Jho Low has a radical new look, a home in Cyprus and an EU passport. Are the rumours true, or just ‘bear-faced’ lies?

The fugitive financier, who turned 38 on Monday, ‘now resembles a bear’ and walks like a wild ox, according to authorities in the country harbouring him

He also owns a Cypriot passport, according to reports, but his current whereabouts have not been disclosed

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Fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low pictured in 2015. Photo: AP

Published: 7:28pm, 4 Nov 2019Updated: 5:48pm, 17 Dec 2019

Has Jho Low, the fugitive Malaysian financier who is accused of being the mastermind behind the multibillion-dollar 1MDB financial scandal, undergone radical plastic surgery to make himself look like a bear?

That’s just one of the wild claims made by authorities in the country where he is hiding, according to Malaysia’s Inspector General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador.

“Among the excuses they gave was that he supposedly underwent plastic surgery and now resembles a bear,” the police chief was quoted by Malaysian newspaper Berita Harian as saying. “His face is said to look like a bear. I don’t know but purportedly he has changed how his face looks.”

A brown bear at the Moscow Zoo in Russia. Photo: Reuters

Low – who turned 38 on Monday – has also changed the way he walks, according to the authorities in the unnamed country, so that “there were times when he walked he resembled a wild ox”, Abdul Hamid said.

The inspector general was understandably unimpressed by these reasons for refusing to cooperate with Malaysian police, asking reporters if either of these explanations was “a logical excuse to be given by the authorities” of another country.

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