‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Was Financed With Stolen Money, Producers Forced to Pay Feds $60 Million
Today in irony…
In a shockingly appropriate turn of events, it turns out The Wolf of Wall Street was financed by stolen money. But fear not: Leonardo DiCaprio (probably) had nothing to do with it.
The production studio that bankrolled the Martin Scorsese movie, Red Granite Pictures, used cash that had been stolen from a Malaysian state investment fund.
$3.5 billion of 1MDB money was stolen altogether, but just $60 million (still a lot) was used on the movie. Red Granite had also financed Dumb and Dumber To and Daddy’s Home.
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Producers have been forced to pay all $60 million back. They will have to cough up the cash to the United States in three installments: $30 million within 30 days, $20 million within the next 180 days and the last $10 million in the following 180 days.
The stolen money somehow wound up in the hands of associates of Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, whose stepson Riza Aziz co-founded Red Granite. The associates blew the cash on hasty financial investments and lavish personal expenses.
Red Granite also blew around $600,000 on an insane birthday gift for DiCaprio, the 1955 Oscar Marlon Brando won for Best Actor in On the Waterfront.
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DiCaprio was forced to surrender the statuette as part of the investigation. Thankfully, he finally has one of his own.
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