JMSC Writer-in-Residence Book Talk - Tom Wright (Billion Dollar Whale)
Channel: HKU Journalism & Media
Date: 2018-11-12

8 November 2018, Main Library, The University of Hong Kong

Co-organized with the HKU Libraries.

Tom Wright was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene of the raid in which Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden. In 2013, he spearheaded coverage of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, which killed over 1,000 people, earning the Wall Street Journal a Sigma Delta Chi award from The Society of Professional Journalists. He is a Pulitzer finalist, a Loeb winner, and has garnered numerous awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia, which in 2016 named him “Journalist of the Year.” He speaks English, Malay, French and Italian.

About the Book
The definitive inside account of the 1MDB scandal about a “modern Gatsby” who managed to swindle over US$5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others. The book exposes the secret nexus of elite wealth, banking, Hollywood, and politics from two award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters.

In 2009, with the dust yet to settle on the financial crisis, a baby-faced, seemingly mild-mannered Wharton grad began setting in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude–one that would come to symbolise the next great threat to the global financial system. His name is Jho Low, a man whose behaviour was so preposterous he might seem made up.

An epic true-tale of hubris and greed, Billion Dollar Whale reveals how this young social climber pulled off one of the biggest heists in history–right under the nose of the global financial industry. Federal agents who helped unravel Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme say the 1MDB affair will become the textbook case of financial fraud in the modern age–and its fallout is already being credited for taking down the prime minister of Malaysia.

About the Moderator
Erin Hale is a freelance journalist and teaching assistant at the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Centre. She has previous experience reporting on Southeast Asia and currently writes about Hong Kong and China.