Corruption

Shah and Grant: How to steal billions

From 2009 to at least 2013, private individuals were allegedly able to siphon off more than $3.5 billion from the wealth fund of Malaysia and go on a high-end luxury shopping spree in several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland for property, museum-quality art and a private jet. 

Gatekeepers such as auction houses, the real estate industry, lawyers and banks played supporting roles (sometimes unwittingly) in the alleged wrongdoing.

The perpetrators used shell companies, where the real names of the ultimate owners were obscured. Ironically, in a plot twist made in Hollywood, they even financed a film, The Wolf of Wall Street, about living high off financial fraud.