CMZ real est
s<div>war is boring</div><div>...</div><div><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><b>Manafort linked to possible money laundering during crackdown</b></span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">Even before Putin agreed to let Tymoshenko shut down RUE, his agents?—?including Firtash, Mogilevich and Yanukovych (the latter with Manafort acting as his right-hand man)?—?were already putting in place plans to go around and escape her efforts.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some of these involved setting up a U.S. investment fund initially capitalized with $100 million. <b>Firtash paid Manafort and Rick Gates?—?who had joined Manafort’s efforts as part of his consulting firm in 2006?—?$1.5 million to handle the money.</b> The main purpose of the fund was to allegedly act as a conduit to launder money from the Firtash gas dealings that were being scrutinized by the Tymoshenko government.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Among the various deals Firtash and Manafort went into was one in 2008 for $895 million for the site of the famous<b> Drake Hotel</b> on Park Avenue in New York,</span> with Firtash wiring $25 million toward the project to make it look legitimate, and a further $25 million was later <b>laundered </b>through the project, according to a U.S. court indictment.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">But rather than move forward and apply the money to the project, the Drake property was never actually purchased.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The deal, like their other deals, never closed and eventually fell through after many third parties had spent a lot of time and money trying to close it out and after many employees were not paid, but not before</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Manafort, Firtash, Mogilevich, Yanukovych and their allies were able to keep substantial funds away from the prying eyes of Tymoshenko and Ukrainian authorities during crucial periods of her time as prime minister.</span></span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">Unfortunately for Firtash, Mogilevich and their backers, natural gas is not something that can be laundered. In early 2009, Tymoshenko orchestrated a seizure by Ukraine’s own state-run Naftogaz —allowed under the agreement she made with Putin?—?of 11 billion cubic meters of gas from RUE’s gas stockpiles, a quantity worth billions of dollars at the time.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><b>Tymoshenko had effectively cut out the middlemen who had been hiking up prices and using those profits to poison and pollute Ukrainian politics.</b></span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Playing a longer-term game, Firtash initiated a lengthy arbitration process through Stockholm.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other planted crops were already bearing fruit. Unfortunately for Tymoshenko, though she had risen to be prime minister late in 2007, in that election and even in the prior 2006 parliamentary elections, Manafort had built Yanukovych’s Party of Regions into a political force that campaigned with modern, highly effective techniques and tactics.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">In both elections, the Party of Regions ended up having the most seats in parliament of any single party by significant margins, but ended up being in the opposition because of alliances made between Tymoshenko’s bloc and other parties.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">Of course, Manafort and the Party of Regions were operating with a gigantic advantage?—?the enormous amount of money flowing from the massive Eurasian gas scam.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">All this meant that Yanukovych’s opposition was certainly within striking distance of taking over the government, and that even by 2006 Manafort and the gas scheme had already achieved great success in rehabilitating Yanukovych and his party.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">The distance would close in 2010.</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;">Russia’s then-president Dmitry Medvedev, left, and Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2011. Kremlin photo</span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><b>The downfall of Tymoshenko</b></span></font></p><p name="6862" id="6862" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" style="margin: 29px 0px 0px; font-size: small; --baseline-multiplier:0.17; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.063px;"><b>....</b></span></font></p><div><div style="font-size: small; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div style="font-size: small; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">salon manafort timeline:</font></div><div style="font-size: small; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...</font></div><div style="font-size: small; line-height: 19.2px;"><div class="text text-54 parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>2008:</strong> Rick Davis <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-offered-to-give-russian-billionaire-private-briefings-on-2016-campaign/2017/09/20/399bba1a-9d48-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html?utm_term=.a353ccc8c93a" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">arranged</a> for <b>Deripaska </b>to meet then–presidential candidate John McCain at an international economic conference in Switzerland. At the time, Davis was McCain’s campaign manager, having taken a leave from his company with Manafort.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-55 section" style=""><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">June 2008: </strong><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CMZ Ventures, </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">described as “</span><a href="https://commercialobserver.com/2011/06/the-property-pretenders/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">one of the more bizarre development teams ever assembled in the city</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,” forms and attempts to buy the Drake Hotel in Manhattan for $850 million. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CMZ was made up of<b> Manafort</b>, Arthur G. Cohen, a former top developer in the city, and Brad <b>Zackson, who had served as a right-hand man to Fred Trump</b> Sr. Zackson had been “<a href="http://dynamicworldwidegroup.com/1_6_brad-zackson.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">the exclusive broker and manager for Fred Trump of the original Trump Organization</a>.”</span></font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-56 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Zackson gained “<a href="https://commercialobserver.com/2011/06/the-property-pretenders/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">access to society’s inner circle through the Trumps</a>.” According to the <em>Commercial Observer</em>, Zackson had wanted to buy a property in the Bahamas, but needed help navigating the bureaucracy there, so he teamed up with Cohen and Manafort.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-57 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <em>Real Deal</em> <a href="https://therealdeal.com/2017/08/31/meet-paul-manaforts-real-estate-fixer/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">reported</a>:</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-58 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="margin: 0px 40px 0px 0px; border-left: 2px solid rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-left: 18px; line-height: 2; padding-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Manafort and Zackson were neighbors in the Hamptons, and soon became friends and business associates. Zackson says he invested in Manafort’s film production business, Manhattan Pictures, best known for the 2005 film <em>The Dying Gaul</em>.</font></blockquote></div><div class="text parbase section text-59" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Manafort had “an uncanny ability to conjure investors, such as Ukrainian billionaire gas king Dmitry Firtash, for projects,” the <em>Commercial Observer</em>reported in 2011.</font></p></div><div class="text-60 text parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="margin: 0px 40px 0px 0px; border-left: 2px solid rgb(102, 0, 51); padding-left: 18px; line-height: 2; padding-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Manafort then met with<b> Ukranian billionaire Mr. Firtash, </b>a part owner of Eural Transgas, in Kiev, and secured the promise of an initial $112 million for the project, but that fell apart when Mr. Firtash became distracted by an investment in troubled Bank Nadra back home. Grasping, Mr. Zackson wrote in an email in March 2009: “I have an idea to bring [Donald] Trump in on the Drake. I think it solves a lot of issues right away.”</font></blockquote></div><div class="text-61 text parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Court documents <a href="https://therealdeal.com/2017/08/31/meet-paul-manaforts-real-estate-fixer/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">show</a> Deripaska was also “set to make a $56 million investment in the Drake,” through the Pericles fund.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-62 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the company, designed to be a billion-dollar fund to buy distressed luxury real estate, never made a single purchase.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-63 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko <a href="https://therealdeal.com/2017/08/31/meet-paul-manaforts-real-estate-fixer/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">alleged </a>in a lawsuit that “Firtash used CMZ as a front in order to hide income illegally skimmed from his natural gas company RosUkrEnergo,” but a judge ultimately dismissed the suit.</font></p></div><div class="text text-64 parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>2010:</strong> Manafort helps elect Yanukovych as president of Ukraine.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-65 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>2014: </strong>Yanukovych is forced to flee Ukraine for Russia in the face of widespread public protests.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-66 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>2014: </strong>Deripaska dissolves the private equity fund being managed by Manafort. He accuses Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-67 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>Feb. 29, 2016: </strong>Manafort <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/us/to-charm-trump-paul-manafort-sold-himself-as-an-affordable-outsider.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&r=2" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">reportedly</a> reaches out to Trump via their mutual friend Tom Barrack with two memos, which laid out the case for why he’d be a good fit for the campaign. These memos were reported on by the <em>New York Times</em> in April 2017. In one of them, Manafort “refers vaguely to work he performed, years ago, to clear noisy airspace over Mr. Trump’s Florida resort.” He stresses that he’ll work for free.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-68 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hes-better-than-this-says-thomas-barrack-trumps-loyal-whisperer/2017/10/10/067fc776-a215-11e7-8cfe-d5b912fabc99_story.html?utm_term=.2ff3a62d1aa2" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">The<em> Washington Post</em></a><em>:</em> “ ‘I really need to get to’ Trump, Manafort said,</span> according to Barrack. He told Barrack he wanted to work as Trump’s convention manager, helping him navigate what they expected would be a contentious affair.”</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-69 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>March 2016:</strong> Manafort meets <b>Barrack </b>at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills to talk about joining the Trump campaign.</font></p></div><div class="text-70 text parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>March 28, 2016:</strong> Trump campaign <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/03/28/donald-trump-hires-paul-manafort-to-lead-delegate-effort/?mcubz=3&r=0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">hires</a> Manafort to work unpaid.</font></p></div><div class="text-71 text parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>May 2016:</strong> Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Manafort in his Kiev political consulting operation since 2005, and Manafort <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-offered-to-give-russian-billionaire-private-briefings-on-2016-campaign/2017/09/20/399bba1a-9d48-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html?utm_term=.d74bbe4d3660" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">meet</a>.</font></p></div><div class="text text-72 parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>May 19, 2016:</strong> Manafort is named chairman of the Trump campaign.</font></p></div><div class="text text-73 parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>July 2016: </strong>Manafort reportedly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-offered-to-give-russian-billionaire-private-briefings-on-2016-campaign/2017/09/20/399bba1a-9d48-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html?utm_term=.0b80872e0180" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">offers private briefings</a> on the campaign to Deripaska over email.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-74 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Aug. 2, 2016:</strong> Manafort and Kilimnik <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/emails-suggest-manafort-sought-approval-from-putin-ally-deripaska/541677/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">meet </a>at the Grand Havana Club, an upscale cigar bar in Manhattan, to talk “caviar,” which is believed to be a reference to earlier payments made to Manafort by <b>Deripaska.</b></font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-75 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>August 2016:</strong> A phone belonging to one of Manafort’s daughters is <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/manaforts-ukrainian-blood-money-caused-qualms-hack-suggests-235473" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">hacked</a> and hundreds of her text messages are eventually posted on a darknet website. The texts reveal Manafort’s <b>daughters were worried about the work he did in Ukraine and that someone had tried to blackmail him</b>, suggesting they could reveal a secret meeting Manafort had supposedly arranged for Trump in 2012 with a Yanukovych ally.</font></p></div><div class="text parbase text-76 section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>Aug. 19, 2016: </strong>Manafort submits his resignation from the Trump campaign.</span> </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div></div><div style="font-size: small; line-height: 19.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==</font></div></div></div>