Thread by @TomWrightAsia

In all the years covering Najib, his 2014 trip to a Chanel store in the Ala Moana Center best captures his nature. He was visiting Obama in Hawaii, but had to go home to Malaysia because of floods. His wife was angry for cutting her holiday short…

So Najib took Rosmah to the Chanel store to buy her a $130k piece of jewelry, a birthday gift. To pay he used a credit card that was taken care of by Jho Low (and paid for out of Malaysian state funds).

But the card didn’t work at first, embarrassing Najib. He messaged Low on his Blackberry, and Low scurried to take care of the matter. Eventually, the credit card worked.

The 130k watch (sorry, it wasn’t jewelry) was just one item among many, paid for with stolen money, that got Najib sent to jail tonight.

We reported this story in Billion Dollar Whale. Someone leaked us Najib’s credit card statements, and we saw the charge from Chanel in Hawaii. There are 2 Chanels in Honolulu. I got thrown out of the first for asking questions.

In the Ala Moana branch, a Chinese national saleswoman asked me to wait for the end of her shift. I sat 6 hours in a nearby Starbucks. She told me how Najib had come in with Rosmah to buy the $130k watch. “I’m from China and I hate corruption,” she said, when I explained our work

Later we got transcripts of Jho Low’s Blackberry messages, which showed him messaging with Najib over the credit card problems in the Chanel store. And we had other bank documents showing Najib’s card was funded from 1MDB.

After the Chanel purchase, just a normal gift for Rosmah, Najib flew home to survey the flooding in Malaysia, which had left 200,000 people homeless. Rosmah, whose trial is up next, continued on a shopping spree.

I don’t believe in karma, and today I was looking at photos from Najib’s daughter on Insta, and you can see her anguish. And I’m not Malaysian. But the behavior of this couple in the Chanel store, abetted by Goldman bankers, captures a lot of what’s wrong today.

@bradleyhope and I wrote this today to sum up how we feel about justice in this case. Najib may have gone to jail, but Goldman bankers haven’t. And Jho Low is still out there. whalehunting.projectbrazen.com/najib-is-sent-…

So on that last point: Let’s find Jho Low. See Bradley’s tweet below. #whereisjholow

At @ProjectBrazen, Bradley and I are working feverishly on new content. Check out “Fat Leonard,” our podcast about a conman who, like Jho Low, comes from Penang. Soon to be a TV series! Subscribe: podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/fat…