Pras Addresses Conspiracy Conviction

In April 2023 Fugees rapper, Pras Michel, was found guilty on all counts of conspiracy to launder money for fugitive Malaysian billionaire Jho Low [click here if you missed that]. 

Addressing the conviction, Pras says a spy is not sexy..

From Variety

It was a scene ripped from a John le Carré novel.

According to firsthand accounts and court documents, a man is told to go to the front desk of the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Manhattan and say the phrase “banana peel.” The concierge then hands him an envelope with orders to circle the block twice before receiving further instructions. He returns, is shuffled into a secret elevator — one that isn’t even used for celebrities, only visiting dignitaries deemed assassination risks — and brought to the penthouse suite.

After 15 minutes, Sun Lijun enters the room and lights a cigarette. The man recognizes Sun, not merely because he is the third-highest-ranking official in China. In fact, they had met during a trip the man took to Hong Kong in which Chinese Communist Party officials confiscated his passport, blindfolded him and drove him into mainland China. Sun doesn’t greet the man sitting on a plush couch at the Four Seasons. Instead, the CCP bigwig pulls out an email from Attorney General Jeff Sessions regarding three American hostages being held in China. One is a pregnant woman. Sun asks the man what should be done about the woman. He suggests that in an act of good faith, she should be released. Sun makes a call, and after a few minutes, shows the man an itinerary — proof that the woman will be freed and flown back to the United States. A week later, at the tail end of 2018, the feds close in on the man as he walks into Lure, his favorite SoHo haunt.

But here’s the part that le Carré’s editors would have rejected as wildly implausible. The man is Pras Michél, founder of the legendary hip-hop band the Fugees. And his life is about to descend into chaos as he becomes the highest profile target in a labyrinthine criminal corruption case stemming from one of the world’s biggest financial scandals — the $4.5 billion looting of Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund known as 1MDB.

“I don’t know if subconsciously it was a bit exciting for me too,” Michél recalls in his first interview since being convicted in that case. “I like spy movies, but I never wanted to be a spy. I don’t think that’s sexy. But a part of it felt like that.”