Inside the 1MDB Scandal: How One Woman EXPOSED the World's Biggest Theft from her bedroom

Episode Overview Some $7 billion was stolen in the 1MDB scandal. It cost $8 billion to cover it up. Clare Rewcastle Brown uncovered it from a spare room in her house, with a blog and a shortwave radio, no newsroom, no budget, no legal team. When the Malaysian government hired a $15 million PR firm to destroy her reputation, she investigated the PR firm and had it shut down. When London's top libel firms sent legal letters, she didn't reply to them. The prime minister who orchestrated the theft is now in prison. She is working on the next story. Rewcastle Brown grew up in Borneo, watched the rainforest she remembered as a child get replaced by palm oil plantation, and decided to start writing about it. What she found was not just local corruption but a web that ran through Goldman Sachs, the Wolf of Wall Street, a Kuwaiti emirate, and the global financial system. In this conversation she explains how a half million leaked emails cracked the 1MDB story, why corruption is almost always visible in plain sight, how London's libel laws protect the corrupt rather than the journalism that exposes them, and what it means to be called a persistent pest by one of the men she put in jail. Link to her most recent book - https://saqibooks.com/books/the-westb... Chapters 00:00 Cold open: $7 billion stolen, $8 billion to cover it up 01:00 Intro: blog, shortwave radio, no newsroom, brought down a government 02:00 Tell me a story: the call from Kuwait and the final piece of the jigsaw 04:00 Borneo childhood: the Amazon of the East and what happened to it 06:00 The greenwash conference in 2006 and the palm oil plantation out of the window 07:00 Local journalists gagged: mafia corruption at the highest levels of the state 08:00 Why the internet made it possible, and why a single blog was enough 09:00 The truth has immense power, even in a post-truth era 11:00 The $15 million PR campaign, the attack blogs, and why she exposed the PR firm instead 13:00 Why mainstream newsrooms couldn't touch the story 15:00 Six libel firms, pre-publication, and the smallest the story could be cut to 16:00 Anti-SLAPP laws, pre-action protocols, and who the libel system actually protects 19:00 The legal bluff: why she didn't reply and why a newsroom can't do the same 21:00 Najib Razak, Jho Low, and the sidekick everyone knows is doing the private side 22:00 The Wolf of Wall Street, the PM's wife, and Jho Low in the launch party photos 23:00 Corruption is almost always in plain sight 24:00 Bangkok, the fallen insider, and a copy of the company server 25:00 Half a million emails and how the story broke 26:00 What drives her: the consequences for the people of Borneo, not the PM in jail 27:00 The same entities, the same names, the same locations: not a conspiracy theory 28:00 Epstein, 1MDB, and the overlap she kept bumping into 29:00 Persistence pays: Jho Low's name for her, and her name for herself 30:00 Boarding school at eight and what it may have taught her 31:00 Sarawak Report, half a million followers, and requests from journalists in danger worldwide 34:00 Public interest journalism needs to be protected by law "You can be up against the most powerful people, with enormous support to disguise and push back, but when people read the truth, it resonates." — Clare Rewcastle Brown About StoryCo StoryCo is a podcast about the business of story and storytelling, hosted by James Kirkham. New episodes every week from TellTale Industries. About the Guest Clare Rewcastle Brown is an investigative journalist and founder of Sarawak Report, the blog that exposed the 1MDB scandal, the largest recorded theft of public funds in history. Her reporting contributed to the defeat and eventual imprisonment of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. She has been sued, surveilled, threatened, and convicted in absentia in Malaysia, which she cannot safely visit. Her book on the cover-up period of 1MDB is out now. Listen and Subscribe APPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... SPOTIFY : https://open.spotify.com/show/5RiTIoX... LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopod Credits StoryCo is a TellTale Industries production. Host: James Kirkham. Guest: Clare Rewcastle Brown. Exec Producer: Jago Lee. Producer: Nelly Batt. Editor: Nelly Batt. Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross. Theme: Doubt Point. Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard How Clare Rewcastle Brown exposed the 1MDB scandal from a spare room, eventually jailing a Prime Minister. Clare Rewcastle Brown shares the story of how she used a blog and shortwave radio to uncover the 1MDB scandal, a $7 billion theft that shook the global financial system. This conversation explores the realities of modern investigative journalism, where a single person with enough persistence can dismantle a corrupt network that spans from Borneo to Goldman Sachs.