After seizing hundreds of millions of assets tied to the 1MDB embezzlement scandal, the DoJ is finally starting to return some of the money to the Malaysian people - though the roughly $200 million that has been handed over pales in comparison to the $4.5 billion that the DoJ believes was stolen from public development fund by associates of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

According to the Financial Times and Bloomberg, the monies were returned under the auspices of a DoJ program called the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. Malaysian AG Tommy Thomas said that the first tranche of money returned was $57 million forfeited by Red Granite Pictures, the production studio that helped produce the Martin Scorsese film "Wolf of Wall Street", starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

WSJ has extensively reported how fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, the alleged mastermind of the scheme, used money stolen from 1MDB to help finance the movie; he also purchased a yacht, real estate and millions of dollars worth of jewelry, including diamonds given by Low to supermodel Miranda Kerr.