You Won’t Believe How The True Story Of How Wolf Of Wall Street Film Was Funded

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The wolf of wall street is an outrageous film with Leonardo Dicaprio that is based off a true story. The true story showcases a man by the name of Jordan Belfort who found a loophole in the market of ‘selling stocks’ to everyday Americans. He promised massive gains and lots of riches knowing full well that he was selling stocks that were going to rob the people he was selling while lining his pockets.

He created a company of agents who sold these stocks to everyday Americans and created a net worth of over $2 billion dollars for him at one point, all before it came crashing down. The film is an outrageous film, very vile and grotesque and shows the dark side of greed.

Leonardo Dicaprio does what he does best in the film, he acts. He plays Jordan Belfort, the man who started Stratton Oakmont, the company that sold these penny stocks posing as blue chip stocks.

This is all documented in the film as Leonardo plays the role of Jordan Belfort. But the story that isn’t told, the even crazier true story behind the film Wolf Of Wall Street is what we’re exploring today. How did the Wolf Of Wall Street Come To Life in the first place? Like all films, it needed funding. And the Wolf of Wall Street having Dicaprio as the lead actor was not cheap.

The film cost more than $100 million and was paid for by Jho Low

Jho Low? Who might that be? He is known as the man who ‘robbed an entire country’ and such massive claims are attached to him, such has ‘he had more spending power than anyone on earth’ at one point. He stole billions of dollars from a country. One of the biggest cases ever. Because of his fame and power he got on the radar of some big names, which eventually led him to becoming friends with Leonardo Dicaprio.

For whatever reason, Leonardo didn’t wonder or ask where his wealth came from. The crazy thing is, Jho Low built a reputation as one of the top spenders in casinos, night clubs and spent millions of dollars on private planes, mansions and more.

Who is Jho Low? Get Ready For A Crazy Rabbit Hole..

Jho Low was born on a small Malaysian island and as a child he grew up in a wealthy home. His family was in the millionaire status, but the kids he went to school with were children of parents of billionaires, so in that environment he didn’t feel so wealthy, even though his family was.

Jho Low sensed an opportunity as a young kid to use these wealthy connections to benefit his life. He invited his wealthy classmates to Malaysia and borrowed a 160 foot yacht from a family friend and brought them out on the yacht. He pretended it was his own yacht. He actually changed the family pictures aboard the 160 foot yacht to pictures of his family and him so that his friends would believe it was his families boat. He was desperately seeking to fit in and be in the upper echelons of society, even from a young age, even if it mean’t lying.

He even went so far as to pretend to be a part of a royal family and used this ploy to gain access to a VIP area of a nightclub while underage. His friends and him got in and partied next to famous athletes and supermodels. He learned from a young age that the appearance of prestige and power could take you far in life. You didn’t necessarily have to have it, you could quite literally ‘fake it and get it’ without even ‘making it’ to the top.

A short while after graduating high school Jho Low went to Wharton University in the US as he continued to network and ‘build his personal brand’ in his eyes, even though dishonesty was quite literally embedded in his DNA at this point.

He did this by continuously connected with high profile people as well as writing articles on stocks for the Wharton newspaper. However, it was later found out that he was simply copying reports from Wall Street analysts and pretending that they were his own. Not the most honest move, once again. Somehow, nobody noticed. During this time he developed a great reputation as a great stock picker.

Rumors were building that he was a prince of Malaysia, and he sought out relationships with the wealthiest people at Wharton University and intentionally built friendships with them.

He later threw a party for his high profile friends and spent a crazy amount of money (undisclosed) on this event but only payed the down payment for the venue. The party happened and it build his name and his status even further in the eyes of the people in his network. This led to further rumors and perspectives of his status in society. Meanwhile, he was delaying to pay this club for months the money owed for the event and later negotiated a massive discount for the event. None of his attendee’s knew this at the time.

Jho Low Was Building A Reputation

His reputation was building and he used lies and deception to his advantage. He realized that it’s not what you know but more about who you know. This led him to connect with some middle eastern friends that connected him to wealthy families in the middle east including those that ran Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund. This is a holding copmany that currently has $159 billion in assets under management. This pool of money is controlled by the nations Government. They use these funds to diversify their money into other investments beyond what the country is mainly involved in, which in this case was oil.

After networking around the Middle East, Jho Low set up his own fund called the Wynton group. He told friends he named it this because he was going to ‘win tons’ of money. He decided to broker deals between middle eastern investors and his Malaysian ‘business opportunities’ back home.

All of his networking with wealthy elites was about to start paying off in a huge way. He got expensive office space in Malaysia and started putting on the appearance of a fund that was worth participating in.

Jho Low then used a connection from his childhood to connect to a man who became the next Prime Minister in Malaysia. He built trust with the Prime Minister by buying his wife expensive jewelry, paying for his daughters college tuition and more. By the time the man became a powerful prime minister, Jho Low had his ear and proposed that they build a soverign wealth fund similar to what they had in Abu Dhabi.

This could then be used to invest Malaysian funds all over the world, similar to the fund in Abu Dhabi that he had been exposed to on his trip to the middle east. The prime minister agreed and they set up the 1MDB fund which stood for 1 Malaysia Development Berhad. Officially, this fund was supposed to develop the countries economy and help Malaysia.

Jho Low explained that if he was put in front of this fund to run it, he could contiuously back him in his political career. To the prime minister, he felt like it was a win-win because Jho Low actually helped the prime minister get elected in the first place.

In a very short period of time he had arranged a deal with the Saudi’s in an oil deal that was worth $1 billion dollars. He made it seem like he was investing $1 billion dollars but because he oversaw the funds he only invested $300 million and diverted $700 million dollars to a Swiss bank account that he happened to control. The $700 million went to a company called Goodstar, and he claimed this was all a part of the Saudi deal, even though it wasn’t.

Obviously, this wasn’t true. His company was a shell company that was set up to line his pockets. This was his first massive fraud and the first $700 million dollars stolen from the Malaysian people.

From an early age, Jho Low had developed powerful connections and ecomonic leverage that had led up to the point where he could connect these dots and plan his massive theft.

But Now, Jho Low Had Money & Power

He had taken $700 million, but unfortunately this was just the beginning. This money was simply sitting in a bank account. For Jho Low, this money was essentially his, available to spend. With this money he went on a spending spree of yachts, sports cars and mansions. He was reported to spend $85 million in less than a year. Non-stop partying and networking. He realized he could use that money to get even closer to the rich and famous.

He was paying celebrities $100,000 to simply attend his parties. He’d lose $1 million in a game of poker and didn’t even care. He used to fantasize about Paris Hilton, but now he was haning out with her. He’d give out super expensive gifts, including a ferrari to Kim Kardashian for her wedding.

One party he threw felt like a major concert with Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Kanye West, Bradley Cooper, Robert Deniro and more. This night alone was rumored to cost 10’s of millions of dollars. Most of the celebrities were being paid to be there.

Jho Low threw amazing parties, with this his status grew. This attracted more rich and famous people into his life. He got into a bidding war one time and spent $2 million on a bottle of champagne.

Jho Low Was Now Being Called “The Asian Great Gatsby”

Which is suiting, especially because of all the celebrities that he connected with none of the connections really stuck, except one. Leonardo Dicaprio. Like Leo in the film ‘Great Gatsby’ he would be more of an observer during his parties as opposed to actually enjoying them. The parties were about the pretending of wealth, prestige and status. Back then, he was not publicly known. He was more known in smaller circles, not publicly online.

Jho Low Moves Money Into Hollywood

After setting up a production company near LA he had heard that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Dicaprio wanted to make a film called the Wolf of Wall Street. But they could not get the $100 million they needed from Hollywood because that vile of an R rated movie had a smaller audience. Leo actually gave Jho Low a shout out when he received an award for the film.

Jordan Belfort Met Jho Low and ‘Didn’t Trust Him’

What’s wilder? Jordan Belfort, the man the film is based on actually met Jho Low and said that he didn’t trust him. Belfort mentioned that ‘something didn’t feel right’ when he noticed that the event was super lavish. He literally said “you wouldn’t spend money like this unless you stole it.” It turns out, Jordan was the most grounded person to share the truth about Jho Low, before the truth actually came out.

Spending money like it was water became a habit for Jho Low. At this point he met a high level executive with Goldman Sachs, where they issued a bond and issued it to investors. 1MDB had no credit rating, which made it hard to actually make this happen. He used his middle eastern connection to build the credit rating and essentially package these bonds as sexy financial instruments.

They then issued $3.5 billion of these bonds through Goldman Sachs. These were meant to be energy bonds. But as Jho, being the official fund manager, he diverted $1.4 billion of that money to the British Virgin Islands. Then, it happened again and he siphoned off another billion, or so.

He also used some of this money to pay off the Goldman Sachs executive. He bought famous art, massive houses, gambling and massive parties. Jho Low figured the money from the bond sales would help to cover the companies growing losses.

Goldman Sachs literally led their investors into an investment with someone who was stealing from them.

He even went so far as to create a company called Blackrock Commodities Global Limited, which made it seem that this was associated with the massive company ‘Blackrock’ which would seem legitimate. But it was really a shell company.

Another tactic that he used was to ‘layer’ his funds. Moving from one offshore account to another, adding layers of complexity from offshore accounts to tax havens. He also sent it to US law firms which allows for privacy also. He knew that Government funds were not as transparent as they were hidden intentionally.

Leonardo Dicaprio Made $10 Million From The Wolf Of Wall Street

Leonardo Dicaprio earned $10 million dollars from the film, every single dollar stolen from the Malaysian people. Even Jonah Hill who was in this film was a part of it, but the crazy thing is Jonah Hill was only paid $60,000. A far cry from what he is worth as an actor. Why such a big pay gap?

Many people question Leonardo Dicaprio in his role in this film. A film that glorifies a lavish lifestyle and stealing from people, which was funded by stolen money from the Malaysian people. What would you do if you made $10 million in stolen money?

Personally, I’d find a way to give that back, or at least give some of it back to the people of Malaysia. It is THEIR money.

This just simply goes to show that Hollywood actors will do anything for money, including selling their soul. Leonardo Dicaprio has also received recent criticism for attending ‘climate change summits’ and being outspoken about this yet traveling everywhere on a private jet. Leonardo is one of the best actors in history, but his money is made by glorifying an unhealthy habit, and literally funded by theft. What could be more corrupt than that?

Jho Low is the Malaysian fraudster that stole billions from the Malaysian people, but Leonardo Dicaprio benefited from it, malign millions of dollars and not having any repercussions of it.

Watch The Full Story in A Mini-Documentary Here:

What do you think you would do if you were in the position of Leonardo Dicaprio? Would you at least attempt to make it right with the $10 million you made that was stolen from the Malaysian people?