Near the end of July this year, Leonardo DiCaprio hosted his annual fundraising event at a lush vineyard in St. Tropez. Models, businessmen, and celebs galore attended the $11,778/ticket event in all their glory, and spent money like it grew on trees.

But on that same day, something else was happening. Something far less glamorous and a lot more nasty.

Hollywood Reporter explains:

Earlier that same day the U.S. Department of Justice was filing a complaint with the U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles that suggested the recent Oscar winner is a bit of a player in the planet’s largest embezzlement case, totaling more than $3 billion siphoned from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund called 1MDB.

But what exactly is this 1MDB? The Daily Beast dishes:

The fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) was owned by the Malaysian government, and had raised upwards of $8 billion to benefit the Malaysian people. However, according to the DOJ, $3.5 billion of that money was “misappropriated” between 2009 and 2015, including establishing a production company called Red Granite Pictures that bankrolled DiCaprio’s 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street (and has an office right above DiCaprio’s production company, Appian Way, in West Hollywood, California), and also donating millions from the fund to the actor’s charity, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Though not directly targeted, DiCaprio is named as “Hollywood Actor 1” in a 136-page complaint filed by the DOJ.

Deep. So what of it? Well, the scandal has been linked to Hollywood from the start. Hollywood Reporter has all the dirt – read it for a complete lowdown.

Notably absent this year was Jho Low, 35, the bespectacled Malaysian businessman and party boy at the center of the 1MDB scandal who, at least as early as 2010, became a regular drinking buddy of DiCaprio’s (the biggest star on a roster of Low’s celebrity friends that includes Paris Hilton, Jamie Foxx and Alicia Keys). Low, notorious for stunts like sending 23 bottles of Cristal to Lindsay Lohan for her 23rd birthday at the club 1OAK in Las Vegas in 2009, is alleged in the DOJ complaint to have used roughly $1 billion in 1MDB funds for a personal shopping spree. This included the acquisition of a $31 million penthouse in Manhattan’s Time Warner Center, once occupied by Jay Z and Beyonce, and a $39 million Hollywood Hills mansion a few doors down from DiCaprio.

From key players and businesses, if the FBI is calling it the largest embezzlement case on the planet then you know something is up.

But then, something else happened, involving yet another major player. Leo backed out of hosting a gala dinner for Hillary Clinton at his home.

Instead, he got Justin Timberlake and wife Jessica Biel to host the event and that got tongues wagging. His excuse? He had production delays and couldn’t leave New York. Pfffft.

Now, the Clinton’s own charitable fund is also under scrutiny over international funds it has received, and the two events inspired a conservative street artist Sabo to put up this art in LA:

Meanwhile, Leo and his bae, Nina Agdal, were hanging out in The Hamptons over the weekend and were involved in a little fender bender – but the two are alright.

I guess not all is lost…

[source: fbi&hollywoodreporter]