KUALA LUMPUR: Authors of the “Billion Dollar Whale” had to call 30 Playboy magazine playmates in a bid to get some juice on Low Taek Jho’s birthday party.
Journalist Tom Wright said he and co-author Bradley Hope had gotten hold of Los Angeles-based film production company Red Granite emails which included a contact book.
Wright said the contact list had the mobile phone numbers of all Hollywood stars and the playmates with whom Low, better known as Jho Low, and his friends liked to hang out.
“We called 30 Playboy playmates — those from the 2008, 2009. Out of the 30 we called, two of them said ‘Yeah, I remember Jho Low. We went to his birthday party at The Palazzo, Las Vegas’ and that’s what we quoted them on in the book,” he said during the book’s launch at Kinokuniya, KLCC.
Wright said this was part of the process of building the scene.
Low, wanted by Malaysian authorities for his alleged involvement the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal, is believed to be in hiding in China.
Intense public interest in the 1MDB issue led to all copies of “Billion Dollar Whale”, a book detailing the scandal, to be sold out here in the Klang Valley. — Reports by Tasnim Lokman, Hidir Reduan and Fahmy Azril Rosli