Billion Dollar Whale Audiobook By Bradley Hope, Tom Wright cover art

Billion Dollar Whale

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Billion Dollar Whale

By: Bradley Hope, Tom Wright
Narrated by: Will Collyer
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About this listen

Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this "thrilling" (Bill Gates) New York Times best seller exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century" (Axios).

Now a number-one international best seller, Billion Dollar Whale is "an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale" (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history.

In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude—one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund—right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street.

By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the US Department of Justice continued its investigation. Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Bradley Hope and Tom Wright (P)2018 Hachette Audio
Business & Careers Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions Politics & Government True Crime Business Wall Street Exciting Inspiring White Collar Crime

Critic reviews

A Fortune magazine Best Book of 2018

A Financial Times Best Book of 2018

"As Bad Blood is to biotech, Billion Dollar Whale is to international finance... a wonderful read... Thrilling."—Bill Gates

"What a blast to read! A true life thriller that reads like a Hollywood movie, Billion Dollar Whale traces the exploits of the most mercurial, mysterious big player in history. Jho Low is Gatsby with twice the bank account and ten times the ambition, and the stories surrounding his exploits leap right off the page!"—Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down The House

"If you like global intrigue, financial crime, wealth porn, and absurdity, Billion Dollar Whale, by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, is for you.... It almost seems made up. Still, anyone who has followed the news out of Malaysia will know that the story is all too real."—The New Yorker

Featured Article: Catch Our Grift with These Tales of Female Frauds, Scammers, and Cons


When it comes to cons of the criminal variety, women often fly under the radar. And when it comes to pulling off high-level, multifaceted schemes, women continue to be underestimated. But with enough confidence to remain undetected, female con artists, fraudsters, and grifters have scammed their way to infamy, racking up dollars, favors, and fame along the way. The stories they leave behind make for some of the most intriguing cases of all time.

What listeners say about Billion Dollar Whale

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Incredible story

If this was a fiction story, you wouldn’t like it because it would be an impossible story to believe. That fact that it’s a real story is f**king incredible. Wow!

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Important true life story

Want to understand the realities of the modern finance industry and culture of celebrity, this is the book. Story picks up speed like a thriller.

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Great heist story... not to mention true

Billion dollar whale makes wolf of wall street seem so insignificant. Cannot believe the scale of the theft and the celebrities involved

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Creative thinking

You can't imagine how one can achieve so much money by smooth talking rich people and getting away with it. Til the date anyways. The book has a lot of detail and connections to Hollywood. The story is being pushed out to more viewers so it would be nice if it gets turned into a movie.

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Wish they covered more 2018+

Their is so much more to cover when it comes down to ‘files being burned’ that really deserve the full story of corruption to be understood but I guess its just about Jho Low, but a lot of the corruption in the 2018 election is tied to him!

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A very detailed analysis

Kudos to the authors for what is a very detailed analysis of the work of Jho Low and his cronies. One would hope that one day, Jho would be prosecuted. This book reads like a fiction but it is actually non-fiction. Scary stuff what ppl can get away with!

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amazing book

a stunning story about corruption and wealth
worth listening.
the story goes smoothly and enticing

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great book about a disgrace of a person

slow start but makes up for it. initially hard to follow all of the names including the Arab and Asian ones. amazing attention to detail .

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A good easy listen

A fine example of investigative journalism. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Surprising how little the general public knew about the 1mdb scandal, the largest financial heist of the century -- until this book arrived on the scene.

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Interesting but a little draggy at times

This book interested me because I wanted to know what Jho Low did with tax-payers' money, and was shocked with the stupendous amount of spending without giving a second thought of how Jho Low was going to return the investment, but some parts were just too long. Good narration however, despite the audio book being long, he managed to keep my very short attention span till the end.

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