,Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for ProPublica and author of TheChickenshit Club
"This story of a Wharton graduate who carried out the $5 billion swindle known as 1MDB offers a textbook case of financial fraud in the modern age."—New York Times
"An incredible story.... If you need some billionaires to despise--look no further than these charlatans."—Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit
"Just finished reading Billion Dollar Whale and was blown away. I thought I had seen it all with Russian kleptocracy, but the story of the money stolen in Malaysia in 1MDB and all the enthusiastic Western enablers was unbelievable."
—Bill Browder, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Notice
"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 YorkTimes bestselling author of Black Edge
"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
"An amazing tale of greed.... juicy and entertaining."—Library Journal (starred review)
"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)
All stars
Most relevant
Great listen, unbelievable amount of greed and corruption. Hopefully Loh will be behind bars soon.

Great listen

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Sssffsak as t the sad jus so jacks us fan f ex a as did ex


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And wit it e ex

I werrtz🌹😐😐😐😐🍺🍺🍺🇦🇺🇦🇺

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fast-paced, without extensive descriptions nor boring, unrelated details, great real story of a white-collar crime

great story

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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.

Amazing Story

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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.

Amazing, remarkable tale of hoodwinkery and theft

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