Jho Low, rapper accused of illegal lobbying in 1MDB case
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
DeeperDive is a beta AI feature. Refer to full articles for the facts.
NEW YORK • A Malaysian financier and a former member of hip-hop trio Fugees were accused in a new indictment of illegally lobbying the Trump administration to drop an investigation tied to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) global bribery scandal and remove a Chinese dissident from the US.
A federal grand jury on Thursday returned a superseding indictment against Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, and former Fugees rapper Prakazrel "Pras" Michel, according to a Justice Department statement on Friday.
Low and Michel's aim was to influence then President Donald Trump's Justice Department to abandon the probe of Low and others and extradite a wealthy Chinese exile who had criticised the government in Beijing. That exile has not been identified by the Justice Department, but a person familiar with the matter has said he is Mr Guo Wengui.
Both Low and Michel were charged with money-laundering conspiracy, while Michel was also accused of witness tampering and conspiring to make false statements to banks.
Michel's lawyer, Mr Benjamin Brafman, said in a statement: "Pras intends to defend this case very vigorously and believes that when all of the facts are developed, a jury will conclude that this was a selective prosecution that has unfairly targeted Mr Michel and will exonerate him."
Low and Michel were previously charged in 2019 with seeking to funnel millions of dollars of Low's money into the US presidential election as legitimate campaign contributions while hiding the actual source of the funds.
Prosecutors said the two men worked closely with Trump fund-raiser Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty last year to illegally lobbying the Trump administration to help Low squelch the 1MDB investigation and to seek the extradition of Mr Guo from the United States.
Mr Trump pardoned Broidy in January.
The back-channel efforts failed. Low was indicted in 2018 on charges of conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB. Low has denied wrongdoing and is considered a fugitive.
BLOOMBERG
