Taek Jho Low, a 20-something Wharton grad has been making headlines as big-spender who drops hundreds of thousands at New York's clubs and flies starlets to Vegas. But sources now say he is a surrogate for someone more secretive.

Since summer people in the nightclub industry had been talking about a big spending arms dealer who was keeping them afloat with his profligate spending. When the Post broke this story about Jho Low, and his cavorting with Megan Fox, it was assumed that it was he. But it didn't quite fit — weapons don't seem like a young Ivy League-grad's first occupation. An anonymous source even specifically told Page Six, apparently unprompted, that Low is not an arms dealer.

In separate interviews since the story broke nightlife sources who have spent time around Low and his crew have aired their theory that he "is just a surrogate, for one of the Arab or Balkan guys who are always around," said one. "I heard that the big spender in the group was a kind of 'I may not be alive tomorrow' type, not a U Penn dude," said another, by email. "He's the guy behind the guy. He works for some sketchy people who don't want to be seen spending," said a third.

The only associate of Low's named in the coverage so far has been a Kuwaiti called Hamad Al Wazzan. There are a few companies based in Kuwait under that last name. The only one that directly mentions anyone named Hamad is The Al Wazzan group of companies, of which Hamad is the chairman and CEO. The group seems to have its fingers in many pies - the website lists automobiles, healthcare, construction and road safety among eleven very disparate fields. 'Security' is included, as is the vague term 'trading'. No further details are given.

This is just conjecture and may, of course, be an entirely different Hamad Al Wazzan, though the size of the company and the vagueness of its interests seem to fit the profile of the man-behind-the-man several sources have described.

In any case it seems there's more to the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars now washing around the city courtesy of some combination of Low and whoever is funding his high-jinks.