A U.S. federal court has dealt another blow to Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, the AWOL Malaysian businessman who U.S. officials allege is at the center of 1MDB's billion-dollar corruption.
Jho Low has been fighting to prevent his stable of luxury assets being seized by U.S. officials.
These include a $107 million interest in EMI Music Publishing, a $30 million penthouse at Time Warner Center in New York and a $35 million Bombardier Jet, which was seized by Singapore earlier this month.
A federal judge in the U.S. has now given the green light for the Department of Justice (DoJ) and New York developer Steven Witkoff's proposed plan to sell the Park Lane Hotel, according to a report from the «The Wall Street Journal» (paywall).
Jho Low is said to be a major stakeholder in the hotel located in Manhattan, New York.
Remove Jho Low
The «WSJ» reported U.S. District Court Judge Dale Fischer had approved the plan, which was part of a cooperation agreement between Witkoff and the U.S. government to stabilise the financially troubled property – as well as remove Low from the group that owns it.
A group of investors led by Witkoff, along with Low, purchased the hotel in 2013 from the estate of Leona Helmsley for $654 million. Low had provided most of the equity for the acquisition, according to the «WSJ».
Out of Sight
The DoJ alleged that Low had used some fraudulent proceeds to purchase his 55 percent stake in Park Lane Hotel.
The Malaysian businessman-financier dropped out of sight nearly two years ago, after the billion-dollar graft scandal surrounding Malaysian state fund 1MDB surfaced into the public domain.
Since then, two banks – Banca della Svizzera Italiana, or BSI, and Falcon Private Bank – have been sent packing from Singapore for laundering 1MDB money without question.
A handful more including UBS, DBS and Standard Chartered have been sanctioned, while Swiss authorities are also continuing their own probe.
