| Welcome to Bw Daily, the Bloomberg Businessweek newsletter, where we'll bring you interesting voices, great reporting and the magazine's usual charm every weekday. Let us know what you think by emailing our editor here! If this has been forwarded to you, click here to sign up. And here it is … Music fans know Pras Michél as one-third of '90s superstar group the Fugees, who sold his stake in their catalog for an undisclosed sum. Michél is also a connector, a guy who can serve as a bridge between Washington and the entertainment industry, particularly when it comes to fundraising. The US government knows him as a valuable potential informant who they couldn't flip, a man now facing 10 federal charges such as witness tampering and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. As unlikely as it sounds, Michél allegedly tried to influence key relationships between the US and China, as well as extract money from a fugitive Malaysian businessman. What?  The Fugees in 1994: Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill and Pras Michél. Photographer: David Corio In a truly bonkers story on the new cover of Businessweek, Bloomberg reporters Jason Leopold, Matthew Campbell and Anthony Cormier unpack the intersection of money, fame and international intrigue. To wit: Michél's audience with a top Chinese security official, reported here for the first time, was a flashpoint in one of the most unusual political influence campaigns in recent memory. His involvement began by chance, around 2006, when he met a baby-faced Malaysian businessman named Jho Low. Low was a globe-trotting financier whose lavish spending would put him on familiar terms with dozens of A-list entertainers. But by 2016, US investigators believed he'd masterminded the embezzlement of billions of dollars from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, blowing much of it on artwork, real estate and gifts for celebrity friends including Leonardo DiCaprio and Kim Kardashian. Few were as close to Low as Michél: Prosecutors seized $95 million that they alleged originated with Low from Michél's accounts. With US authorities closing in and moving to confiscate his assets, Low needed help. He turned first to Michél, hoping to cash in on the star's connections to President Barack Obama, for whom Michél had raised money during the 2012 campaign. Next, Low turned to China, one of the few countries that could protect him from the long reach of American law enforcement. (Low didn't reply to requests for comment. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it was "unaware" of the events described in this story. Sun, who received a suspended death sentence for corruption offenses last year, couldn't be reached.)  Michél with Biden. To investigate this wild tale of celebrity and political intrigue, Bloomberg Businessweek drew on legal filings, interviews with people close to the case and a cache of previously undisclosed FBI and Justice Department documents. The records show how Michél, at Low's request, helped assemble a team of Republican influencers—including fundraiser Elliott Broidy, businesswoman Nickie Lum Davis and casino magnate Steve Wynn—capable of reaching the highest levels of the Trump administration as it took hold of the US government. Soon, all would be targeted by agents from the FBI's international corruption division as well as federal prosecutors from Honolulu to New York.
You will have to read the entire feature to appreciate the levels here. Michél is potentially facing decades in prison for work on behalf of Low, who seemed at first blush to be another wealthy celebrity hanger-on, someone who wanted to be photographed at clubs with models and actors and Michél. But Michél was far from the only boldfaced name who got tangled up in Low's world. Using government documents and other sources, Businessweek has been able to reconstruct another key relationship that Low's money fostered—namely, a friendship with Leonardo DiCaprio.  Photographer: Marc Baptiste for Bloomberg Businessweek In an accompanying story, travel with Cormier, Leopold and Campbell down the rabbit hole of Leo and Low. (DiCaprio, who hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing, is on the government witness list for Michél's trial.) Here is a description of a conversation between DiCaprio and an FBI agent: Soon the interview turned to Low, the tycoon accused of orchestrating the looting billions of dollars from Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund 1MDB, whom DiCaprio had met in 2010. Low had lavished the actor with gifts, partying with him across the globe and financing his 2013 movie The Wolf of Wall Street. DiCaprio recounted to the agents that the relationship began in a nightclub. He'd been told that Low's money came from an unknown "whale of whales" in Abu Dhabi, he said, and that Low was the "Mozart of the business world." Only later, around 2015, did federal investigators target Low in a multibillion-dollar embezzlement probe. As an FBI agent presented DiCaprio with emails and documents, the actor's memory became less clear. He didn't remember discussing one of Low's companies with him, even though DiCaprio had once described Low in an email to a potential investor as "my friend" and the "CEO" of that same company. When he looked at another email, DiCaprio told the agents it didn't look like "something he would write"—he thought he "might have cut-and-pasted it." DiCaprio was sure his managers had vetted Low before working with him on The Wolf of Wall Street, but he didn't recall what the background check had found.
The thing with Low is that he didn't just promise the celebrities in his life gifts or money—he delivered. (Of course, the US government has asked for many of those gifts back after Low became the subject of criminal investigations.) He gave NBA journeyman Kris Humphries $100,000 for fireworks when he married Kim Kardashian in 2011; one-time Low girlfriend and supermodel Miranda Kerr received millions of dollars of jewelry. And then there were all the middlemen the FBI interviewed, like the guy who sold $10 million of vintage movie posters to DiCaprio and Low. You'll have to read the full story to learn why Kardashian ended up taking home $250,000 in cash in a trash bag from Las Vegas thanks to Low. But the whole strange tale is a fascinating window into how wealth and power work, how they are connected, and how sometimes the bro you meet at a club might end up being the reason you could get sentenced to federal prison. What a score. —Reyhan Harmanci, Bloomberg Businessweek | 
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