BTA Bank Ablyazov

=<div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dutch letter box companies implicated in million-dollar fraud</div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The American real estate development company Bayrock, through which Donald Trump constructed hotels and apartment complexes, used Dutch letter box companies in a network suspected of being involved in money laundering. A ZEMBLA investigation suggests that Bayrock siphoned off $1.5 million dollars by setting up a corporate structure in the Netherlands in 2007. In New York, Bayrock also stands accused of large-scale tax fraud. This incriminating information could place Donald Trump in an extremely difficult position, claims attorney F. Oberlander, who is prosecuting Bayrock on behalf of the State of New York: “The maximum jail term would be 30 years. So you’re in really serious trouble.” </div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2005, Donald Trump became 18% owner of an hotel-condominium known as Trump SoHo. Bayrock, the other owner, is accused of perpetrating fraud on a grand scale through, among other things, Trump SoHo. According to US law, this means that Trump is jointly liable for Bayrock’s criminal activities. Oberlander concludes: “Anybody running a business through a pattern of crime is guilty of racketeering. Anybody knowing what they’re doing and are helping is guilty of racketeering conspiracy. They go to jail.”</div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All Bayrock wants is to make clear to ZEMBLA that the Dutch corporate construction was established on the advice of an external legal counsel. ZEMBLA discovers that the firm in question is Bracewell & Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and part owner of the law firm at the time, is also a Trump confidante. ZEMBLA has access to correspondence between the law firm and the Dutch director of a trust company in Amsterdam, which leaves no doubt as to the ultimate beneficiary owners of the Dutch business construction: the director of Bayrock and the Khrapunov family from Kazakhstan.</div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Viktor Khrapunov is a fugitive ex-mayor and governor from Kazakhstan. The Kazakhstan government accuses Khrapunov of embezzling hundreds of millions of state assets. In 2007, Bayrock and the Khrapunov family founded the Dutch joint venture KazBay B.V. ZEMBLA has copies of the act of incorporation, bank statements and internal communications showing how the suspected money laundering scheme was set up. “It was designed to get millions of dollars out of New York into Europe. Through KazBay. KazBay was just a conduit”, asserts attorney Oberlander.</div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div class="sc-1fnykkm-0 cYtoMA tjcu1e-1 gxieGH" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: content-box; line-height: 2rem; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; grid-column: 3 / 11; width: 893.25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Dutch director of KazBay B.V. tells ZEMBLA that he has no knowledge of his clients’ dubious backgrounds. In 2007, the year that the Dutch letter box companies were established, Viktor Khrapunov’s alleged criminal dealings become public knowledge. Around the same time, it also becomes clear that Felix Sater, one of the Bayrock owners, has concealed his criminal past and mafia connections. For years, the Dutch Central Bank has been concerned that Dutch trust companies are failing to comply with legislation. Over half of the companies investigated by the Dutch Central Bank are in breach of the regulations, such as subjecting their clients to rigorous screening. Investigations performed by the supervisory body reveal that hundreds of politicians from Russia and Kazakhstan make use of Dutch trust companies. Frank Elderson, director of the Dutch Central Bank: "There are no legal stipulations forcing you to do business with a former political hot-shot from Russia or any other high risk nation." Six months ago, the Financial Times reported that, in 2013, the Khrapunov family had bought three apartments in Trump SoHo to the tune of 3.1 million dollars. A sale from which Trump benefitted as joint owner. The White House, the Trump Organization and Viktor Khrapunov decline to answer ZEMBLA’s questions. In the episode ‘The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump: Part 1 – the Russians’, ZEMBLA explores the possible implications of these shady business dealings for the United States’ 45th president.</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>...Bayrock Origins</div><div style=""><div class="dateline-storybody" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div id="story-target" class="clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div id="content-body-" class="content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sater first began working with Trump while the Russian emigre was at Bayrock, which developed projects with Trump in Phoenix and Fort Lauderdale in addition to the Trump SoHo in New York.Trump had given Bayrock exclusive rights in 2005 to develop a Trump International Hotel and Tower in Moscow. Court documents show Sater claims to have led a scouting trip in Russia with Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump in 2006.Sater and Ridloff appear to have first become acquainted with the Khrapunovs during their time at Bayrock; in 2007 and 2008, companies tied to the Kazakh family entered into several deals with Bayrock, including a joint energy extraction venture in Kazakhstan called Kazbay and the development of a luxury building in Switzerland overlooking Lake Geneva.Bracewell & Giuliani, the law-firm co-founded by former New York City Mayor and Trump surrogate Rudolph Giuliani, was retained to handle legal matters for the joint Bayrock-Khrapunov energy venture, according to <a href="https://zembla.vara.nl/nieuws/the-dubious-friends-of-donald-trump-the-russians" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">documents obtained by Dutch broadcaster </a>Zembla. Giuliani left the partnership in 2016 and Bracewell officials did not respond to numerous calls.The Giuliani law firm’s Kazakh office was also behind the placement of more than $1 billion in corporate debt for Bank Turanalem, or BTA. Its top shareholder was Mukhtar Ablyazov, another fugitive Kazakh, whose daughter is married to Ilyas Khrapunov.Kazakhstan’s president ordered BTA seized in 2009 and soon after accused Ablyazov of absconding with billions. Lawsuits in Los Angeles, New York and across the globe<a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article152934589.html" target="blank" title="" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> accuse of the Khrapunovs </a>of co-mingling funds with Ablyazov and laundering the money, which is also the basis for the Interpol request by Kazakhstan. Lawyers for both the Khrapunovs and Ablyazovs deny this.The Kazbay deal would ultimately fail and the Bayrock Group imploded soon after, in part as revelations emerged about Sater’s past. He had done prison time in the mid-1990s after being convicted of stabbing a man in the face with a broken margarita glass during a bar brawl. Later, Sater pleaded guilty to racketeering in a securities fraud case but avoided prison by becoming a U.S. government informant.Those revelations didn’t end Sater’s relationship with Trump – he and Ridloff both worked as advisers to the Trump Organization in 2010.While Sater <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-russia.html?r=0" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px;">has said</a> he was scouting potential Russia projects for the Trump Organization as late as 2015, Trump has played down their relationship.“If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn’t know what he looked like,” Trump said in a Florida deposition in 2013.[dymamic map]</div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>=<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-11/how-a-trump-soho-partner-ended-up-with-toxic-mining-riches-from-kazakhstan" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-11/how-a-trump-soho-partner-ended-up-with-toxic-mining-riches-from-kazakhstan</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Green smoke paints the landscape on the outskirts of Aktobe, the hub of a Central Asian mining empire that produces a third of the world’s chromium — the essential ingredient in stainless steel.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Locals say that the air gets so bad in summer it’s hard to breathe. Industrial waste contaminates the groundwater.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All of this starts at the Aktyubinsk Chromium Chemicals Plant (AZXS), a Nikita Khrushchev-era complex. It shares an industrial zone with a vast smelting plant; together, they have yielded lavish private wealth since the collapse of the Soviet Union.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In one sense, it’s a familiar snapshot of post-Soviet capitalism: state assets bought for a song, workers saying they were cheated out of shares and connected businessmen getting wildly rich.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Workers at the entrance of AZXS at the end of a shift, with a Soviet-era statue looming overhead.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Photographer: Konstantin Salomatin for Bloomberg]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This story, however, carves a path from near Kazakhstan’s northern border with Russia to the offshore financial centers of the Caribbean, to London and all the way to Trump property in Midtown Manhattan.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">How and why funds from former Soviet states flowed into Trump-branded real estate has been the focus of speculation since the start of the 2016 presidential campaign. One theory, propounded by opponents of President Donald Trump is that his admiration for Russia’s Vladimir Putin comes down to money, a suggestion Trump has forcefully denied.</div><div style="">
</div><div style="">Still, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is digging into Trump’s business dealings, and the scramble for Kazakhstan’s chromium riches may fill in a piece of that puzzle. Company records, court filings and interviews in Kazakhstan and London suggest millions of dollars from the Aktobe plant wound their way to the U.S. and a development company with which Trump partnered to build a controversial Trump SoHo hotel-condominium complex in Manhattan.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There’s no suggestion that the Kazakh money ties Trump to Putin. But the funds tell an important story of the future president’s insouciance toward due diligence and business partner choices at a time when unmonitored cash was flooding out of Russia and other former Soviet states.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">It was on the 24th floor of Trump Tower that Kazakh businessman Tevfik Arif, a key figure in Aktobe chromium, established Bayrock Group LLC. The plant may have passed millions of dollars to Bayrock, which organized financing for the Trump SoHo high-rise that Trump once hailed as a “work of art.” Earlier last month, Trump Soho’s new owner bought the Trump Organization out of its management contract for the project.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">radio free eur</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.rferl.org/a/rivals_in_kazakh_power_struggle_take_feud_washington/24244658.html</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 32px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;">WASHINGTON -- Victims of persecution from around the world often come to Washington seeking justice. So there was nothing unusual in itself about Petr Afanasenko's trip to the U.S. capital in early June. He arrived bearing a grim tale of torture in the prisons of the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, where he once worked as a bodyguard for a leader of the would-be opposition.On visits to Congress and the State Department, he described abuse at the hands of a particular government official. His alleged abuser was Rakhat Aliev, the then-son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev. "I accuse Rakhat Aliev of personally fabricating a criminal case against me and my colleague when he was chairman of the Almaty province of the Committee of National Security," Afanasenko charged. "He personally participated in torture and tortured people." Human rights activists say that Afanasenko's account of his imprisonment fits a broader pattern of abuse of opposition figures by the Kazakh government. What makes his visit noteworthy, though, is its timing. Afanasenko was arrested by the Kazakh authorities in 2000. He was released in 2001 and left the country several years after that, ultimately settling in Belgium. His imprisonment was criticized at the time by human rights organizations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the State Department's annual human rights report, which last mentioned his case in 2003. By contrast, his recent trip to the United States, 10 years after his release from prison, was sponsored by a murky Washington-based organization run by a lobbyist who hails from the former USSR. The episode raises suspicions that Afanasenko, likely a genuine victim of past government injustice, has become a pawn in a country-sized feud between Kazakhstan's most powerful man and one of his most dogged rivals. In recent years, the two sides have shifted their conflict to an unlikely new theater: Washington. <div class="contentImage floatLeft" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="watermark" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">pix</div>Rakhat Aliev (left) and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev in a 2001 photo</div> In one corner is the government of 70-year-old President Nazarbaev, which, according to a recent investigation by "<a class="wswa" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/world/asia/30kazakhstan.html?scp=2&sq=nazarbayev&st=cse" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.05em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(219, 222, 224);">The New York Times</a>," has spent millions of dollars over the past three years retaining lobbyists and wooing experts to argue its case in the corridors of power in the U.S. capital. In the other corner is Aliev, 48, who during his heyday in Kazakhstan -- first as a senior official in the secret police, then as a high-ranking diplomat -- amassed power and wealth second only to that of Nazarbaev himself. Aliev's downfall was correspondingly dramatic. First came divorce from the president's daughter, Dariga, followed by semi-exile as ambassador to Austria. It was in that country that Aliev, now on the run from his homeland, sought political asylum. In 2008, a Kazakh court convicted Aliev in absentia of attempting to topple the president. 'Hiring' Congress Public records show that Aliev, too, has tried to gain official favor in Washington by hiring lobbyists to promote his interests. According to a recent document released through the U.S. Lobbying Disclosure Act, one of the firms with which Aliev has worked is RJI Government Strategies Inc., a small Washington lobbying group whose consultants included Tanya Rahall, sister of Representative Nick J. Rahall II (Democrat, West Virginia). Tanya Rahall declined to respond to RFE/RL's repeated requests for an interview. In a phone call to RFE/RL's Washington Bureau from an undisclosed location, Aliev said that his lobbying efforts had brought him little benefit. "I hired Congress with the aim of telling the truth about myself and what's happening in Central Asia," Aliev said, adding: "I hired one of the smaller lobbying firms. Unfortunately, they were not able to achieve much in the way of results. During my conflict with Nazarbaev, all sorts of white, gray and black lobbyists of different kinds have turned up lately. They even work for two sides at the same time -- some of them even for three." The lobbyists hired by Aliev, according to public records, have declined to comment on the case. Last week, in the latest dramatic twist in the two men's bitter feud, Nazarbaev's government announced that it was applying for Aliev's extradition from Austria on murder charges. The Kazakh government accuses Aliev of masterminding the kidnapping and murder in 2007 of two bank managers whose bodies were recently discovered in a pit near Almaty, the country's financial capital. An Austrian court rejected the extradition request, though without specifying the reasons. (Alice Irvin, a spokeswoman at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, responded to a request for information from RFE/RL by saying that, "According to our information Mr. Aliev no longer resides in Austria.") Back in Washington, meanwhile, two of Aliev's allies are pressing ahead with a high-stakes lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court. The two men, Devinci and Issam Hourani, are suing several lobbyists who worked for the Kazakhstan government for $2 billion in damages. The plaintiffs allege that consultants working on Kazakhstan's behalf helped the government to confiscate their property four years ago in retaliation for supporting Aliev. Issam, a British citizen, is married to Aliev's sister. 'Slush Fund' Alleged The lawsuit has generated attention because evidence introduced by the Houranis includes a letter that purportedly shows Kazakhstan's ambassador to the U.S. describing payments from the Kazakh government to members of congress. The letter, dated November 2010, describes the activities of a congressional group called Friends of Kazakhstan, which, it says, was "created" by the Kazakh Embassy. According to the text of the letter, "The embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan is financing them through contributions to their funds from a special hard-currency fund set up by you." Kazakhstan has denounced the letter as a forgery and cites expert testimony to bolster its case. But the government has not denied seeking out the services of lobbyists. "Kazakhstan has indeed hired consultants, including in the United States," Kazakhstan's ambassador to the U.S., Erlan Idrissov, wrote in <a class="wswa" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/lweb08kazakh.html?ref=nursultannazarbayev" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.05em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(219, 222, 224);">a letter</a>published in "The New York Times" in response to the newspaper's article. "This is to explain its position, as is accepted practice, and to respond to critics of the President who continue to perpetuate the fiction that Kazakhstan is a dictatorship." On June 2, the Washington-based watchdog group Project on Government Oversight (POGO) <a class="wswa" href="http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/letters/government-corruption/gc-ii-20110602-1.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.05em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(219, 222, 224);">called on</a> the U.S. Justice Department to start an investigation, expressing concern that "the government of Kazakhstan may have set up a slush fund to influence members of Congress." Jake Weins, an investigator for the group, says that the alleged <a class="wswa" href="http://www.pogoarchives.org/m/gc/k/attachment-1.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.05em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(219, 222, 224);">Kazakhstan Embassy letter</a> detailing payments to Congress, if real, provides grounds for concern. "If the document is authentic, it essentially shows that the government is unlawfully funding members of Congress, which is a pretty serious deal, because money in politics really matters," Weins said. "What we were able to do is to see that they have, in fact, established caucuses through lawmakers, and the lobbying firm that they had hired was feeding, not a ton of money, but a fair amount of money, to the leadership of that caucus." At the same time, there is little to prevent foreign governments or individuals from influencing policy in the U.S. capital by directing funds to think tanks and academic institutes. Such organizations can set the terms of public debate and define the popular image of particular countries. War Of Attrition Earlier this year, when Nazarbaev was said to have won 95.5 percent of the vote in Kazakhstan's presidential election, those on hand to applaud the outcome included members of a task force organized by two Washington think tanks -- the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Institute for New Democracy -- which received $290,000 from the Kazakh government two years ago to write a series of reports assessing the country's progress toward democracy, according to Central Asian affairs website <a class="wsw__a" href="http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav121009a.shtml" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word; padding-bottom: 0.05em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(219, 222, 224);">eurasianet.org</a>. Margarita Assenova, executive director of the Institute for New Democracies, was quoted in the wake of this year's election as saying that "the people credit the wise leadership of Nazarbaev for peace, stability, economic development, and ethnic harmony in Kazakhstan. They want this to continue." The OSCE, for its part, criticized the results, saying that "reforms necessary for holding genuine democratic elections have yet to materialize." As for Afanasenko, he has vowed to pursue his allegations against Aliev in an Austrian court. Aliev calls his accusations "a crude lie," and dismisses them as part of the Kazakhstan government's campaign to malign him. He says that he has evidence that Afanasenko is employed by the Kazakh security service. Meanwhile, the group that helped set Afanasenko's U.S. agenda, a one-man think tank called the International Eurasian Institute for Economic and Political Research, seems determined to maintain a lower profile than its more illustrious counterparts. The organization is run by Rinat Akhmetshin, an ex-Soviet citizen who has been linked in the past with Kazhegeldin, the Kazakh opposition leader who once employed Afanasenko as a bodyguard. Akhmetshin, who sponsored Afanasenko's visit, declined to comment on the case when contacted by e-mail, saying only that Afanasenko "is an old friend -- he is a Belgian citizen and has nothing to do with [Kazakhstan]." Akhmetshin could not be contacted at the phone number shown on his institute's letterhead. There is no office at the Washington address it lists, and its website is moribund. "Institute relocated 5-6 years ago to a different address," said Akhmetshin in his e-mail message. The feud between Kazakhstan's president and his errant son-in-law, by contrast, shows no sign of subsiding anytime soon.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>2x alternetTrump’s Manhattan properties and business partners, including former Soviet Union-connected oligarchs, were involved in a larger international money-laundering scheme involving upward of $1 billion, according to Dutch filmmakers whose third installment in an investigative series aired on public TV in Holland Wednesday.“We wanted to know in depth how money was transferred from Kazakhstan to the United States and how this could relate to Donald Trump, the Trump Organization and Trump’s real estate,” said Sander Rietveld, director of <a href="https://zembla.bnnvara.nl/nieuws/the-controversial-friends-of-donald-trump-part-iii-the-billion-dollar-fraud" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump, Part III: The Multibillion-Dollar Fraud</a>, broadcast on Zembla, a program of the VARA Broadcasting Association.The documentary was produced based on a <a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/7046-documentary-explores-dodgy-financial-ties-of-trump-associate" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">three-month collaboration</a> between Zembla, The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (<a href="https://www.occrp.org/en" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">OCCRP</a>)—known for the <a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/panamapapers/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Panama Papers</a>, and <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">McClatchy</a> newspaper's Washington bureau (including Kevin Hall, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the Panama papers).  “We investigated hundreds of company records, court documents in the U.S., Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Belize, etc., and interviewed dozens of sources,” he said. “The result is a follow-the-money documentary revealing the connections between several people in Trump’s orbit and an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud. Also the pivotal role of the Netherlands as an offshore haven gets attention. With Dutch help, Kazakh oligarchs allegedly were able to divert and launder huge amounts of money.”One of the international financiers profiled went to court in the Netherlands on Tuesday to stop the documentary from airing on public TV, but lost, Rietveld said: “Kazakh multimillion[aire] businessman-oligarch Ilyas Khrapunov tried to block this broadcast in court yesterday (Monday). Judge turned down his request and allowed airing documentary.”[vid]The filmmakers found that money taken out of Kazakhstan by energy oligarchs was used to buy some of Trump’s high-end Manhattan apartments and was also used to create the business partnership, called Bayrock, for Trump’s SoHo Tower project, said James Henry, a financial industry <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/12/19/the-curious-world-of-donald-trumps-private-russian-connections/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">investigative reporter</a> and editor at <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2017/02/25/another-cabinet-pick-with-secret-ties-to-putin-and-oligarchs/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">DCReport.org</a> who worked with Rietveld’s team and appears in the documentary.“The significant thing is they have got the Kazakh government saying that Bayrock was a money launderer for these guys,” Henry told AlterNet. “What is interesting, if [special counsel Robert] Mueller wants to take a look at this, is we have [Trump’s <a href="https://www.alternet.org/election-2016/will-mob-connected-hustler-be-first-person-spill-beans-trump" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">mob-connected business partner</a>] Felix Sater laundering criminal money.”U.S. laws such as the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-practices-act" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Foreign Corrupt Practices Act</a> make it a crime to launder money tied to prior illegal acts, Henry said. The documentary, whose reporting was also developed in collaboration with McClatchy News’ Washington office, traces how investing in Trump’s Soho Tower included concealing illegal money-laundering activities. Trump did not tell other investors about any of this, as required under U.S. financial law, he said, “a continuing cover-up of money laundering.”The program is the third installment in the series profiling Trump’s business deals with international investors that appear to have violated U.S. and foreign financial laws. The first installment focused on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Trump’s Russian investors</a>. Installment two looked at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvd7PqI_Lx0" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Trump family links to Kremlin-connected diamond dealers</a>. The third installment returns to Trump’s partners in his downtown New York City project, according to its online summary.“Will Donald Trump go down due to his dubious ties to the former Soviet Union?” Zembla's summary says, recapping the filmmakers’ previous findings. “The president seems to be getting in deeper and deeper. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating if Trump colluded with Russia in order to win the elections, is also digging into Trump’s past as a businessman. In that past, one of Donald Trump’s business partners plays a crucial role: Felix Sater, a convicted felon who has ties with the Russian mafia. Last May, Zembla disclosed how an American real estate company, run by Sater, used Dutch mailbox companies within a network, which has been suspected of laundering money. Allegedly $1.5 million had been diverted. Donald Trump developed hotels and apartment complexes with this suspicious company.”“In the last few months Zembla received indications of a greater fraud,” it continued. “A billion-dollar fraud. And here Sater, Trump’s questionable business partner shows up, as well. The money trail leads to Kazakhstan, to real estate projects in New York and again to the Netherlands. Zembla investigates: How compromising is this case for the current president of America?”The Dutch documentary raises questions most American TV networks have not broached, Henry said. For one, what was the role of Trump ally and ex-New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who represented Sater and raised money for his presidential campaign in Kazakhstan?Another intriguing question involved others in Trump’s orbit as a real estate magnate and president. Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary, was vice-chairman of a bank based on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus favored by Russian oligarchs, Henry has <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2017/02/25/another-cabinet-pick-with-secret-ties-to-putin-and-oligarchs/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">reported</a>. “I’m saying, ‘Let’s see Mueller do his job,'” he said. “Here’s more leads.”   =<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2017/09/watch-americas-mobster-president-new-evidence-dutch-documentary-trumps-international-money/">https://www.alternet.org/2017/09/watch-americas-mobster-president-new-evidence-dutch-documentary-trumps-international-money/</a>President Trump’s Manhattan properties and business partners, including former Soviet Union-connected oligarchs, were involved in a larger international money-laundering scheme involving upward of $1 billion, according to Dutch filmmakers whose third installment in an investigative series aired on public TV in Holland Wednesday.“We wanted to know in depth how money was transferred from Kazakhstan to the United States and how this could relate to Donald Trump, the Trump Organization and Trump’s real estate,” said Sander Rietveld, director of <a href="https://zembla.bnnvara.nl/nieuws/the-controversial-friends-of-donald-trump-part-iii-the-billion-dollar-fraud" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump, Part III: The Multibillion-Dollar Fraud</a>, broadcast on Zembla, a program of the VARA Broadcasting Association.The documentary was produced based on a <a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/7046-documentary-explores-dodgy-financial-ties-of-trump-associate" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">three-month collaboration</a> between Zembla, The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (<a href="https://www.occrp.org/en" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">OCCRP</a>)—known for the <a href="https://www.occrp.org/en/panamapapers/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Panama Papers</a>, and <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">McClatchy</a> newspaper's Washington bureau (including Kevin Hall, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the Panama papers).  “We investigated hundreds of company records, court documents in the U.S., Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Belize, etc., and interviewed dozens of sources,” he said. “The result is a follow-the-money documentary revealing the connections between several people in Trump’s orbit and an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud. Also the pivotal role of the Netherlands as an offshore haven gets attention. With Dutch help, Kazakh oligarchs allegedly were able to divert and launder huge amounts of money.”<div class="alt_ad_block true_ad_free story-page-in-content-graph-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_msg" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 10px; background: rgb(234, 234, 234);"><div class="header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">AD REMOVED FOR SUBSCRIBED USER</div></div></div>One of the international financiers profiled went to court in the Netherlands on Tuesday to stop the documentary from airing on public TV, but lost, Rietveld said: “Kazakh multimillion[aire] businessman-oligarch Ilyas Khrapunov tried to block this broadcast in court yesterday (Monday). Judge turned down his request and allowed airing documentary."[vid  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I</a>]the filmmakers found that money taken out of Kazakhstan by energy oligarchs was used to buy some of Trump’s high-end Manhattan apartments and was also used to create the business partnership, called Bayrock, for Trump’s SoHo Tower project, said James Henry, a financial industry <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/12/19/the-curious-world-of-donald-trumps-private-russian-connections/" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">investigative reporter</a> and editor at <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2017/02/25/another-cabinet-pick-with-secret-ties-to-putin-and-oligarchs/" target="blank" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">DCReport.org</a> who worked with Rietveld’s team and appears in the documentary.“The significant thing is they have got the Kazakh government saying that Bayrock was a money launderer for these guys,” Henry told AlterNet. “What is interesting, if [special counsel Robert] Mueller wants to take a look at this, is we have [Trump’s <a href="https://www.alternet.org/election-2016/will-mob-connected-hustler-be-first-person-spill-beans-trump" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">mob-connected business partner</a>] Felix Sater laundering criminal money.”U.S. laws such as the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-practices-act" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Foreign Corrupt Practices Act</a> make it a crime to launder money tied to prior illegal acts, Henry said. The documentary, whose reporting was also developed in collaboration with McClatchy News’ Washington office, traces how investing in Trump’s Soho Tower included concealing illegal money-laundering activities. Trump did not tell other investors about any of this, as required under U.S. financial law, he said, “a continuing cover-up of money laundering.”The program is the third installment in the series profiling Trump’s business deals with international investors that appear to have violated U.S. and foreign financial laws. The first installment focused on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Trump’s Russian investors</a>. Installment two looked at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvd7PqI_Lx0" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Trump family links to Kremlin-connected diamond dealers</a>. The third installment returns to Trump’s partners in his downtown New York City project, according to its online summary.“Will Donald Trump go down due to his dubious ties to the former Soviet Union?” Zembla's summary says, recapping the filmmakers’ previous findings. “The president seems to be getting in deeper and deeper. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating if Trump colluded with Russia in order to win the elections, is also digging into Trump’s past as a businessman. In that past, one of Donald Trump’s business partners plays a crucial role: Felix Sater, a convicted felon who has ties with the Russian mafia. Last May, Zembla disclosed how an American real estate company, run by Sater, used Dutch mailbox companies within a network, which has been suspected of laundering money. Allegedly $1.5 million had been diverted. Donald Trump developed hotels and apartment complexes with this suspicious company.”“In the last few months Zembla received indications of a greater fraud,” it continued. “A billion-dollar fraud. And here Sater, Trump’s questionable business partner shows up, as well. The money trail leads to Kazakhstan, to real estate projects in New York and again to the Netherlands. Zembla investigates: How compromising is this case for the current president of America?”The Dutch documentary raises questions most American TV networks have not broached, Henry said. For one, what was the role of Trump ally and ex-New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who represented Sater and raised money for his presidential campaign in Kazakhstan?Another intriguing question involved others in Trump’s orbit as a real estate magnate and president. Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary, was vice-chairman of a bank based on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus favored by Russian oligarchs, Henry has <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2017/02/25/another-cabinet-pick-with-secret-ties-to-putin-and-oligarchs/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reported</a>. “I’m saying, ‘Let’s see Mueller do his job,'” he said. “Here’s more leads.” <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2017/09/watch-americas-mobster-president-new-evidence-dutch-documentary-trumps-international-money/">https://www.alternet.org/2017/09/watch-americas-mobster-president-new-evidence-dutch-documentary-trumps-international-money/</a>
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">hmmn</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><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;">an unofficial investigation into RussiaGate has uncovered a shocking and previously-unknown new connection— a CIA-connected man who became instantly famous after the Boston Marathon bombing — involved in recent allegations against Trump associate Felix Sater that he laundered $440 million of stolen money for billionaire oligarchs in Kazakhstan through American real estate. 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="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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.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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">filed suit yesterday</a> to keep his business dealings with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/us/politics/trump-lawsuit-deutsche-bank.html?searchResultPosition=1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Germany’s criminal Deutsche Bank</a> secret, it prompted a review of notes for clues that led to long-unanswered questions about why 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.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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> behind both situations? </a>Donald Trump’s Palm Beach ‘homies’ in the newsAdnan 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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">, 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. 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. It’s just a suggestion, but probably a good one.Khashoggi is one of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach ‘homies.’  Moreover his <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/2017/06/26/trump-khashoggi-germanys-criminal-deutsche-bank/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">criminal collusion with Deutsche Bank </a> has already been proven in court.Deutsche Bank was forced to pay <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2005/12/19/daily35.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">spectacularly-successful pump and dump scheme</a> that stole more than $300 million from investors.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).”Khashoggi participated in banking giant Deutsche Bank’s<a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/deutsche-bank-fined-502m-over-russia-money-laundering-claims/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> 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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">for which the bank was fined more</a> than a half-billion dollars.The scheme only came to light after a massive <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/police-operation-in-the-deutsche-bank/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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.Fur hats vs the fedorasAnother 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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">suspicions about the connection</a> between Felix Sater and the ultra-orthodox Jewish <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/11/27/the-odd-chabad-connection-between-putin-and-trump/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Chabad Lubavitch</a> sect. Because Felix Sater’s 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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">increased </a>attention.  Sater himself has also become a more intriguing figure. A<a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Sater.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> lawsuit filed against him </a>earlier this month by the quasi-state bank of the country of Kazakhstan claims 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="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"> stole from the bank</a> (and by extension the people of Kazakhstan) to develop his project to create a Trump Tower in Moscow.Sater was feted as “<a href="https://youtu.be/xSpFtCmoD5o" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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.As first reported in author Craig Unger’s excellent “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/House-Trump-Putin-Untold-Russian/dp/152474350X" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">House of Trump, House of Putin” </a>, <a href="https://www.robinmorgan.net/blog/six-degrees-cash-corruption-putin-trump/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Vladimir Putin used Chabad Lubavitch</a> to consolidate power in Russia, through putting Berel Lazar, the Chabad’s chief Rabbi in the country, in charge over a new Russian national organization for Jews.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.”<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="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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 Russia’s new class of billionaire oligarchs, many of them Jewish.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.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.”Not anymore.  Chabad Lubavitch“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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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.[pix soho twr launch don jr ivanka]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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">catered</a> to KGB agents, according to the New York Times.Over time Tamir Sapir became a significant partner in Bayrock.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.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.At the time, the busy Rosen was already a lieutenant of Israeli diamond king Lev Leviev, Chabad’s biggest backer. Felix Sater in Kazakhstan 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 he participated in an international criminal conspiracy to launder $440 million stolen from Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank though American real estate.   According to the lawsuit, <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Sater.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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.In our notes was something noteworthy: Also popping up in the scandal is someone  whose involvement proves something a retired Customs Agent in Louisiana once told me:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; position: relative; border-left: none; margin: 40px 34.7969px 38px; text-align: center;">“There aren’t that many players out there. Pretty much, they all know each other.” </blockquote> The return of Uncle RuslanRuslan Tsarni  <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/2013/05/03/did-the-cia-commandeer-the-boston-bombing-investigation/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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. For days he was ubiquitous on television. Now he has a 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="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">two billionaires from Kazakhstan</a> through American real estate. <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/?p=3557" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">CIA official Graham Fuller</a>, who was still active in the region, although not, he claimed, on behalf of the CIA.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.  “Tsarni was a US lawyer who has had dealings in Kazakh business affairs,” reported the May 8, 2011 London Sunday Times.“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.”“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.” Felix Sater & Ruslan TsarniDuring 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 Ruslan Tsarni had been in Kazakhstan working as <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/?p=3643" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">used for cover by CIA agents overseas.</a>The “takeover of the western company” mentioned in the lawsuit was <a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/big-sky-energy-corporation-announces-management-additions/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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.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.  After requesting anonymity, he replied. “Big Sky, Ablyazov, Kulibayev and the rest, were all on my watch list for intelligence connections and pay-offs of various kinds.”  As if that weren’t enough— and its never enough— 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… No? Prince Andrew? Laundering dirty cash just like Trump?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.Conveniently, he was also married to the daughter of Kazakhstan’s autocratic then-President,  Nursultan Nazarbayev.The story, headlined “<a href="https://www.madcowprod.com/princes-home-in-laundered-cash-inquiry/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">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.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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">sale of a Palm Beach mansion</a> to a Russian mobster at about the same time.No doubt it is just a coincidence.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. The Messiah of Brooklyn & Jared Kushner’s Dad 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.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. 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="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Westboro Baptist Church </a>— 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.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.”Another is Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner. Coming disclosures to come will push the story of RussiaGate ever-deeper into the high cotton, to places the timid Mueller Report feared to tread.   Sarasota grifter & Semion MogilevichTrump-Bannon-Khashoggi associate Jonathan Curshen tried to save Russian Mob Uber-Boss Semion Mogilevich’s nuts from the fire in the YBM Magnex affair.Individuals close enough to Trump to stroll around the block with him outside the Ravenite Social Club, metaphorically-speaking, were doing the bidding of Russia’s most powerful gangster… back in 1998.Jonathan Curshen has been the subject of reporting here for a decade. Still, it was a shock to discover he was involved in a major financial fraud with the Maestro himself, ‘the Brainy Don,’ the ‘Russian Meyer Lansky’… Semion Mogilevich.Curshen’s connection with grifters associated with Donald Trump can be found  in corporate documents available to anyone online. What’s lacking? Grainy security-camera footage of Curshen passing a suitcase stuffed with cash up the ladder to his capo.  There’s more news about Donald Trump and the 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.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…  Including our own. Hackers, Mob Bosses & Alt-Right GriftersThe Russian Mob nexus with U.S. organized crime has been operational for at least the past 30 years. 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.Close business associates of Donald  Trump — 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.No one has laid a finger on Pavel Vrublevsky.As long as he confines himself to the vast steppes of his Russian homeland, “Red Eye,’ as he’s called, remains safe.But that can’t last. 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