Leonardo DiCaprio’s ties with Malaysian financier turned fugitive, Jho Low, have been detailed in new FBI documents.
According to a report on Bloomberg, DiCaprio was interviewed as a potential witness by the FBI in 2018 about his relationship with Low, who is accused of embezzling $4.5billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhard (1MDB).
DiCaprio is said to have first met Low at a New York nightclub in 2010 and went on to establish a close relationship.
Low is said to have showered the actor with gifts – including a first edition of The Great Gatsby and Marlon Brando’s Oscar for On The Waterfront – and helped finance 2013 film The Wolf Of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring DiCaprio.
“I was working for him… and that business also translates into being social,” DiCaprio told a grand jury, according to the report. “And so we saw each other more, and there was more interaction.”
According to the FBI documents, Low called DiCaprio “L-Dogg”. They also discussed a $1billion fund for future projects, along with a Warner Bros. theme park in Asia featuring rides based on the actor’s movies.
The actor said he started to distance himself from Low when news of his alleged crimes emerged in 2015. According to a 2018 New York Times report, DiCaprio forfeited Low’s gifts under a government order seizing all of Low’s property in the US.
DiCaprio wasn’t the only celebrity to be interviewed by the FBI in connection to Low. According to the report, Kim Kardashian was also questioned by authorities, who recalled that she once stayed up till 5am in a Las Vegas casino with Low.
Low, who is believed to be hiding away in China from international authorities, was charged in 2021 by the US Department Of Justice with back-channel lobbying for allegedly trying to influence the government into dropping its investigation against him and 1MDB.
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