The Kleptocrats - The 1MDB Saga Retold

ONE OF THE best scenes in The Kleptocrats involves Robin Leach, former host of the TV series Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous, describing a 2012 birthday party for the now-fugitive Jho Low as "the most expensive party Las Vegas had ever seen". Leach has spent much of his career reporting on the ostentatious lives of wealthy moguls, sportsmen and entertainers. Yet even he looks incredulous as he recalls the unprecedented extravagance of a party that included erecting a Ferris wheel and carousel, and hiring Britney Spears to burst out of a cake singing "Happy Birthday" to Low. Leach says, his jaw literally dropping for effect: "It didn't make sense... (The money) can't come from legitimate sources".

It took years, of course, for reporters and then the rest of the world to catch on to the fact that banker and playboy Low was a fraudster, colluding with former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak to swindle Malaysians of US$3.5 billion through the country's wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). And The Kleptocrats, directed by Sam Hobkinson and Havana Marking, does a fine job of organising the facts of a scandal so outrageous, it would be unbelievable if it wasn't true.

They use not just interviews with several journalists and witnesses, but also text messages from Low and his Goldman Sachs banker, documents detailing the suspicious real estate transactions that first caught the attention of The New York Times investigative journalist Louise Story, and grainy videos of a secret meeting between Low and Najib in New York captured by Story herself. (Story serves as the documentary's executive producer.)