February 28, 2016
He arrived from out of nowhere in 2009, a mysterious, geeky 28-year-old dropping ridiculous amounts of money all over the city.
When Lindsay Lohan was celebrating her 23rd birthday at 1Oak, he sent 23 bottles of Cristal to her table. He spent $160,000 on bottle service one evening at Chelsea hot spot Avenue and once flew eight waitresses from Greenwich Village club Pink Elephant to an after-party — in Malaysia.
Yet no one knew who this man, Low Taek Jho — otherwise known as Jho Low — was, or where he got his money.
The intrigue only deepened over the next few years, as Low collected a staggering amount of luxury real estate and famous artwork. He spent $30.55 million for an apartment in the Time Warner Center, as well as $23.98 million for a condo at the Park Laurel.
He bought Monets, Basquiats, Rothkos. He is widely thought to be the person who bought Picasso’s “Women of Algiers” last May for $141 million at auction — the most expensive painting ever purchased. He made the ARTnews list of the world’s 200 top private collectors.
The Justice Department’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery program now is investigating the Low-linked real-estate purchases.