Jefri Bolkiah ibni Omar Ali Saifuddien III (born 6 November 1954), is a member of the Brunei Royal Family. His elder brother is the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah. Prince Jefri was the finance minister of his oil-rich country from 1986 to 1997. He also served as chairman of the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA) which invests much of the country's wealth and was responsible for overseas investments.
In the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the sultan had external accountants audit the books of BIA, resulting in charges by the Brunei government that Prince Jefri had embezzled $14.8 billion. He denies the charges but in 2000 agreed to hand over his personal holdings to the government, in return for avoiding criminal prosecution and being allowed to keep a personal residence in Brunei. After numerous legal disputes and appeals, in 2007 Britain's Privy Council ruled that this agreement is enforceable. Prince Jefri is known for his extravagant lifestyle. His personal holdings included a huge art collection, the British jeweller Asprey, the New York Palace Hotel, Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles and Plaza Athénée in Paris. He has been married 6 times and divorced 4 wives and has nineteen children.
Personal life
He has had five wives, four of whom he is divorced from and 1 to whom he is still married, and had "seventeen children aged between 2 and 35" in 2008. Additionally he has faced a number of accusations, including lawsuits from the women allegedly involved, that he has paid women to go to Brunei to have sex with him (see ); it is alleged he kept a harem of up to 25 women for several years, which included the writer Jillian Lauren, who published Some Girls: My Life in a Harem about her experiences.,
His costly possessions included a private Boeing 747, a large art collection including works by Manet, Renoir and at least twenty-one works by Degas, along with a collection of 2,000 luxury cars including specially commissioned unique Aston Martins, a number of properties including the Plaza Athénée hotel in Paris and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, the New York Palace Hotel in Manhattan, and others in Paris, Las Vegas and St John's Lodge, in Regent's Park, London, businesses such as the luxury goods manufacturer Asprey, and a yacht named Tits (which came with tenders named Nipple 1 and Nipple 2). His assets were estimated at $1.5 billion. By the 2000s, due to his legal issues (see below) he was forced to sell many of his assets and be exiled from Brunei, although as of September 2009 he appears to have been allowed to return to Brunei and has been seen in public with the Royal Family.
Legal issues with Brunei
Prince Jefri has had a number of legal issues with the state of Brunei, which have amounted to the most costly legal battle in the world.
Brunei is a gas and oil rich state ruled by the Sultan in a constitutional sultanate; the Sultan has control over every aspect of life in Brunei. The Sultan was, at one time, the richest man in the world. From 20 October 1986 to 23 February 1997 Prince Jefri was the Minister of Finance for Brunei, responsible for dealing with revenue from oil and gas through the state body Brunei Investment Agency (BIA), of which Prince Jefri was chairman.
Prince Jefri also owned a network of companies and investment vehicles under the name Amadeo run by his son Hakim, which was used to buy the luxury goods company Asprey and build an amusement park and other projects in Brunei. In July 1998 the Amadeo group collapsed under US$10 billion in debt. Between 1983 and mid-1998 some US$40 billion of what were called "special transfers" were made from the accounts of the BIA.
An independent investigation was undertaken into the circumstances of these special transfers, concluding that in round figures, US$14.8 billion were paid to the accounts of Prince Jefri, US$8 billion to accounts of the Sultan and US$3.8 billion for Government purposes; the destination, purpose and recipients of the remaining transfers were not established. Due to the secretive nature of the state and the blurred lines as to where the royal family’s finances and the state finances began and ended, establishing the true course of events is very difficult.
Prince Jefri was accused of misappropriating state funds to pay for his own personal investments, bought through BIA and Amedeo companies and removed from his position as head of BIA.