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Billion Dollar Whale cover art

Billion Dollar Whale

Written by: Bradley Hope, Tom Wright
Narrated by: Will Collyer
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Publisher's Summary

Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this "thrilling" (Bill Gates) New York Times best seller exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century" (Axios).

Now a number-one international best seller, Billion Dollar Whale is "an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale" (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history.

In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude—one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund—right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street.

By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the US Department of Justice continued its investigation. Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Bradley Hope and Tom Wright (P)2018 Hachette Audio

What the critics say

"The story of a massive international financial scandal.... As the authors amply prove, the scandal reaches far beyond Low. To succeed, he relied on the naivete, greed, and generally immoral conduct of huge banks as well as corrupt governments." (Kirkus)

"Even the most skilled fiction writer would have trouble conjuring the corrupt and colorful protagonist of Billion Dollar Whale. Bradley Hope and Tom Wright's gripping portrait of Jho Low and his enablers throughout the global financial system will both fascinate and enrage you." (Sheelah Kolhatkar, staff writer at The New Yorker and New York Times best-selling author of Black Edge)

"Wright and Hope transform their investigation of a mind-boggling financial fraud into a nonfiction thriller.... This is an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

What listeners say about Billion Dollar Whale

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Amazing story!

Reads like fiction, tough to believe it’s a true story! Authors did a great job investigating and retelling the events in an engaging and thoughtful manner.

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    4 out of 5 stars

In the end, very interesting

I had a hard time getting into this book, possibly because I couldn’t relate to the man at the centre of the scams or all that interested him (fame, parties, obscene spending). But the money he embezzled was stunning and how they finally broke his gig was interesting.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Story

The story is well written and the narration was easy to understand. An amazing story that would be unbelievable if it were not true.

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Amazing Story

It is an amazing story that kept me hooked. One thing stood out to me is that countless number of A list celebrities fraternized with Jho Low, despite his shady origin. I hope one day Jho Low is bought to justice for the sake of Malaysian people & I hope we as general public hold celebrities accountable so they stop mixing with such shady characters.

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Amazingly wide ride and thorough

From start to finish, pay attention to the cast of characters as they keep growing and surprising you with their brazen acts and mind numbing arrogance. Well researched and excellently told. Highly recommend.

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great storytelling

This is a crazy story, well told. They capture the magnitude of the theft and just how inept system controls tend to be. really enjoyed the story.

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Wow!

A jaw-dropping recounting of a bold, brazen financial crime of epic proportions. How the Malaysian Prime Minister schemed his way to riches and ruined his country's financial stability by using the misplaced talents of a young , ambitious entrepreneur with a penchant for the Hollywood lifestyle x1000. Incredibly well researched. Fast-paced, exciting and full of colourful (real!) characters. A glimpse inside a lifestyle few could imagine, designed and created by a calculating criminal mind. The narration was perfect.

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Excellent

Well written, incredible story. It captivates you the whole way through. Strongly recommend alongside classics like Liar’s Poker and Den of Thieves for a peek into darker areas of high finance.

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  • 2018-09-20

Loved it. Exciting from end to end!

A brilliant book. The brashness of the characters is almost nonfiction! It's a rare glimpse at what happens when intelligence and ambition meet greed and opportunity...

It goes to show celebrities have no moral compass either. The majority of the characters in this book were simply attached to the wealth. As for Mr. Low, he makes the fictional Jay Gatsby look like a small peanut. It's truly an incredible account of the underworld of high finance and the lives of the 0.1% where very few things in life can't be bought... except for maybe his Taiwanese girlfriend who genuinely seemed to be the only "normal" person in the entire story.

Having been to the clubs and casinos in Vegas and seen the large mansions in the Hollywood Hills, it makes you wonder what percentage of those people who live there had to do unsightly things to get there...

Get it. My favourite book of the year #Audible1

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Excellent

Fascinating and well researched, this is an excellent and scary book about uber kleptocracy. Highly recommend.

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