A closer look
The Australian government tried to secretly bypass Wall Street by taking out a multi-billion-dollar payday loan from a shady Pakistani peanut trader. In 1975, the Whitlam administration wanted to fund massive national energy projects but couldn't secure normal loans. Enter Tirath Khemlani, an obscure middleman who claimed he could source $4 billion in underground Arab "petrodollars" with zero official paperwork. The catastrophic scandal blew up so spectacularly when the press found out that it triggered a constitutional crisis, resulting in the actual Queen of England's representative firing the Australian Prime Minister.
