HOLLYWOOD actor and Oscar-award winner Leonardo DiCaprio has surrendered an Oscar statue originally won by Marlon Brando to the US government as part of the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) probe into allegations of corruption in Malaysia’s state investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

The statue was allegedly given to DiCaprio by Red Granite, the production house co-owned by Prime Minister Najib Razak’s step son Riza Aziz which financed the movie ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ in which DiCaprio played the leading role.

Red Granite apparently gave DiCaprio the Oscar as a thank-you gift after work on ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ wrapped up. He voluntarily handed the statue over prior to the latest filing, according to a report by Hollywood entertainment site Vanity Fair.

The DoJ announced yesterday it was seizing assets worth US$540 million (RM2.3 billion) all believed to have been bought from funds siphoned off from 1MD.

Among its items the department plans to seize include rights to other Red Granite films ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ and ‘Daddy’s Home’, in addition to recovering assets like “real estate, jewelry, artwork of van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, Basquiat, and Diane Arbus, and movie posters including an original of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis valued at US$1.3 million that apparently still hangs in Riza’s office.

The recent move by the DoJ follows last year’s civil asset forfeiture suit against US$1 billion worth of assets it alleged were similarly acquired using 1MDB funds.

Malaysia’s Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali has acknowledged the latest suit, but claimed the US authorities had yet to provide any proof to his office that money had indeed been stolen from 1MDB from any of the investigations that had been initiated around the world. – June 16, 2017.