The Department of Justice has confiscated one of Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscars—not the one he won in 2016 for The Revenant, but one he'd purchased.
Leo had acquired Marlon Brando's original Oscar statuette from the latter's 1954 performance in On the Waterfront. DiCaprio got the souvenir from Red Granite Pictures, which produced films like Dumb and Dumber To and Daddy's Home, but also allegedly helped hide money from high-level Malaysian corruption. (You read that right.)
The DOJ is reportedly looking to trace tens of millions of dollars through Red Granite and other Malaysian-backed production companies, specifically through extravagant celebrity gifts like diamonds, priceless art, and yes, a wayward Oscar. There's another celeb wrapped up in all this: model Miranda Kerr, who reportedly received heapings of diamonds from Malaysian financier Jho Low.
Though Leo didn't star in Red Granite's marquee pictures, the Martin Scorsese-directed Wolf of Wall Street also received financing from a Malaysian production company. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Leo received other gifts through this strange cross-Pacific saga, including "a Picasso painting purchased for $3.28 million, a photograph by Diane Arbus purchased for $750,000, and a Jean-Michel Basquiat collage purchased for $9,191,040."
As bananas as this investigation is on paper, it honestly reads like an excellent Hollywood script. And hey, Leo could reprise his part.
