1MDB scandal (2013): Hollywood and luxury trail

The DOJ forfeiture complaints, the Goldman resolutions, the Leissner plea, and the Malaysian SRC judgment are the primary public sources. They describe a multi-jurisdiction theft-and-laundering case, not a single missing invoice. 1MDB raised money, including through Goldman-arranged dollar bonds in 2012 and 2013, for a development-fund story. Journalists and later prosecutors described a parallel story: large transfers to shell companies and to people around Jho Low.

Najib, as prime minister and finance minister at key times, was the political principal in the Malaysian docket. The SRC International trial that produced the 2020 conviction concerned hundreds of millions of ringgit in a related unit, not every dollar in the DOJ complaints. Sarawak Report and the Journal, using leaked documents and bank trails, made the fund a global English-language story in 2015. Malaysian official responses at the time included a claimed Saudi donation to explain money in Najib's accounts -- a theory later courts and foreign complaints did not accept as a full answer.

The 2015 reporting is the hinge the way Carreyrou is for Theranos: after it, foreign prosecutors and banks had a public map. U.S. civil forfeiture and bank pleas DOJ's 2016 and later complaints are among the largest kleptocracy actions the department has filed. They sought to forfeit specific assets, not to try Najib in a U.S. criminal court. Settlements returned value to Malaysia over subsequent years.