Playboy Prince Loses Expensive Family Feud

Nov. 11, 2007— -- The wealthiest royal in the world is a billion dollars richer this week after taking his little brother to court for embezzlement of state funds.

Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of the tiny, oil-rich Southeast Asian nation Brunei will get back pricey toys from his playboy brother, Prince Jefri Bolkiah, including the famed New York Palace Hotel in Manhattan and the luxury Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles.

Also included in the settlement are lavish homes in Paris and Singapore, artwork, and precious jewels.

It might be the most expensive family feud ever fought.

Thursday's ruling in a British court capped more than 20 years of sparring between the two brothers. In several court cases, Sultan Bolkiah, who took the throne in 1967, accused his younger sibling, once Brunei's Finance Minister, of stealing billions of dollars in federal funds during his time as chairman of the country's national investment agency.

Some $40 billion left Brunei's state coffers in "special transfers" during Prince Jefri's tenure with the agency in the 1980s and 90s, according to court documents. Of that, nearly $15 billion has been traced directly to the prince's accounts.

Another $13.5 billion is still missing.

The Sultanate of Brunei, slightly smaller than the state of Delaware and bordering on Malaysia, sits on vast oil reserves and is one of the richest states in Asia.

"They have huge amounts of money," said Mark Watson, a royalty expert from Britain, of Brunei's royal family. "Obviously that comes from the revenues of their natural resources. [They've got] oil and everything else. They're not doing too badly."

Prince Jefri never denied "he was the recipient of very substantial sums of money" while running Brunei's investment agency, according to court documents, but argued he was authorized to spend the money and did so only on his brother's orders.

But when Brunei authorities sued him in 2000, Prince Jefri, who lives in London and has 17 children, agreed to give back a substantial amount of the missing cash and some contested properties.

The Prince sold off most of his 2,000 luxury cars, several swanky yachts and a few airplanes to try to pay his brother back, according to a report in the New York Post.

He also put some other pricey luxuries up for auction, including brand-new fire engines, an Airbus A340 flight simulator, hundreds of tons of Italian marble, and gold-plated toilet paper holders.