Los Angeles, March 7 (IANS) "Wolf of Wall Street" producer Red Granite Pictures has agreed to pay $60 million to the US government to resolve allegations that it profited from a massive Malaysian corruption scandal.
The company filed a joint stipulation with federal prosecutors on Tuesday. Under the agreement, Red Granite does not admit to any wrongdoing, reports variety.com.
"We are glad to finally put this matter behind us and look forward to refocusing all of our attention back on our film business," the company said in a statement.
Prosecutors filed a civil asset forfeiture action against the company in July 2016, as part of a much broader effort to recoup more than $1 billion allegedly embezzled from 1MDB, a Malaysian state-run development fund.
The Justice Department has accused financier Jho Low of masterminding a scheme to steal $4.5 billion from the fund.
Prosecutors alleged that Riza Aziz, the CEO of Red Granite, used more than $100 million taken from 1MDB to finance "The Wolf of Wall Street", "Dumb and Dumber To" and "Daddy's Home", reports variety.com.
The agreement provides that Red Granite will make the forfeiture payment in three instalments: $30 million within 30 days, $20 million within the next 180 days and the final $10 million within 180 days after that.
