WHILE investigations into 1Malaysia Development Bhd are under way in Malaysia, Clare Rewcastle-Brown brought the controversy to the 2018 Global Fraud Conference in Las Vegas yesterday.

The Sarawak Report editor, whose whistleblower site has reported exposes on the sovereign wealth fund in recent years, was presented with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ (ACFE) Guardian Award for vigilance in fraud reporting at the conference.

In her keynote address yesterday morning, or near midnight Malaysian time, Rewcastle-Brown said if financier Low Taek Jho, the accused mastermind of the scandal, had not been so extravagant in Las Vegas, the 1MDB story might not have broke.

Low, also known as Jho Low, is known as former prime minister Najib Razak’s confidant and business adviser. He is said to have thrown some of the biggest parties that Las Vegas has ever seen.

It was reported that when he celebrated his 30th birthday in 2012, more than 300 guests were invited, including celebrities Jamie Foxx, Paris Hilton, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Robert De Niro and Benicio Del Toro, and swimming champ Michael Phelps.

The party was held on a 217,800 sq ft lot along the Las Vegas Strip, complete with an indoor Ferris wheel and a 7m bar carved out of ice.

It was reported that the US Department of Justice said Low gambled away millions of dollars allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB at Las Vegas casinos.

“I find it sobering to reflect that probably none of this would have come out, and Najib would probably still be robbing the poor of his nation, if his young proxy had not been so ostentatious in the city of Las Vegas.

“Thank you for inviting me here to see it with my own eyes at last,” said Rewcastle-Brown.

A video of part of her speech has been uploaded on the conference’s website.

Earlier in her speech, she spoke about Low’s exploits, as well as those of his “super close pal” Riza Aziz, who “equally could not explain his own secretive wealth”.

Riza is Najib’s stepson.

“I got plenty of legal letters over such comments. But the more I questioned and probed the matter, the more the excuses and conflicting explanations provided by these party guys failed to add up,” said Rewcastle-Brown.

“I kept catching them on the lies while they kept spending the money, and I kept getting tip-offs, for example, their super yachts, their Beverly Hills mansions, New York penthouses, their extraordinary purchases in the art market, their gambling and clubbing, and fleets of customised sport cars.”

She said they made the characters in The Wolf of Wall Street – a film produced by Red Granite Pictures, which was co-founded by Riza – look like amateur spenders.

She said people on the movie set had told her that Low would pay the film’s main star, Leonardo DiCaprio, US$500,000 (RM2 million) each time to fly with him on a private jet to Las Vegas to play the tables.

“He was not the only Hollywood hanger-on to get sucked in. Paris Hilton was hired for a reported US$1 million to hang on to Low’s arm at parties.”

Rewcastle-Brown said numerous other celebrities, including singer Alicia Keys and actor Foxx, were “regular party-goers and receivers of gifts and donations”.

She said after the DoJ published its findings on the scandal, DiCaprio found himself “shamed”, and returned to Low a Picasso and a stolen Oscar belonging to the late actor Marlon Brando.

She also mentioned supermodel Miranda Kerr, who returned US$8 million worth of diamond jewellery presented to her by Low as a Valentine’s Day gift on the inaugural cruise aboard his new super yacht, Equanimity, in 2014.

“Thanks to the election results and the judgment of the Malaysian people, I think the game is pretty much over at 1MDB.”

Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, have not been arrested in the 1MDB case as evidence is being reviewed by the new Pakatan Harapan government, but they have been barred from leaving Malaysia.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in a recent interview with Reuters, said Malaysia has an “almost perfect case” against Najib and other key suspects in the massive financial scandal.

Rewcastle-Brown said extradition is now under way for Low and his co-conspirators, who have been hiding mainly in Macau, Shanghai and Hong Kong since the story broke in 2015.

The ACFE is the world’s largest anti-fraud organisation, and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education. The conference started on Sunday and ends on Friday. – June 20, 2018.