Tevfik Arif

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.bnnvara.nl/zembla/artikelen/the-dubious-friends-of-donald-trump-the-russians"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.bnnvara.nl/zembla/artikelen/the-dubious-friends-of-donald-trump-the-russians</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump: The Russians</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2 mei 2017</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Although still in its early days, Donald Trump’s presidency is coming under fire. The Russians are alleged to be in possession of sensitive information about Trump. And that exposes Trump to blackmail. Fake news, tweets Trump: “I have nothing to do with Russia – no deals, no loans, no nothing!” Trump swears he has no ties with the Russians. But is that actually the case? </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For months, the FBI have been investigating Russian interference in the American presidential elections. ZEMBLA is investigating another explosive dossier concerning Trump’s involvement with the Russians: Trump’s business and personal ties to oligarchs from the former Soviet Union. Powerful billionaires suspected of money laundering and fraud, and of having contacts in Moscow and with the mafia. What do these relationships say about Trump and why does he deny them? How compromising are these dubious business relationships for the 45th president of the United States? And are there connections with the Netherlands? ZEMBLA meets with one of Trump’s controversial cronies and speaks with a former CIA agent, fraud investigators, attorneys, and an American senator among others.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ZEMBLA: ' The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump: The Russians'  Wednesday 3 May 2017, 9:10pm, VARA on NPO 2 and on this page.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dossier 1 KazBay B.V.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Investigations conducted by ZEMBLA show that Bayrock has formed a business construction in the Netherlands, which may have been used to siphon off one and a half million dollars. In this enterprise,<b> Bayrock collaborated with Viktor Khrapunov,</b> a fugitive ex-mayor and governor from Kazakhstan. The Kazakhstan government accuses Khrapunov of systematically looting hundreds of millions of public assets.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oprichting bv kazbay</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The network of companies works as follows:  </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The hub of the enterprise is the Dutch letter box company KazBay B.V. In the act of incorporation  it states that KazBay is owned by two companies: the Dutch firm Bayrock B.V. and the Swiss company Helvetic Capital S.A. This email  explains that Trump’s business partner Bayrock Group L.L.C. is behind Bayrock BV, and that the actual owner of Helvetic Capital S.A. is none other than the wife of Viktor Khrapunov.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This  mail  clearly refers to the use of a Dutch go-between company. Its contents also reveal that the Dutch construction was formed by the law firm of Rudy Giuliani who, at the time, was a partner in Bracewell &<b> Giuliani</b> LLP, and is also a Trump confidante.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In this  agreement   Bayrock and Khrapunov agree to deposit 1.48 million dollars in KazBay. On 25 September, Bayrock transfers its share of 740,000 dollars, evidence of which is recorded in the bank statements .</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bayrock informs an investor that the 1.48 million was invested in mining operations in Kazakhstan. According to this email the business partner asks to see records of the expenses. Bayrock, however, appears unable to account for the 1.5 million dollars. When ZEMBLA asks about the suspect investments, Bayrock declines to answer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In  a response   Bayrock told ZEMBLA that:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Bayrock B.V. and KazBay B.V. were entities formed with the advice of outside legal counsel as part of the structuring of an investment by Bayrock. The investment was not successful and the structure subsequently was abandoned. We have vociferously denied the baseless allegations made in the Kriss lawsuit. We will not comment on matters that are subject to ongoing litigation.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the  Kriss vs Bayrock lawsuit  a former Bayrock employee accuses the company of perpetrating large-scale tax fraud and of running a criminal organisation. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Dutch intermediaries were directors of KazBay for eighteen months. During this time, various articles   were published, exploring the murky past of Bayrock and Khrapunov.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Six months ago, the Financial Times wrote  this article   about Khrapunov and his business partner Bayrock, accusing KazBay of operating as a money laundering channel.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dossier 2: Trump & Felix Sater</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donald Trump appeared entirely unconcerned by the criminal background of his then business partner Felix Sater. In an email   to an investor, Sater observes that Trump’s main consideration was to turn the situation to his own financial advantage. In the email which was earlier disclosed by Forbes Magazine,   Sater refers to a meeting that took place on 23 January 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Confidential</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to internal documents  belonging to Bayrock, the gathering was an important meeting which required the presence of all Trump SoHo business partners. Prior to the meeting, Sater appears to have been in contact with Trump. I</font><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">n an e-mail  Sater tells his colleagues: “Donald is happy with me”.</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">
</span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>At the time of the meeting, Trump is fully aware of Sater’s past.</b> A month earlier, on 17 December 2007, the New York Times published  an article  on Sater and his criminal deeds. On 19 December 2007, Donald Trump  declares  his intention to look into the matter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Frederick Oberlander</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Frederick Oberlander is a New York-based attorney specialised in tax law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He took legal action as far as the United States Supreme Court calling for the public disclosure of the sealed legal dossier of Felix Sater. His attempts have proved largely successful. Previously, a variety of lower courts had ruled that Oberlander was enjoined from in any way revealing secret documents on Sater that he had obtained from a Bayrock employee, and instructed not to refer to the case at all.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">'qui tam' case</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oberlander has been conducting legal proceedings against Bayrock for years. He instigated what’s known as a ‘qui tam’ case against the company in 2015. ‘qui tam’ is a specifically American law suit filed by a private individual, acting as prosecutor (a private Attorney General) to recover misappropriate government funds (in this case taxes).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Frederick Oberlander</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the case against Bayrock, the public prosecutor of the State of New York has given Oberlander the go-ahead to represent a group of clients who are suing Bayrock ‘on behalf of themselves and the people of the State of New York’.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to Oberlander, <b>Tevfik Arif, Felix Sater and Julius Schwartz are guilty of perpetrating various types of fraud,</b> and have attempted to conceal their fraudulent activities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Update: 27-09-2017</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On September 27th 2017, a New York State Supreme Court Judge dismissed the Qui Tam lawsuit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Statement Bayrock Group LLC.:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We are gratified by Justice Charles E. Ramos’s ruling today dismissing in its entirety the Qui Tam lawsuit brought by attorney Fred Oberlander.  We argued that Oberlander’s repeated misconduct and violations of New York’s attorney ethics rules required dismissal of the action.  We have maintained throughout that the lawsuit was without merit and based on stolen confidential materials.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dossier 3: Bayrock’s deal with the FL Group</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This presentation divulges that the Icelandic investment company FL Group is one of Bayrock’s strategic partners. In 2007, the two companies sign a million-dollar property development agreement. Donald Trump approves the agreement, and also adds his signature .</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Handtekening Trump</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Court documents  state that Russian investors, who are supporters of Vladimir Putin, are said to be behind the FL Group</b>. The documents also refer to a covert plan concocted by FL and Bayrock. Together, the companies are purported to have been planning a tax fraud amounting to 250 million dollars. In their above-mentioned response, Bayrock let us know they have no intention of commenting on cases that are subject to ongoing litigation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The FL Group (now known as Stodir after a restructuring in 2009) informed Zembla as follows:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">- " FL Group’s total investment in the Bayrock project(s) was USD 80 million.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- After the restructuring, we had our advisors and lawyers review the project, with the aim to recover value or find out if Stodir had any rightful claims – but without any success and no value was recovered.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- we have no knowledge or information about most of your questions, apart from the ones that relate directly to FL Group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- We see no evidence about Russian investors in FL Group, at least no Russian entity was ever registered on FL Group’s shareholders list.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- We see no evidence about FL Group investing in Kazakhstan."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Reactions to 'The dubious friends of Donald Trump: the Russians':</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Felix Sater denies having threatened people with violence. In spite of repeated requests, Sater has not answered ZEMBLA’s questions.  Donald Trump, Alexander Machkevich and Viktor Khrapunov have not responded either.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is the statement of Bayrock and Tevfik Arif :</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Bayrock B.V. and KazBay B.V. were entities formed with the advice of outside legal counsel as part of the structuring of an investment by Bayrock.  The investment was not successful, and the structure subsequently was abandoned.  We have vociferously denied the baseless allegations made in the Kriss lawsuit.  We will not comment on matters that are subject to ongoing litigation.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FL Group (which is now called Stodir after going through a restructuring in 2009) lets ZEMBLA’s know:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- "FL Group´s total investment in the Bayrock project(s) was USD 80 million.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- After the restructuring, we had our advisors and lawyers review the project, with the aim to recover value or find out if Stodir had any rightful claims - but without any success and no value was recovered.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- We have no knowledge or information about most of your questions, apart from the ones that relate directly to FL Group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- We see no evidence about Russian investors in FL Group, at least no Russian entity was ever registered on FL Group´s shareholders list.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Frederick Oberlander  </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Frederick Oberlander is a New York-based attorney specialised in tax law. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He took legal action as far as the United States Supreme Court calling for the public disclosure of the sealed legal dossier of Felix Sater. His attempts have proved largely successful. Previously, a variety of lower courts had ruled that Oberlander was enjoined from in any way revealing secret documents on Sater that he had obtained from a Bayrock employee, and instructed not to refer to the case at all. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oberlander has been conducting legal proceedings against Bayrock for years. He instigated what’s known as a ‘qui tam’ case against the company in 2015. ‘qui tam’ is a specifically American law suit filed by a private individual, acting as prosecutor (a private Attorney General) to recover misappropriate government funds (in this case taxes). </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In the case against Bayrock, the public prosecutor of the State of New York has given Oberlander the go-ahead to represent a group of clients who are suing Bayrock ‘on behalf of themselves and the State of New York</b>’. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to Oberlander, TevfikArif, Felix Sater and Julius Schwartz are guilty perpetrating various types of fraud, and have attempted to conceal their fraudulent activities.</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">hmmn</font></div><div><div class="td-post-content" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 21px; padding-bottom: 16px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">an unofficial investigation into <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">RussiaGate </strong>has uncovered a shocking and previously-unknown new connection</span>— <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">a CIA-connected man who became instantly famous after the Boston Marathon bombing </span>— <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">involved in <b>recent </b></span><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">a</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">llegations against </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Trump associate Felix Sater that he laundered $440 million of stolen money for billionaire oligarchs in Kazakhstan through American real estate. </span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Evidence in the case also showed a startling similarity between suspicions of money laundering in Trump’s sale of a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian billionaire gangster and a <a href="https://theislandnow.com/featured/former-sands-point-resident-felix-sater-sued-for-alleged-money-laundering/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">billionaire gangster from Kazakhstan</a> purchasing a similarly over-priced mansion in London from Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, a member of the British royal family, son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and at one time second in line to the throne.</font></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">When Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/us/politics/trump-lawsuit-deutsche-bank.html?searchResultPosition=1" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">filed suit yesterday</a> to keep his business dealings with </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/us/politics/trump-lawsuit-deutsche-bank.html?searchResultPosition=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Germany’s criminal Deutsche Bank</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> secret, it prompted a review of notes for clues that led to long-unanswered questions about why </span></span></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mueller’s investigation showed no apparent interest in linking crimes Deutsche Bank was committing while Trump was doing business with the bank with a man with whom he had clear ties: Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.</span></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Was an unwillingness to unmask CIA involvement<a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/2017/03/06/russian-hacking-probe-linked-alt-right-stock-fraud/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> behind both situations? </a></font></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump’s Palm Beach ‘homies’ in the news</font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adnan Khashoggi, one of Donald Trump’s longtime Palm Beach ‘homies,’  was committing crimes with Deutsche Bank<a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/2019/04/18/mueller-report/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">, and, as this website</a> never tires of pointing out, during the same time period Trump was involved in what many suspect was similar business, money laundering, with the bank. </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PRO TIP: If  investigators also subpoena information about criminal dealings between Deutsche Bank and Adnan Khashoggi—whose death a year ago makes accessing information about his criminal dealings with the bank easier—progress may be made. </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s just a suggestion, but probably a good one.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Khashoggi is one of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach ‘homies.’  Moreover his </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/2017/06/26/trump-khashoggi-germanys-criminal-deutsche-bank/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">criminal collusion with Deutsche Bank </a> has already been proven in court.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deutsche Bank was forced to pay <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2005/12/19/daily35.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">a hefty $278 million</a> fine for its illegal actions with Khashoggi which included a <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/STOCKWALK.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">spectacularly-successful pump and dump scheme</a> that stole more than $300 million from investors.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clues to what was going on during that fascinating journey into the underworld of global criminal banking could help prosecutors quest to use three words criminals involved in organized crime fear most: “continuing criminal conspiracy(RICO).”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Khashoggi participated in banking giant Deutsche Bank’s<a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/deutsche-bank-fined-502m-over-russia-money-laundering-claims/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> successful scheme to launder $10-billion dollars </a> into the bloodstream of the Western economy for Russian gangsters, <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/deutsche-bank-fined-over-10-billion-russian-money-laundering-scheme/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">for which the bank was fined more</a> than a half-billion dollars.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The scheme only came to light after a massive <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/police-operation-in-the-deutsche-bank/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">500-man strong police raid</a> at Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, an act which would have probably caused immediate cardiac arrest in  U.S. authorities like former Attorney General Eric Holder.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fur hats vs the fedoras</font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Another revelation sheds new light on <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go-lucky-jewish-group-that-connects-trump-and-putin-215007" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">suspicions about the connection</a> between Felix Sater and the ultra-orthodox Jewish </span><a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/11/27/the-odd-chabad-connection-between-putin-and-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Chabad Lubavitch</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> sect. </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Because <b>Felix </b></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>Sater’s</b> name appears on 28 separate pages in the Mueller Report, his many and various <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/11/27/the-odd-chabad-connection-between-putin-and-trump/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">connections with Chabad Lubavitch</a> have been receiving  <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/04/18/politics/6-jewish-takeaways-from-the-mueller-report" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">increased </a>attention.  </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sater himself has also become a more intriguing figure. A</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Sater.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> lawsuit filed against him </a>earlier this month by the quasi-state bank of the country of Kazakhstan c</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">laims Sater used money he<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/sater-eyed-trump-moscow-tower-to-launder-money-kazakh-bank-says" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;"> stole from the bank</a> (and by extension the people of Kazakhstan) to </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">develop his project to create a Trump Tower in Moscow.</span></font></b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sater was feted as “<a href="https://youtu.be/xSpFtCmoD5o" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Man Of The Year”</a> at Chabad’s synagogue in Port Washington on Long Island, a location seen as having been used as something like a dead drop between Putin and Trump.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As first reported in author Craig Unger’s excellent “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/House-Trump-Putin-Untold-Russian/dp/152474350X" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">House of Trump, House of Putin” </a>, <b><a href="https://www.robinmorgan.net/blog/six-degrees-cash-corruption-putin-trump/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Vladimir Putin used Chabad Lubavitch</a> to consolidate power in Russia</b>, through putting Berel Lazar, the Chabad’s chief Rabbi in the country, in charge over a new Russian national organization for Jews.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With Putin’s support, reported Unger, “Chabad’s Lazar became Russia’s chief rabbi, and the alliance provided direct connections between Putin and Donald Trump.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-chabad-emissaries-expelled-from-russia-chief-rabbi-sees-a-friend-in-putin/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Putin’s Jewish outreach</a>, Unger found, had helped him counteract rising resentment over the Russian Mafiya—sometimes called the Kosher Nostra for its heavily-Jewish gangster ranks—as well as </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Russia’s new class of billionaire oligarchs, many of them Jewish.</span></font></b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Putin’s new Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia was designed to replace what before Putin had long been the leading Jewish organization in Russia.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Called the Russian Jewish Congress, it had been cofounded by Russian oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky, who Israeli newspaper Haaretz called the “Number 1 Jew in Russia.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not anymore. </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chabad Lubavitch</font></strong></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Felix Sater and others at Bayrock <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/who-is-felix-sater-and-why-is-donald-trump-so-afraid-of-him/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">with close ties to Chabad</a>—like Tamir Sapir and his son-in-law Rotem Rosen—were part of an extraordinarily powerful channel between Trump and Putin,” Unger reported.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[pix soho twr launch don jr ivanka]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the late Russian billionaire Tamir Sapir first arrived in New York in 1976, he opened an electronics store in the Flatiron district, which largely <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/09/nyregion/brass-knuckles-over-2-broadway-mta-landlord-are-fighting-it-over-rent.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">catered</a> to KGB agents, according to the New York Times.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over time Tamir Sapir became a significant partner in Bayrock.</font></b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump, who called Sapir “a great friend,” hosted the wedding of Sapir’s daughter at Mar-a-Lago, an event featuring  performances by Lionel Ritchie and the Pussycat Dolls.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The wedding’s groom, Rotem Rosen, became Sapir’s son-in-law, the CEO of the Sapir organization, and the head of the American branch of  Putin oligarch Lev Leviev’s holding company, Africa Israel.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the time, the busy Rosen was already a lieutenant of Israeli diamond king Lev Leviev, Chabad’s biggest backer.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Felix Sater in Kazakhstan </font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sater was back in the news as the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the government of Kazakhstan on behalf of the country’s chief bank. The suit describes him as “a notorious New York ‘businessman’ and “two-time felon’ before claiming </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">he <b>participated in an international criminal conspiracy to launder $440 million stolen from Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank though American real estate.   </b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the lawsuit, <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Sater.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Sater helped Mukhtar Ablyazov</a>, the former chairman of BTA Bank, and Ilyas Khrapunov, the son of the former Mayor of  Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, to funnel money out of the country to the U.S., where it was invested  in U.S. real estate.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">In our notes was something noteworthy</span>: <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Also popping up in the scandal is someone  whose involvement proves something a retired Customs Agent in Louisiana once told me:</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; position: relative; border-left: none; margin: 40px 34.7969px 38px; text-align: center;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 40px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There aren’t that many players out there. Pretty much, they all know each other.” </font></span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The return of Uncle Ruslan</font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ruslan Tsarni  <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/2013/05/03/did-the-cia-commandeer-the-boston-bombing-investigation/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">shot to fame six years ago</a> on the day after the Boston Marathon bombing as the uncle of the two men accused. He roundly and vociferously condemned his nephews, and quickly became the chief source of information about the two men. </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">For days he was ubiquitous on television. Now he has a </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">prominent role in accusing  Felix Sater of laundering money for <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/big-sky-energy-corporation-announces-management-additions/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">two billionaires from Kazakhstan</a> through American real estate. </span></font></b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/?p=3557" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">It was exclusive reporting</a> here which first revealed that Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, had been married to the daughter of former top <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/?p=3743" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">CIA official Graham Fuller</a>, who was still active in the region, although not, he claimed, on behalf of the CIA.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years earlier Tsarni was involved in the international criminal investigation into a Kazakh billionaire banker-turned-fugitive who allegedly absconded with more than $6 billion from Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank before settling down in London.  </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tsarni was a US lawyer who has had dealings in Kazakh business affairs,</span>” reported the May 8, 2011 London Sunday Times.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“A statement by Ruslan Zaindi Tsarni claimed that the two Kazaks involved bought properties in Mayfair with $96 million derived from a complex series of deals intended to disguise money laundering.”</font></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Tsarni alleged that the money came from the takeover of a western company, which had been used as a front to obtain oil contracts from the Kazakh state.”</font></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Felix Sater & Ruslan Tsarni</font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">During the “Wild West” days in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan in the early 9o’s— when anything that wasn’t nailed down in that country was up for grabs—Uncle </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ruslan Tsarni had been in Kazakhstan working as <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/?p=3643" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">a Halliburton contractor</a> as well as for the Agency for International Development (USAID), which is often <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/?p=3557" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">used for cover by CIA agents overseas.</a></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">“takeover of the western company”</em> mentioned in the lawsuit was <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/big-sky-energy-corporation-announces-management-additions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Big Sky Energy Corporation,</a> where Tsarni was a top executive. The soon-to-be-bankrupt US oil company had oil leases in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Basin, and was being run by a long-time Halliburton top executive.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the time I contacted a reporter at Oilgram News, a respected oil industry trade publication, for information about U.S. oil companies in the ‘Stans, one of a myriad of subjects about which I knew nothing.  </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After requesting anonymity, he replied. “Big Sky, Ablyazov, Kulibayev and the rest, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">were all on my watch list</em></strong> for intelligence connections and pay-offs of various kinds.”  </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">As if that weren’t enough</span>— <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">and its never enough</span></em>— <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">the Felix Sater-Ruslan Tsarni connection offered one more piece of intriguing information on a subject that should ring a bell to anyone following the RussiaGate scandal…</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">No?</em> Prince <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Andrew</em>? Laundering dirty cash just like <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Trump?</em></font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prince Andrew, the younger brother of Prince Charles and the second or third heir to the throne, sold one of his chief residences to a man named Timur Kulibayev, one of the billionaire Kazakh oil tycoons who “controlled that country’s oil industry.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conveniently, he was also married to the daughter of Kazakhstan’s autocratic then-President,  Nursultan Nazarbayev.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The story, headlined “<a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/princes-home-in-laundered-cash-inquiry/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Prince’s home in ‘laundered cash’ inquiry,”</a>  reported that the President-for-Life’s son-in-law, amid allegations of money laundering, paid millions  over the asking price to Prince Andrew for his home, paid through a network of offshore companies to hide his ownership.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This money laundering tale bears a startling similarity to Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/2008/06/26/trump-mansion-sold-to-mobsters-sans-frontieres/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">sale of a Palm Beach mansion</a> to a Russian mobster at about the same time.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No doubt it is just a coincidence.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, it is now clear, but too late to do any good, that buying anonymous real estate in friendly Western countries has been the main way Russian gangsters use to get their dirty cash laundered out of Russia and into the Western economy.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Messiah of Brooklyn & Jared Kushner’s Dad </font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chabad Lubavitch is a tiny Brooklyn-based sect centered on the teachings of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who some Jews, in all seriousness, called the messiah or Mashiach.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The sect is anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, and big-time fundamentalist.  Although it has less than a hundred thousand adherents, it has more than 1100 outposts around the world. </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">In Russia, recognizing Chabad as the official state representative for Jews would be like America naming Fred Phelps’ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Westboro Baptist Church </a></span>— <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">remember them? Running anti-gay protests at military funerals while carrying signs reading “thank God for dead soldiers” and “God blew up the troops?”— as official spokesman for Protestants.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of Chabad’s biggest financial backers was Russian billionaire oligarch Lev Leviev, who, because of his stature in the diamond trade, is known as ‘The King of Diamonds.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another is Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner. </font></b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Coming disclosures to come will</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> push the story of RussiaGate ever-deeper into the high cotton, to places the timid Mueller Report feared to tread.  </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sarasota grifter & Semion Mogilevich</font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump-Bannon-Khashoggi associate Jonathan Curshen tried to save Russian Mob Uber-Boss Semion Mogilevich’s nuts from the fire in the YBM Magnex affair.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Individuals close enough to Trump to stroll around the block with him outside the Ravenite Social Club, metaphorically-speaking, were doing the bidding of </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Russia’s most powerful gangster…<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> back in 1998.</em></strong></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Jonathan Curshen has been the subject of reporting here for a decade. Still, it was a shock to discover he was involved in a </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">major financial fraud with the Maestro himself, ‘the Brainy Don,’ the ‘Russian Meyer Lansky’… <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Semion Mogilevich.</em></strong></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Curshen’s connection with grifters associated with Donald Trump can be found  in corporate documents available to anyone online. What’s lacking? </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Grainy security-camera footage of Curshen passing a </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">suitcase stuffed with cash up the ladder to his capo. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">There’s more news about Donald Trump and the </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">ultra-orthodox Jewish sect Chabad Lubavitch—whose chief defining characteristic is its Mormon missionary-type zeal to bring in new recruits worldwide— which may be nothing nothing more than cover for  criminal and espionage operations.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russian gangsters living in the U.S.  appear to have been involved in a Whitman’s Sampler-assortment of criminal operations which have been supporting efforts to subvert sovereign nation-states on the planet…  </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Including our own.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hackers, Mob Bosses & Alt-Right Grifters</font></span></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Russian Mob nexus with U.S. organized crime has been operational for at least the past 30 years. </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even before that, the “outreach” of the tiny Chabad Lubavitch sect began spreading across America — as I will soon personally and ruefully attest— have been in existence for 50 years or longer.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Close business associates of Donald  Trump </span>—<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> including his former campaign manager Steve Bannon and Bannon’s lieutenant and former employee Andy Badolato— were in business in 2003 with Russia’s premier hacker, who was fingered by name by the FBI in July of 2016 for hacking election databases in the United States.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No one has laid a finger on Pavel Vrublevsky.</font></b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As long as he confines himself to the vast steppes of his Russian homeland, “Red Eye,’ as he’s called, remains safe.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 26px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that can’t last. Can it?</font></span></p></div><footer times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both;"><div class="td-post-source-tags" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul class="td-tags td-post-small-box clearfix" open="Open" sans="Sans" arial="arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-weight="font-weight" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; line-height: 20px; clear: left; height: 20px; display: table;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; list-style: none; display: inline-block; float: left; margin-bottom: 4px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 5px 9px; display: block; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 10px; float: left; height: 20px; margin-right: 4px; margin-left: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TAGS</font></span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; 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