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DiCaprio’s ties to Malaysian money-laundering scandal bring calls to quit U.N. post.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio poses for photographers during a photo
call to promote the film ‘Before the Flood’, showing as part
 of the London Film Festival in London, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016.
 (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP) more >

By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Sunday, October 16, 2016

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is being urged by environmentalists to step down from his U.N. climate change position over his connection to a Malaysian money-laundering scandal under investigation by the Justice Department.

The Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss rainforest advocacy group, called on Mr. DiCaprio to disclose and disavow his ties to associates of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is suspected of using state funds to finance the actor’s 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

If Mr. DiCaprio refuses, the group said, he should relinquish his position as U.N. messenger of peace for climate change.

“Leonardo DiCaprio has consistently refused to explain his close personal and financial ties with key persons of the Malaysian 1MDB scandal,” said Lukas Straumann, Bruno Manser Fund director, said at a Friday press conference in London.

At the press conference, activists from Malaysia, the United Kingdom and Switzerland urged Mr. DiCaprio to pay back “all dubious funds” received by his production company, Appian Way, from Riza Aziz, the prime minister’s stepson, and financier Low Taek Jho.

“This is unacceptable. If DiCaprio fails to distance himself from Malaysian corruption, he should resign as U.N. messenger of peace for climate change,” Mr. Straumann said. “We can’t save the environment if we fail to stop corruption.”

Mr. DiCaprio, who had no immediate public comment on the environmental charity’s demand, has been dogged for months by questions about his relationship with the two men.

In a timeline of the scandal, the Hollywood Reporter said that by 2012, “DiCaprio is already a regular fixture at Low’s side” and that the three went gambling together in Las Vegas a month before the film’s production began.

The Justice Department is seeking to recover $1 billion in assets “associated with an international conspiracy to launder funds misappropriated from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund,” according to a July 20 press release.

The investigation, which represents the biggest civil forfeiture case in U.S. history, seeks to track whether top officials misappropriated $3.5 billion from the 1MDB fund from 2009 to 2015.

“According to the allegations in this complaints, this is a case where life imitated art,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said in a statement. “The associates of these corrupt 1MDB officials are alleged to have used some of the illicit proceeds of their fraud scheme to fund the production of ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ a movie about a corrupt stockbroker who tried to hide his own illicit profits in a perceived foreign safe haven.”

In July 2014, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Mr. DiCaprio, an environmental activist, as a “messenger of peace” focusing on climate change.

Critics of Mr. DiCaprio’s climate change activism have long mocked the actor for pursuing a lavish lifestyle even as he scolds others about rising greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.

“Maybe somebody could also get him to stop lecturing us about the evils of CO2 production while flying private jets all over the world,” said Anthony Watts, of Watts Up With That, a blog about global warming.

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