The seller’s agent was Raphael De Niro, the son of Robert De Niro (who himself would soon get to know Low and Prime Minister Najib Razak). The younger De Niro worked for high-end property firm Douglas Elliman Real Estate, which, like all U.S. brokers handling hundreds of millions of dollars in property transactions each year—as well as lawyers involved in real estate deals—was not required under American laws to conduct due diligence of clients’ finances. In fact, De Niro didn’t even need to know the ultimate buyer of a property, and Low purported to be representing Malaysia’s prime minister
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