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'The Wolf of Wall Street' Movie Was Financed With Stolen Money, Says DOJ (nydailynews.com) 160

Posted by BeauHD from the irony-at-its-best dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NY Daily News: Federal officials charged a $3.5 billion Malaysian money-laundering scheme helped finance the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "Wolf of Wall Street" -- the Hollywood tale that parallels the corruption charges. U.S. officials seek to recover $1.3 billion of the missing funds, including profits from the Martin Scorsese-directed movie that earned five Oscar nominations. The conspirators used some of their illicit cash to fund Scorsese's tale of "a corrupt stockbroker who tried to hide his own illicit profits in a perceived foreign safe haven," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. DiCaprio famously played the lead role of convicted fraudster Jordan Belfort, who was ordered to repay $110 million to 1,500 victims of his scam. The identified conspirators included movie producer Riza Shahriz Abdul Aziz, the prime minister's stepson, and businessman Low Taek John, a friend of Najib's family. A third scammer identified only as "Malaysian Official 1" was widely believed to be Najib. Court papers indicated that $681 million from a 2013 bond sale went directly into the official's private account. The nation's attorney-general, Mohamed Apandi, came to Najib's defense Thursday, expressing his "strong concerns at the insinuations and allegations" brought against the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Apandi's office, after investigating the $681 million bank deposit, announced in January that the funds were a donation from the Saudi royal family. The prime minister wound up returning most of the cash. Federal officials, in their California court filing, indicated they were hoping to seize proceeds from the 2013 movie, along with luxury properties in New York and California, artwork by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, and a $35 million private jet. Investigations of 1MDB are already underway in Switzerland and Singapore, with officials in the latter announcing Thursday that they had seized assets worth $176 million. This is shaping up to be the largest U.S. Justice Department asset recovery action in history.
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'The Wolf of Wall Street' Movie Was Financed With Stolen Money, Says DOJ More

'The Wolf of Wall Street' Movie Was Financed With Stolen Money, Says DOJ

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  • Where is the disclaimer?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by NotInHere ( 3654617 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @03:42PM (#52556857)

    Disclaimer: Slashdot does not condone stolen money!!

  • Well, this is ironic... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    or extremely fitting.

  • I'm sorry (Score:3)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @03:50PM (#52556917) Homepage Journal

    But this is awesome.

  • Apple called (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Apple called, they what their iRONY back...

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @03:55PM (#52556935)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Where did the money come from? (Score:4, Informative)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @03:59PM (#52556953)

      The money comes from illegal deals, sales, and trades. And someone wants to "launder" it to make look like it came from legitimate income or investment.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Where did the money come from? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by alexander_686 ( 957440 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @04:27PM (#52557117)

          Laws have to factor in both actions and intent. If one relied on only one or the other abuses could occur. I suspect that you are having issues with the nebulas nature of intent.

          Most fraud and white collar rely more highly on this than other crimes. Partly this is because criminals are more inventive and imaginative then legislators. Partly this is because the western legal system is designed to ban actions, not proscribe actions. i.e., if a law says you can't do something than you can do it.

          I share some of your unease on overreaching laws but I think intent has to a important factor.

        • OK, but what made them illegal?

          The original source of the money doesn't have to be illegal to trigger money laundering laws. It's the act of hiding transactions from the government (which may be otherwise legal or illegal) which is illegal. Even making repeated deposits or withdrawals in amounts just under $10,000 to avoid reporting requirements counts as money laundering even if there was no illegal activity involved in procuring the money.

        • In this case, as I understand it, bribery. Large amounts of money paid to corrupt malaysian government officials.
          Dealing with the proceeds of this in the USA is not legal, and it is treated as simply as if the people involved walked into a bank and stole it.
          The regulations - or earlier versions of them - were in force at the time of the original deposits into US institutions.
             

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by elrous0 ( 869638 )

          The details are complicated, but in this case most of the money apparently came from misappropriation of Malaysian government funds that were supposed to go towards local economic development and some big bribes from a Saudi oil company.

        • The link to the justice departments press release explains more than the op or the poorly edited nydailynews.com article.

          It appears that officials of the Malasian govt stole the money from a Malasian government development fund that is/was intended to fund gov't projects.

          click where it says " seize proceeds from the 2013 movie, " in the op, or https://www.justice.gov/opa/sp... [justice.gov]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          Usually drugs, sometimes trafficking. When you sell $1B in drugs and have $1B in cash, if you spend it, people will ask where you got it from (any transaction over $10k is reported to the feds). So you have to make it appear legal, and declare it as legal income, so you are "legal" with the IRS and FBI/DEA (separate rules, and either will send you to jail for your illegal income). So you take your $1B and declare it as gambling winnings, invest it, mix it with other money, extract it, and treat it like i

          • I wonder if they'll ever look into Get Shorty.

            But really, if you want to securely launder drug money, just take it to the bank [theguardian.com]. They are invincible to any prosecution.

        • OK, but what made them illegal?

          Statutes.

          You haven't identified a difficult to understand concept, you're just being willfully obtuse and intellectually dishonest and pretending you don't understand. More likely, you don't like some of the laws, and so are passive-aggressively denying that their existence is well-documented.

        • I don't think that by itself that doing the equivalent of money laundering is illegal. It's only when it's done to help mask a crime or avoid taxes that it becomes criminal. Though rules will certainly vary country to country. However almost no one goes to all the trouble of laundering money when there's not a crime involved because it's not free.

        • I think usually it's drug money, or profits from racketeering, smuggling, etc. Sometimes it's coupled with tax dodges or fraud.

      • The money comes from illegal deals, sales, and trades. And someone wants to "launder" it to make look like it came from legitimate income or investment.

        Yes and 'illegal' means "whatever the government doesn't like"

    • It's really really simple.

      Money laundering is the crime of hiding where the money came from.

      Now, all the regulations may be screwed about it are screwed up and complicated. But the crime itself is simple.

      Just because regulations about a crime are poorly written does not mean the crime is poorly defined.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          People at the bank can't know whether it's money laundering. It's beyond their scope of business to determine whether the $1M came from a hit to execute Jonbenet Ramsey, or undelcared income from carpentry. They report the "suspicious" income to the feds, and the feds investigate. Most "investigations" are adding the transaction to a file, and a real investigation doesn't happen until the file is thick enough. Then they investigate the person, looking for actual illegal activity.

          Laundering legal mone

        • Nobody can define it, or are you just too lazy to read? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          If you are attempting to claim that examples of Government overreach and abuse make it hard to understand, I think your logic maker is broken.

        • If it's not poorly defined then why can't people who are supposed to be professionals in preventing money laundering patently unable to explain it effectively?

          That's easy.
          They can explain it effectively, just not to a retard like you.

      • It's really really simple.

        Money laundering is the crime of hiding where the money came from.

        Now, all the regulations may be screwed about it are screwed up and complicated. But the crime itself is simple.

        Just because regulations about a crime are poorly written does not mean the crime is poorly defined.

        And its not just money laundering thats illegal!!!

        If you happen to have just $9999 to deposit into your bank account THATS ILLEGAL TOO! (because its 'structuring').

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 )
          Nope. That's not illegal. one deposit a day of $9999 for two weeks is illegal structuring. A single "suspicious" deposit is not illegal. And it's not structuring. Structuring requires that you have more than $10k that you deliberately split to avoid hitting the $10k limit. $5k a day for two weeks, with none before and after would also likely trigger alerts for structuring, and has nothing to do with $9999.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by PRMan ( 959735 )
            Tell that to Kent Hovind. His ministry deposited amounts in the $9000s every week because that was the amount of money they were receiving from donations. He went to jail for over 10 years because of this (perhaps because he was a very outspoken young earth creationist).

            • Re:Where did the money come from? (Score:5, Informative)

              by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @08:10PM (#52558191)
              Tax fraud and other charges were laid, structuring was added as one of many charges, though the anti-structuring people make it sound like it was the only thing he was investigated/charged with. Guilty of 58 charges, but you make it sound like the one structuring charge was the only thing he was investigated and charged with.

              He argued that his for-profit amusement park was not taxable because it belonged to God.

            • (perhaps because he was a very outspoken young earth creationist)

              No, it was because he was a fucking crook.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mspohr ( 589790 )

            I get rent checks totaling over $10K each month. However, since some people pay on time and others are chronically late, I typically have two (or more) deposits each month each less than $10K.
            Is this illegal money laundering?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AK Marc ( 707885 )
              It likely has already been reported as such, and you were looked at, and ignored. Someone with 10k a month in two inequal deposits of varying amounts that are substantially similar looks like someone with $10k a month in income, nothing more. Drug deals and such have sporadic income and lumps of substantially equal deposits in clusters.

              You were likely investigated for structuring already, and didn't even know it. You file taxes on all the income (presumably) and the source is listed and is legal, so eve

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jandrese ( 485 )
              Did you fill out a form at the bank explaining that they are rent checks? Or maybe explained it to the teller when you made the deposit? Then it's not illegal. People are acting like making a big deposit (or a few smaller deposits) is going to send you right to jail, when all it does it cause a bit more hassle as the bank is forced to do due diligence.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tsotha ( 720379 )

              No, the reporting requirements are all about cash. If you're getting checks the government already knows where the money is coming from. The only way this is going to get you into trouble is if you pull the money out in cash and then deposit it somewhere else in small increments.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jandrese ( 485 )
          It's not illegal to deposit a big chunk of money, you just have to fill out a form explaining how you got it. Trying to avoid the form by splitting up the deposit is what gets you in trouble, but the trouble is just "gotta fill out the form". If you can't fill it out or you lie on it then you can find yourself in real trouble.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by NotAPK ( 4529127 )

            "If you can't fill it out or you lie on it then you can find yourself in real trouble."

            And everyone just accepts this as OK?

            Why should the bank know any more about me or my life than they already do?

            I don't buy "preventing money laundering" as some kind of justified objective. In my mind, it's not.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              It's not preventing money laundering, its eliminating a vector that might involve the Bank in money laundering in the eye of the law. This is the one single most important risk factor in money laundering.

              Seriously, you think that Banks really care about money laundering and fraud? The couldn't give a shit really - they'd rather ignore it and make a shit ton of money on it.That's why laws and legislation on this subject are really draconian and constraining for banks themselves, to force them to play nice.

              Th

          • It's not illegal to deposit a big chunk of money, you just have to fill out a form explaining how you got it. Trying to avoid the form by splitting up the deposit is what gets you in trouble, but the trouble is just "gotta fill out the form". If you can't fill it out or you lie on it then you can find yourself in real trouble.

            That kind of nosiness is the kind of thing that causes libertarianism... Please, get rid of the Nanny state and we won't have libertarians any more...

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jandrese ( 485 )
              True. If you want criminals to avoid any chance of being caught while moving their loot around a Libertarian state is nearly ideal.

              • True. If you want criminals to avoid any chance of being caught while moving their loot around a Libertarian state is nearly ideal.

                The libertarian would argue that the government is the organized crime syndicate.

        • No, see, when they investigate you if they find out that you just got a payment from somebody for $9999 and deposited it, then no problem, and no charges.

          The problem is that none of the popular stories on AM radio that ask people to be outraged about this are that sort of situation. None of the famous cases were people who actually just deposited the amount of money they received. They all were intentionally structuring their payments to avoid automatic human review of the transaction, and they have excuses

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tsotha ( 720379 )

            The problem is that none of the popular stories on AM radio that ask people to be outraged about this are that sort of situation.

            There are a few legit outrages. There are people who have had their money seized by the government because all their cash deposits came in under $10k. In a lot of cases the reason they were making smaller deposits is because their insurance company required them to have less than $10k in cash on the premises. Small deposits aren't a crime in and of themselves - it's only a crim

            • "Government workers make mistakes" is not in itself a reasonable argument against a particular policy, though. I don't doubt it is inconvenient if you get caught up in it. But that doesn't mean that the policy itself is hard to understand. Cops arrest the wrong people frequently, and often when no crime was committed.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by tsotha ( 720379 )
                "Inconvenient" is a pretty mild description when you business goes under because the government has taken all your operating capital. In any event, they should know better. This isn't a case of a life-or-death decision that has to be made in a split second.

          • The problem is that they feel the need to investigate.

            Its none of their business.

            • The problem is that they feel the need to investigate. Its none of their business.

              That's right. Crime is none of the justice department's business.

              Retard.

              • The problem is that they feel the need to investigate.

                Its none of their business.

                That's right. Crime is none of the justice department's business.

                Retard.

                The government gets to define crime so hey, they can bust you for whatever they like!

                Depositing money can be a crime in itself? Rubbish. No wonder you have libertarians in north america, they are practically encouraged by the rampant interferance in daily life from the government.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tsotha ( 720379 )

          No, a single transaction just under ten grand isn't illegal. But five transactions over five days, or from five different banks, each just under $10k? That's going to get you into trouble. You could ask Dennis Hastert, if they'll let you visit him in jail.

          The sad thing is all structuring requires is intent. If you have $15k, and you decide to split it into two transactions, you have already broken the law independent of whether or not you follow through with the transactions.

          Incidentally, that $10k li

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by NotAPK ( 4529127 )

            "If you have $15k, and you decide to split it into two transactions, you have already broken the law independent of whether or not you follow through with the transactions."

            Then it's a ridiculous law. Just my opinion, but frankly downright ridiculous.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tsotha ( 720379 )
              I agree. I suspect most people would agree if they knew what the law is, but you have to be a small business owner or a poker player or some such to deal with that kind of cash. Most people in the US don't even have $15k.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsotha ( 720379 )
        What makes it complicated for people who work at financial institutions is walking the tightrope between "know your customer" laws and privacy statutes.

    • Re:Where did the money come from? (Score:5, Funny)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @04:01PM (#52556965) Homepage

      Above and beyond that ... so you're telling me a Hollywood movie ... was financed ... using accounting tricks ... that could be defined as money laundering.

      Wait a sec.

      Give me a minute to process this.

      Pressure ... in skull ... building .... NHGH

    • My understanding from other stories is that the money came from investors in the 1MDB fund...and the profits were paid out to specific people, who may or may not have also been investors.

    • Where does it come from? Isn't it obvious? HSBC [theguardian.com] of course!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ecuador ( 740021 )

      Say you receive $1,000,000 from selling drugs. You can't just go around spending it because you can't explain where you got it. In fact, in the US the police can outright confiscate money and you have to prove they came from legal sources. So, what do you do? You open a laundermat and you start spending your $1,000,000 on it in various ways that either require some "interesting" accounting, or paying undocumented salaries, buying equipment with cash etc. However, whatever income your laundermat makes is per

    • If the government didn't mind the transactions, then it wouldn't be laundering, it would just be obscure. When you've got "bad" transactions that are made obscure, that becomes laundering.

      Think of it like resisting arrest - if nobody's trying to arrest you, then it's O.K. to run from the cops - as long as you don't look too guilty while you're doing it, otherwise, they'll assume you've done something bad and try to stop you.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Didn't you watch Breaking Bad? They spent half the season demonstrating how the big guys do it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kinko ( 82040 )

      in this case, 1MDB transferred some money to an account owned by a company with a very similar name to another investment company, and claimed it was for investment purposes. (The 'fake' company was controlled by insiders, and was named to looked like it was a Saudi-owned investment fund.) The money from the shell account was transferred through multiple other shell accounts through multiple jurisdictions, to try to hide the paper trail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Asgard ( 60200 )

      Money laundering is obscuring where money came from. If you walk into a bank with $3M in cash, its going to be noticed. However, if you sell a ton of $Drug for $3M cash, and own a cash-heavy / inventory-light business such as a strip-club or casino, you inject the cash into that business over time with fake transactions and treat it as ordinary income. You pay taxes on it and to everyone it looks like you are operating a particularly successful business, and you have legit cash in the bank.

      In this way you'

  • So I imagine the feds will want all the profits from that too.

  • That is so appropriate. (Score:5, Funny)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @04:02PM (#52556967) Homepage

    About the only thing more appropriate would be if the film was financed by the actual guy the movie was written about!

  • Doing it right. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hylandr ( 813770 ) on Thursday July 21, 2016 @04:02PM (#52556975)

    This is how you de-fund terrorism.

    They got Al Capone on Tax evasion. :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )

      They got Al Capone on Tax evasion. :)

      The sad thing is that was only because he bribed the FBI but didn't think about bribing the IRS.

  • More Irony than Pennsylvania well water.....


    That said, it was an entertaining movie and worth a watch.

  • Benihana (Score:3)

    by ickleberry ( 864871 ) <web@pineapple.vg> on Thursday July 21, 2016 @04:21PM (#52557067) Homepage
    Are you f**in kidding me? Benny f*cking hana?!

  • ...field research

  • ...who is going to play Scorsese in the film about how they made a film about a wall street crook, and that film was financed by wall street crooks.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Paul Giamatti!

  • Unbelievable, actually not really and even less surprising.

    How much of my money will they spend to get my money back?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      They will spend close to 10B in lawyer fees to get your 1B back. If you have a receipt for the movie ticket, you'll get $1 refunded on your 2025 taxes.

      • Then they get a promotion as heroes for prosecuiting those who took advantage of the mismanagment of my money.

        Seems like they are prosecuiting the wrong party.

        The ones who mis managed my money are at fault.

        The movie never even made it on my radar.

  • Tony Blair is going after the makers of Wag the Dog...

  • This doesn't surprise me at all. Hollywood is an industry full of people who excoriate "the rich" for not paying taxes when all the while movies don't turn a profit, as far as the IRS is concerned.

    • movies don't turn a profit, as far as the IRS is concerned.

      The IRS still gets their cut, because the margins on the movie get paid out in services like special effects, distribution, production, etc. The people who lose on that are people who sign on to a movie for a cut of the movie's profits.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsotha ( 720379 )
        Whenever you spend money somebody benefits, and ultimately taxes get paid. That's hardly a point in their favor.

  • Or was it money that was supposed to go to the Clinton Crime Family Foundation but mysteriously the bank bags were lighter than they should have been?

  • All very entertaining (I read the BBC story [bbc.co.uk]) but I'm at a loss to see the Slashdot angle.

  • If the Saudi royal family are involved, count on it stinking to high heaven. T.E. Lawrence warned the rest of the world about the House of Saud's perfidy. But did anyone listen? We've been reaping the geopolitical effects for the better part of a century.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Since this was a Scorsese film, I waited in line to see it. After about 20 minutes into it I was shocked at how awful it was. If the money was financed illegally, can I file a class action law suit for the movie sucking so badly?

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