Trash bags full of cash, 'my man' Jho Low in newly released FBI papers involving Hollywood icons

Previously undisclosed documents by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have revealed a trove of details about fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho and his relationship with mega stars such as actor Leonardo DiCaprio and socialite Kim Kardashian, according to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek.

The business weekly reviewed the documents in question, including FBI accounts of interviews with the celebrities on their ties with Low, who has been portrayed as the mastermind of the billion-dollar 1MDB scandal. 

In an account of an interrogation in April 2018, DiCaprio was said to have been questioned about the start of his relationship with Low, who financed his 2013 movie "The Wolf of Wall Street". 

DiCaprio, who met the businessman in 2010, said they had met in a nightclub and that he was told that Low's money came from "an unknown 'whale of whales' in Abu Dhabi", the report said. 

The actor was also asked about discussions he was said to have had with Low on one of the businessman's companies, and an email he had sent to a potential investor describing Low as "my friend" and the "CEO" of the company in question.

The report however noted that according to the FBI account, DiCaprio had no recollection of the talk or the email. 

But despite DiCaprio's hazy memories of some events, the report said the FBI investigation showed a close relationship between the two, with thousands of BlackBerry messages and emails collected between them and their associates. 

It said DiCaprio had introduced Low as "my man" while Low called DiCaprio "Ldogg", adding that even their mothers had met. 

"I was working for him," DiCaprio was quoted as telling a grand jury. 

"And that business also translates into being social. And so we saw each other more, and there was more interaction."

FBI investigators also asked DiCaprio about when he became aware of the suspicions surrounding the businessman, noting in the documents that the actor "lives in a world of rumours". 

"He did not take any of them seriously until the main negative news stories about Low came out and his team told him it was now serious," they were reported as saying. 

The documents also noted an incident in which Low had allegedly promised to donate a piece of art by Roy Lichtenstein for a fundraiser planned by DiCaprio – an artwork that never turned up. 

"DiCaprio started to distance himself from Low after this. He was embarrassed," the FBI agents wrote. 

Kardashian meanwhile said in an interview in February 2019 that Low had given her US$100,000 for fireworks at her wedding to basketball player Kris Humphries, and offered her a piece of work by Jean-Michel Basquiat some years later. 

She also recounted an incident in which she and several others, including "Wolf of Wall Street" co-producers Riza Aziz and Joey McFarland, were at a Las Vegas casino with Low. 

She said she had tried to turn over her winnings of US$350,000 to Low at the end of the night, but that the businessman had told her to keep the chips.

She was given US$250,000 in what she told the FBI was a garbage bag filled with US$100 bills, and the other US$100,000 in another garbage bag of cash during a later trip to Las Vegas to party with Low.