how jho low pays for rosmah's shopping sprees - expose! | sarawak report

28/7/15 5:29 PMHow Jho Low Pays for Rosmah's Shopping Sprees - EXPOSE! | Sarawak Report

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How Jho Low Pays for Rosmah's ShoppingSprees - EXPOSE!

27 Jul 2015

Fancy coloured diamonds from New Yorks Louis Glick



Natasha Mirpuri

are a particular favourite of Rosmahs

Sarawak Report has continued its enquiries into Rosmah Mansorsfinancial links with the controversial businessman Jho Low, whosecompany siphoned nearly USD2 billion from the 1MDB PetroSaudi jointventure in 2009.

Despite earlier denials, Sarawak Report has now accessed documents andemails, which detail how Jho Low has provided payments for millions ofdollars worth of diamonds purchased by the Prime Ministers wife.

Payments were done through Hong Kong, using an account belonging toa Jho Low owned company named Butamba Investments Limited at theBritish bank RBS Coutts branch in Singapore.

The system, according to people who have sold to Rosmah, is generallyfor Jho Low to pay an intermediary, who then pays the jeweller.

Previously this intermediary was DeepakJaikishan, who was once a trusted agent ofMansors, but who later went public about hisrole in silencing a witness in the Altantuyamurder case.

Currently, the intermediary is confirmed to be theSingaporean dress designer Natasha Mirpuri,who now works with her husband HareshMirpuri as the fixer for all Rosmahs precious

gem acquisitions.

The Mirpuris are now familiar faces at the various world jewellery showsand they have created exclusive and profitable links with several



Haresh Mirpuri now seenregularly with his wife atjewellery trade fairs

international jewellers.

Sarawak Report has viewed numerous emails sent from and to Jho Lowrelating to such payments, which are notoriously hard for jewellers to getsettled.

In one transfer, hundreds of thousands of dollarscan be seen as having been paid directly from JhoLows company to a known jeweller to settleseveral items of diamond jewellery purchased byRosmah.

Another set of emails and receipts detail how JhoLows company paid a total of USD1 million to aJakarta trader, Deepak Topandasani, towardspurchases of Datins jewels.

A further payment also of a million US dollars was directly made to anAsian subsidiary of one of the worlds most exclusive jewellers in NewYork, Louis Glick. Again the money came from the same company ownedby Low.

Usually, however, traders say it is Mirpuri who controls all transactionsand makes payments through Hong Kong. Jho Low in turn pays Mirpuri. One one occasion Low told an intermediary:

She [Rosmah] has to realise it takes time, its not so easy to justget the money quickly.

The system is frustrating and uncertain say traders, who are often madeto wait months to be paid for transactions. One Asia based jeweller told



Sarawak Report:

It can take up to a year to get paid. You get paid in instalmentsindirectly. She has the money of course, its just she is verycontrolling and likes to make people wait, she is a control freak.

Another, who is based in Europe, confirmed:

We are waiting [on] their payments more than six months wesold end August/Septemeber and we are still waiting and it is abig amount. Its not like you can just phone her up. they are notbuying like before, she was a good customer but she is changingnow.

Given this further evidence gained from jewellers and insiders, SarawakReport believes it is time Malaysias first couple explained theirrelationship with Jho Low, his role at 1MDB and where the money camefrom in order to finance these enormously expensive purchases for thePMs wife?



Mixing business with family friendship. Jho Low (left) lines up with theDirectors of PetroSaudi and Malaysias first family at the outset of the1MDB venture

Butamba Investments Limited

The payments accessed by Sarawak Report show that one companyregularly used by Jho Low to pay jewellers providing gems for Rosamahwas Butamba Investments Limited.



One million dollars transferred to Rose Trading, the Hong Kong arm ofthe New York jeweller Louis Glick

Jewellers say that more often than not Jho Low has funnelled funds moreindirectly, through Deepak Jaikishan and Natasha Mirpuri.

However, we have seen a number of receipts paid directly by ButambaInvestments, all relating to jewellery purchases by Rosmah, according torelated emails. An email related to the above telegraphic transfer recordread:

Fwd Payment advice to Rose Trading USD1,000,000From: Lee Julia (RBS Coutts, SG)



To: [email protected]

Dear Mr Low,

Thanks Julia Lee (attachment)

Separately, an email relating to the below receipt was forwarded fromJho Low and was titled Internal Transfer Fvg Deepak USD750,000:

Hi.please confirm receiving 1 million in total.. Datin is comingto Hong Kong. Do you want to show her more goods?

Not to be confused with Deepak Jaikishan Jho Lows company



Colours attract the magpiespenders

Butamba transferred money to pay these jewellers in Jakarta

Research into Jho Lows company Wynton Capital by Malaysias premierbusiness paper The Edge has already established that ButambaInvestments Limited is the investment arm of Wynton Capital and waslisted as a shareholder of Iskandar Holdings, the company whichacquired a large chunk of controversial land in the Government backedventure that has destroyed much of Malaysias remaining mangroveforest and displaced native fishing communities.

The payments from Butamba Investments, alongwith the related emails from Jho and testimonyfrom jewellers and insiders, seal the link betweenJho Low and highly expensive purchases ofjewellery by the Prime Ministers wife.

Another email sent to Jho Low and a jeweller,who was awaiting settlement reads:

As per conversation with Jho Low he has informed he will do thefollowing. Your outstanding balance is now US$1,650,000. Latest by 14th deposit US$750,000 and by end [of the month]deposit US$900,000 (500 +400)..

Jho Low himself wrote several emails direct to jewellers, which we haveseen along the lines of the one quoted below:

From [email protected] [email protected]: Wire transfer for jewellery



Coloured diamonds,favoured by Asias nouveauriche, is where the money is

I wish to confirm USDxxx,xxx is Ok. You should receive it latetonight or tomorrow [we have been asked not to state theamount to protect the identities of the transactions]

It is therefore legitimate to ask why millions of dollars in payments wentthrough this company owned by Low in order to fund the purchases ofdiamonds and other jewels by Rosmah?

Coutts Bank

Butambas Singapore account with RBS Coutts isnot the only connection between Jho Low andthis private bank, regarded as one of the mostexclusive in Britain.

The Chairman of the bank is the son of a formerPrime Minister, Earl Hume and its most famouscustomer is the Queen.

Earl Hume is also Patron of the British Malaysia Society, which seeks tobuild relationships between the business elites of both countries.

It was Coutts Banks Zurich branch in Switzerland, which controversiallyprovided an account for another Jho Low company named Good Star,which accepted a USD700 million payment from 1MDB at very shortnotice on October 2nd 2009.

Evidence from the PetroSaudi data base, acquired by Sarawak Report andothers from their former executive Xavier Justo, shows that PetroSaudiDirector Patrick Mahony had lied to 1MDBs legal team that Good Starbelonged to PetroSaudi, when in fact it was controlled by Jho Low.



Large pearl Rosmahs jewellery has raised eyebrows

As Sarawak Report revealed in March, the youthful Low enjoyed anunofficial and secretive but extremely powerful position at 1MDB, as itwas understood he was the representative of the Prime Minister andFinance Minister, who it has emerged had himself secretly obtained totalauthority over all spending and investments, as the sole shareholder andsignatory of 1MDB.

Emails show that there was concern expressed by compliance staff atCoutts about who the beneficial owner of Good Star was on the day of thetransaction on October 2nd 2009.

Yet, what would normally be regarded as a suspiciously large transactionwas nevertheless completed in a matter of a few hours on that day.

The following year some USD530 million was then transferred on fromthe Good Star account at Coutts Zurich to an account beneficially owedby Jho Low at BSIs Singapore Branch.

Jho Lows BSI accounts are now being investigated by the Singaporeauthorities as part of the wider investigation into the missing billions



from 1MDB.

The Mirpuris

A number of insiders have identified this Singapore couple as the keyintermediaries for Rosmahs shopping therapy.

The fashion designer became part of Rosmahs entourage around 2006,insiders say, and was extremely ingratiating. She started to replaceDeepak and other intermediaries with retailers for Rosmah and hascontrolled the First Ladys purchases for the past six years.

Jewellers have complained to Sarawak Report that the situation hasdisadvantaged them because the Mirpuris demand commission, or theywill not make the introduction to this lucrative client.

The normal commission for white diamonds is about 2-3%, butRosmah likes fancy diamonds [coloured]. Normally, an agentcan hope for up to 10% for fancy diamonds, but the Mirpuris aredemanding 20-30%, a business insider told Sarawak Report.

Payments from Jho Low are obtained in dribs and drabs, usually throughthe Mirpuris.

However, one creditor told Sarawak Report that in one case the balancewas settled directly in cash that Jho Low paid into their colleagues HongKong account through Coutts Singapore:

It was two lots of USD500,000. The bank accepted the cashstraight into the account. No inward remittance untraceablecos cash.



It has been observed that the Mirpuris, who appear to have no otheroccupation beyond servicing Rosmah, have become prosperous in recentyears.

All the negotiations are done through them, not Jho Low. Its likeyou cant go direct to her, because if you do bad things willhappen to you and you arent going to get paid They are thepeople right now between the payment and the jewellersremarked one.

Shopping therapy and Jho Lows family connection

Rosmahs propensity to buy large has got out of control in recent years,particularly since she became First Lady, members of her entourage andsellers have confirmed to Sarawak Report.

People say Rosmah finds buying her therapy, this is herhappiness let it go. But, she went crazy, overboard.. Its very easyto charge US$20 million for a pink diamond $20 million, $30million, $40 million, so its not hard to spend explains one.

However, the system of payments through third parties creates majorproblems say jewellers.

Most sales take place at her own residence where jewellers fly in from allover the world to hawk their wares. If the transaction is small i.e. lessthan a million dollars, according to one trader, then the payment is fixedon the spot.

She has this aluminium cupboard that stretches the entire wall ofone room and it is full of cash, all lined up in different



Purchases of less than a million can besettled at home in cash say jewellers.

denominations and amounts

However, the larger sums are less easy to settle and can involve severalpayments over many months.

There is no up front, no one-time, nothing. Everything is spreadout like over 6 months. There is no one-time payment made to onecompany theres always payments made in maybe 5 batches or6 batches, spread out over the year. This is why its quite open inthe industry that a lot of people dont want to do deals with herbecause it is very risky.. the margins are very high, but their riskis even higher

Rosmah is also known to be temperamental, say jewellers.

In one case a prominent Malaysianjeweller, who was driven to ask for adelayed payment had all the purchasedarticles thrown back at him, followingwhich he was expelled from the house sale cancelled.

Jho Lows involvement in the processcomes from his trusted position as alongstanding family friend, introducedby Rosmahs son Riza who he metabroad while at school in the UK and

then the US.

The Warton business school graduate has boasted in the past how hestarted his company Wynton Capital while still in college with a few



million and he was taking a pivotal role as a trusted advisor, helping thefamily with their finances from his twenties say people who know thecouple well.

The question remains as to why the couple have so much money for JhoLow to assist in spending and apparently managing?

As numerous observers have pointed out neither inherited money of thismagnitude and Najib has been a politician earning an MPs andministerial salary since his early twenties he joined parliament at theage of 23.

Responses on this subject in recent months have ranged frominheritance, to the expected wealth of people in high positions to wealthfrom a newly acquired son in law.

However, Jho Lows activities as a prominent investor linked to many ofMalaysias public projects from a very tender age now clearly deserveexplaining. Why is he paying for Rosmahs jewels and where did thismoney come from?

how jho low pays for rosmah's shopping sprees - expose! | sarawak report

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