Beau Willimon is developing a Billion Dollar Whale TV series on Malaysia’s 1MDB corruption scandal

The Hollywood Reporter

The House of Cards creator and his producing partner Jordan Tappis are teaming with SK Global, the co-financiers of Crazy Rich Asians, to develop and produce a series based on Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World, the bestselling nonfiction book about the historic 1MDB Malaysian corruption scandal. M. Butterfly playwright and screenwriter David Henry Hwang, a three-time Pulitzer finalist, will pen the adaptation of Wall Street Journal reporters Tom Wright and Bradley Hope's 2018 book. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Billion Dollar Whale offers an inside account of Malaysia’s massive 1MDB money-laundering scandal, exposing a nexus of elite wealth, banking, Hollywood, and politics. The book centers on the heist’s alleged mastermind, international fugitive Jho Low, and his adventures in Hollywood (financing Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and palling around with Leonardo DiCaprio) and Wall Street (making Goldman Sachs millions while defrauding investors). Still under investigation by authorities in Malaysia, Singapore, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the U.S. Department of Justice, the theft — estimated at $5 billion — ranks among the biggest cases of fraud in history."