Clare Rewcastle Brown (born 20 June 1959) is a British environmental and anti-corruption journalist and activist who uncovered the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. Born in the former British Crown Colony of Sarawak (now part of Malaysia), she is the founder and operator of the Sarawak Report blog and Radio Free Sarawak which have exposed corruption driving deforestation and human rights violations in that state along with failures in the global financial systems which facilitate kleptocracy. In 2015 she shifted her focus to the federal government of Malaysia and the country's prime minister, Najib Razak. Her blog Sarawak Report gained widespread recognition for its original and early exposure of the 1MDB scandal, which contributed to widespread disillusionment with Najib's Barisan Nasional government, culminating in its loss in the 2018 elections.
Early life, education and career Rewcastle Brown was born in colonial Sarawak on 20 June 1959 to British parents before the territory formed a part of Malaysia. She attended a local primary school in the neighbouring state of Sabah. Her father, Patrick John Rewcastle, served as the head of special branch in Sarawak and later, following independence, as the Superintendent of the Royal Malaysia Police in Sabah. Her mother, Karis Louise Hutchings, was a midwifery instructor and assisted in caring for indigenous infants at remote clinics. She moved to the United Kingdom when she was eight, attended private boarding school, then studied modern history at King's College London and subsequently obtained her master's degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. She became a journalist, joining the BBC World Service in 1983. She later moved to BBC current affairs television as a producer, then worked as a reporter for Sky TV and subsequently as a news and features correspondent for ITV's Carlton Television.
Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak In 2006, during a visit to Sarawak for an environmental conference, Rewcastle Brown was approached by local journalists and activists to bring public attention to issues related to deforestation in the state. Her reportage led to a ban from Sarawak and claims of receiving death threats.
In February 2010, she launched Sarawak Report, a blog focused on the destruction of Sarawak’s rainforests and alleged corruption involving the state government under Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud. The blog published many documents demonstrating that Taib and his family have benefited financially from land acquired from indigenous communities.
In December 2010, Rewcastle Brown established the radio station Radio Free Sarawak to provide a news source uncensored by the state for the local population. The station’s first DJ, Peter John Jaban, had been dismissed from a state-controlled radio station for allowing criticism of Taib. Rewcastle Brown and Jaban publicly identified themselves in early 2011 following the death of Ross Boyert, a former aide to Taib who had been involved in legal disputes with Taib’s real estate interests. Boyert was found dead in a Los Angeles hotel in September 2011.
Leading up to the April 2011 Sarawak state election, Rewcastle Brown reported frequent cyber attacks on Sarawak Report, attributing them to the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, and claimed that Radio Free Sarawak’s signal was frequently jammed. Malaysian Deputy Information Communication and Culture Minister Joseph Salang Gandum labeled Radio Free Sarawak as illegal due to its lack of licensing with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (however, as it was broadcasting from outside the country, it was legal by international broadcasting law.) In March 2011, Taib’s party, Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), filed a police report against the station.
Rewcastle Brown was banned from entering Sarawak in July 2013 and was detained at Kuching International Airport before being sent back to Singapore. This ban was part of a broader pattern of restricting access to critics of the Sarawak government. On August 1, 2015, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, addressing UMNO delegates, criticized foreign interference in Malaysia’s affairs, implicitly referring to Rewcastle Brown.
1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)
In July 2013, Rewcastle Brown began reporting on Goldman Sachs’ involvement in arranging $6.5 billion for Malaysia’s 1MDB fund, publishing details of extraordinary profits the bank made from a deal involving dubious guarantees made to 1MDB by Abu Dhabi's wealth fund Aabar Investments and its parent company IPIC.
In December 2013, she questioned the involvement of Najib’s behind-the-scenes manager of the fund, the Malaysian businessman and playboy Jho Low, in the funding of the $100 million dollar movie The Wolf of Wall Street produced by Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz. She queried whether some of the money from 1MDB, the whereabouts of which was unclear, might have been invested in the movie and spent on the lavish living of Jho Low and Najib’s notoriously extravagant wife, Rosmah Mansor, and his family.
On February 28, 2015, in collaboration with The Sunday Times, the Sarawak Report published an exposé revealing the misappropriation of $1.83 billion from 1MDB through a supposed joint venture with a shell company called PetroSaudi. The reports laid out how the funds were siphoned off for the benefit of individuals involved in the scheme and prominent members of the Malaysian political establishment. The publication was based on documents provided by a former PetroSaudi director who became a whistleblower. They implicated Najib Razak and Jho Low, leading to increased measures by the Malaysian government against Rewcastle Brown, including the issuance of an arrest warrant and the blocking of her website.
Rewcastle Brown continued to investigate and report on 1MDB, revealing that billions were misappropriated from Goldman Sachs-managed bonds and at least $681 million was diverted to Najib’s personal accounts. She claimed she shared this information with journalists at The Wall Street Journal which helped bring international attention to the scandal. However, journalists from The Wall Street Journal have denied this, stating that their coverage was based on an independent investigation with their own sources. Additionally, she claims she provided information to the U.S. Department of Justice, leading to a significant asset seizure in 2016.
In 2015, Rewcastle Brown scrutinized the origins of the wealth of Khadem Al-Qubaisi, the CEO of the UAE's International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), suggesting ties to the 1MDB scandal. Following this, in April 2016, the UAE central bank froze and inspected bank accounts linked to Qubaisi and another IPIC official. Investigations confirmed financial misappropriations, leading to further UAE authority probes. In 2016, Rewcastle Brown reported on the involvement of Chinese state construction companies in laundering billions from 1MDB funds. These funds were channeled through overpriced contracts for railways and pipelines awarded by Najib Razak's Barisan Nasional government. The money was funneled through a Chinese bank in Kuwait and returned to Malaysia, to conceal financial discrepancies in 1MDB resulting from prior misappropriations. Subsequent reporting by the Sarawak Report in 2020 contributed to the 2023 conviction in Kuwait of the son of the country's former prime minister and several associates.
The electoral defeat in 2018 of Barisan Nasional, the party which had ruled the country since independence, is widely attributed to the 1MDB scandal. The new administration lifted Rewcastle Brown’s arrest warrant, allowing her to return to Peninsular Malaysia, though Sarawak maintained its entry ban. Ongoing legal proceedings followed against Najib Razak, resulting in his conviction and imprisonment.
Target of harassment and smear campaigns Rewcastle Brown has been subject to harassment, spying and smear campaigns, online and in person, which have often turned out to emanate from Western PR firms commissioned by the subjects of her investigations whose criminality she has brought to light. Meanwhile Sarawak Report has been subject to numerous cyber attacks.
In August 2011, Sarawak Report highlighted the fact that FBC Media, a media production company which produced programs for CNBC and the BBC among others, had been doubling as a public relations firm for Malaysian politicians, including Chief Minister of Sarawak Abdul Taib Mahmud. It alleged that FBC produced shows designed to cover Taib and the state government in a positive light and that it was performing similar services for corrupt regimes across the globe. In light of the revelations, CNBC cancelled World Business, a programme produced by FBC, while the BBC suspended all FBC-produced shows from their programming.
Rewcastle Brown had earlier suggested that the PR firm was part of a network commissioned by Taib to conduct a "defamation campaign" against her, including hiring journalists from a right-wing American blog The New Ledger to publish attacks on her. She also accused the PR firm hired by Taib of creating a "rival" website called Sarawak Reports, to attack her and post "propaganda material promoting Taib," and of editing her Wikipedia entry to include false allegations from such attack sites. The "rival" blog has since been taken down while FBC Media went into administration on 24 October 2011.
In December 2011, it was discovered that the public relations firm Bell Pottinger had covertly targeted the Wikipedia entry of Rewcastle Brown, among others. The blog Sarawak Bersatu, purporting to defend Sarawak from foreign influences, and its associated Twitter account, attacked Rewcastle Brown’s journalistic integrity, branded her an agent of British socialism, and spread false sexual misconduct claims about a colleague. A former Bell Pottinger employee, cited by the New Yorker, confirmed the firm’s role in producing Sarawak Bersatu’s content, employing tactics akin to what would later be recognised as “fake news.”
In 2015 Rewcastle Brown complained to Facebook that she had again become the target of an online defamation campaign, now using fake Twitter and Facebook profiles boosted through Facebook’s paid promotion services. However, Facebook and Twitter refused to cease promoting the defamatory content on the grounds the journalist was a fair target according to their rules.
At the same time Rewcastle Brown was subject to stalking and harassment in London by presumed agents of Malaysia’s secret service, a stream of legal threats from UK law firms working on behalf of those whose criminality she had written about and approaches by supposed journalists actually working for PR and private investigation firms variously attempting to collect information on her and conduct hostile interviews which they hoped to be able to use to discredit her.
Legal issues
Criminal prosecution In 2021, a criminal libel prosecution was initiated in Malaysia against Rewcastle Brown. The case, launched during the 2020-2023 tenure of a government allied with Barisan Nasional, centered on whether a phrase in Rewcastle Brown's book on the 1MDB scandal, The Sarawak Report, implied that the Sultanah had wielded undue influence over state affairs in Terengganu and whether it implied a defamatory association with Jho Low. This criminal case proceeded alongside a civil suit filed by the Sultanah against Rewcastle Brown as well as the distributor and printer of the book.