In 2008, a boisterous young man by the name of Jho Low Taek, a Penang-born Wharton grad with a taste for Cristal champagne and Broadway blondes, approached Malaysia’s Terengganu state government with a proposal to use the state’s authority to sell RM10 billion (US$2.87 billion)  in bonds to start a state-backed investment fund.

That proposal has led to what Tony Pua, a DAP lawmaker, has called “the mother of the mother of the mother of all scandals in the history of Malaysia.”