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human
ELI5: DiCaprio and the Malaysian Scam

Exactly how did the scam work? I tried reading an article on it but I didn't understand; it said DiCaprio helped by buying over priced champagne and donating a statue, and received funds in return. 
What was the scam? How was Leo involved?
gpt
His foundation is not a non-profit. It is set up in a way that he doesn't have to legally expose his expenses. With that protection he is using the foundation funds to embezzle money to his pocket while lining the pockets of his friends.

In regards to the champagne. Let's say his foundation has received $1 million in a donation. He uses this money to put on a fundraiser/gala to get more donations. At this fundraiser he uses foundation money to buy $100 in champagne from his friend... Only he pays his friend $1 million for it. Now the money is outside the foundation and they can split the change as they see fit between themselves.

The Malaysia part comes in because there are financial funds that are using the Foundation as a means to embezzle. There are reports that it is the largest embezzlement scheme ever ($3B) and the Foundation was a part of helping them.. they were giving "donations" or "investments" into the foundation because they knew they could get paid back.. less Leonardo's cut..


The Clinton Foundation has also been in trouble lately. They Clintons sell access to themselves (Secretary of State) if you donate a lot of money to their private foundation. They then use the funds from the foundation to to operate private jets, stay in luxurious hotels, eat the finest food, and give lucrative "jobs" to their political allies without them having to actually work...

In other climate change scams.. Al Gore also scammed people out of money. He set up a carbon offsetting firm. The idea was you give him money and he will offset your carbon usage for you. Most places like this plant trees or something similar and were under the impression he was doing the same. Instead, he invested the money he received into stocks that were supposed to be "green." In reality he just invested the money in any stocks he wanted. So he basically scammed people into giving him money to save the planet and he just used it to make himself richer.

This is why you should always look into a charity before donating and if any organization refuses to open their books to audits to confirm they are on the up and up (like Leonardo) you should assume they are shady and not donate. People who are actually doing good are proud of their organization will gladly open their books to show their altruism.