https://pagesix.com/2017/06/15/shady-as ... -diamonds/
Supermodel Miranda Kerr was given millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds by her billionaire ex-boyfriend — who is accused of masterminding the theft of $4.5 billion from a Malaysian development fund.
Malaysian financier Jho Low began showering Kerr with the gems on Valentine’s Day 2014 — shortly after her divorce from actor Orlando Bloom — the US government charges in a civil lawsuit it filed Thursday as part of an effort to seize assets it claims were bought with money stolen in the development fund scam.
For his first gift, Low told Manhattan-based jeweler to the stars Lorraine Schwartz that he had $1 million to $2 million to spend — and that size mattered, according to the suit.
He met the jeweler in his Time Warner Center condo — which the feds say he also bought with stolen cash — and settled on a diamond big enough to be any girl’s best friend, an 11.72-carat, heart-shaped rock that cost $1.29 million, the suit says.
As a finishing touch, he had it inscribed with Kerr’s initials.
“Low [gave] the 11.72-carat heart-shaped diamond to Kerr, who resides in Los Angeles, as a Valentine’s Day present,” the court filings state.
That was just the beginning.
In November 2014, Low allegedly plunked down $3.8 million as partial payment for an 8.88-carat diamond pendant from Schwartz valued at around $4.5 million that he gave to Kerr as a gift.
He bought it after seeing a photo of it.
“Heart looks beautiful,” he wrote to his jeweler. “Let’s take it and be ready asap!”
The diamond was sent to Low in November at the London office of a lingerie company that he had also allegedly bought with stolen money. It came with a chain and necklace that cost $800,000.
He then spent an additional $1.98 million on 11-carat diamond earrings and a matching necklace, ring and bracelet.
Low gave Kerr those diamonds aboard his new yacht, the Equanimity, which the government also wants back.
By October, Low added $1 million, 11-carat diamond earrings to his offerings to Kerr. He then wired another $4.05 million to Schwartz to pay for it all.
If the suit to claw back Low’s ill-gotten bling is successful, the feds can sue Kerr to get the diamonds back, unless she agrees to hand them over on her own.
A source said she plans to return the baubles.
The gifts to Kerr, who dated Low for a year, are just part of more than $1.6 billion worth of assets — including property, art, jewels, the yacht and even a jet — that the US Justice Department is now trying to recover.
Kerr — who married billionaire Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel this year — has been cooperating fully with the investigation and still has the diamonds, said a source close to her.
The feds have not asked for the diamonds back yet, the source said.
Male movie stars were also the recipient of gifts bought with money stolen from the people of Malaysia, court papers allege.
Low spent millions to fly around the world with Leonardo DiCaprio and to gamble with him.
DiCaprio announced through a spokesman Thursday that he was returning more than $13 million worth of art given to him by a Hollywood production company, Red Granite, which is connected to Low and which funded the actor’s 2013 movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
DiCaprio is also returning Marlon Brando’s Oscar for “On the Waterfront,” which Red Granite had bought for him for $600,000.
Contacted by The Post, Avra Douglas, the executor and archivist of Brando’s estate, said the estate was now considering its legal options.
“I know that [the Oscar] was missing when Marlon was alive,” she said.
Red Granite was co-founded by Riza Aziz, the stepson of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, and Joey McFarland, a former party booker for Paris Hilton.
The US government charges that the Hollywood production company was founded on money stolen from the Malaysian development fund 1MDB.
More than $4.2 million of the stolen money was used to buy original movie posters, including one for 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz” and another, worth $1.2 million, for the 1927 film “Metropolis.”
Aziz plastered his New York condo, also bought with stolen cash, with the posters.
He also gave some as gifts to DiCaprio — who has not returned them — and to Martin Scorsese, director of “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
DiCaprio introduced Aziz to the owner of a company that sold the posters over dinner one night, the feds’ suit charges.
