The man responsible for what the FBI called the “largest kleptocracy case to date” threw himself a hell of a thirty-first birthday party. A grab bag of Hollywood party clichés, Malaysian businessman Jho Low’s 2012 Las Vegas bash included a bespoke aircraft hangar, a Ferris wheel, a cigar lounge, Cirque-du-Soleil-esque performers, “Oompa Loompa” impersonators, and booze served by gorgeous women clad in red dresses.

What the party lacked in creativity, it made up for in cash thrown down. As Tom Wright and Bradley Hope describe in Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World, dozens of A-list celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, and Kim Kardashian, came out, many of whom were paid big money to attend. Swizz Beatz, Kanye West, and Ludacris provided musical entertainment, with Britney Spears bursting from a cake to sing “Happy Birthday.” Jho Low himself was gifted a bright red Lamborghini by nightclub owners Noah Tepperberg and Jason Strauss, as a thank you for the millions of dollars he had spent in their establishments over the years.

Low Taek Jho, Wharton business school graduate and professional hanger-on, allegedly bluffed his way into the corridors of power in Malaysia and masterminded the theft of $4.5 billion from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, the state investment fund for which he served as unofficial special adviser. And he didn’t work alone. Low developed connections around the globe — with the likes of the now-former Malaysian prime minister, middling Saudi elites, washed-up rappers, and a dozen Goldman Sachs bankers — using them to successfully implement the swindle and stash the cash in offshore bank accounts.