Environmentalist and Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is being urged to repay donations connected to the Malaysian fund that backed his hit film The Wolf of Wall Street and is now subject to a US justice department investigation and asset seizure effort.
The calls come from the Bruno Manser Funds, a Swiss-based charity focused on protecting the Malaysian rainforest. In an open letter to the actor, it accused the star of “double standards” for accepting donations linked to an international money laundering scandal.
The charity claims that whilst DiCaprio has been engaged in an effort to protect the last remaining tracts of rainforest in Sumatra, the scandal plagued 1MDB fund, which participated in a fundraising Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation auction at Christie’s in 2013, is connected to Malaysian deforestation less than 500 miles away.
The charity claims that whilst DiCaprio has been engaged in an effort to protect the last remaining tracts of rainforest in Sumatra, the scandal plagued 1MDB fund, which participated in a fundraising Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation auction at Christie’s in 2013, is connected to Malaysian deforestation less than 500 miles away.