Cyprus Bank

4 24 now generic for dodge-y russian fuckery

neglected? see money launder

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alternet-no lnx

Russian banker who loaned Trump’s Truth Social $8M reportedly has 'family links to Kremlin'

Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2019 (Creative Commons)

:{Alex HendersonApril 22, 2024

Even after X CEO Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump's @RealDonaldTrump account, the former president has continued to use his own Truth Social as his primary social media platform. Trump's last post on X was on August 24, 2023, but he uses Truth Social frequently.

Truth Social, launched in August 2022, is part of Trump Media and Technology Group — which is now publicly traded. One of Truth Social's backers was Anton Postolnikov, a 40-year-old Russian banker who loaned the outlet $8 million.

According to the Daily Beast, Postolnikov reportedly has "family links" to the Kremlin and made a lot of money with websites that sold "dodgy sex pills."

READ MORE:Putin, Trump and Netanyahu unveil the terrifying perils of strongman rule

"The flagship product sold by these sites, Vimax — which promises longer sex and a firmer erection — has prompted warnings from health regulators in the U.S. for containing hidden ingredients that may endanger health," journalists Matt Bernardini and Matei Rosca explain in an article published on April 22. "The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers not to buy the supposedly natural male enhancement supplements, and told anyone who had bought the tablets to throw them out."

The reporters add, "The sites where the pills were sold included vimaxtrialoffer.com, which was registered in the name of Anton Postolnikov, 40, according to public domain ownership records."

Postolnikov has a strong connection to MAGA politics.

In addition to helping Truth Social get started, he donated $30,000 to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021, according to Bernardini and Rosca.

READ MORE: Wall Street is now betting on Trump’s Truth Social stock to fail

"In (2021), documents show that a company listing Postolnikov as its 'authorized person' owned two dwellings on Miami’s private Fisher Island worth $13 million," Bernardini and Rosca report. "The company that owns the luxury properties, 7812 Fisher Island LLC, is the subject of ongoing divorce proceedings in Florida where Postolnikov is splitting from Olga, a fellow native of St. Petersburg who describes herself as a photojournalist…. Before his alleged foray into Florida high finance, Postolnikov was involved in the selling of Vimax, which was sold via offshore companies in the U.S., Cyprus, and Mauritius, according to the products' websites."

READ MORE: Truth Social lost millions last year: SEC filing

Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Busted: Major investor in Trump’s Truth Social sued for sexual misconduct ›

'Trump fans' are likely to lose their shirts with Truth Social: analysis ›

Trump’s Truth Social is neither but it doesn’t matter ›

bank of Cyprus” – Google News: Club chairman, referee to be charged in connection with match-fixing – Cyprus Mail

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/hes-back-trumps-former-campaign-manager-resurfaces-at-the-heart-of-ukraine-inquiry

...

Let’s also remember where Manafort carried out the crimes that landed him in prison: Ukraine. According to the Washington Post, as part of a plea deal, “Manafort acknowledged that he made more than $60 million in Ukraine, laundering more than $30 million of it through foreign companies and bank accounts to hide it from the IRS and cheating the government out of $15 million in taxes. He also agreed that he had lobbied in the United States on behalf of Ukrainian officials without registering and that he conspired to tamper with witnesses in his case.”

And where do we find ourselves today? Right back in Ukraine. This time it’s Manafort’s former boss, Donald Trump himself, who has been personally managing the campaign to get the Ukrainian government to help his re-election efforts. In fact, it was this week that we learned from George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of Ukraine, how Trump wanted Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden and the 2016 election. Kent told House impeachment investigators that Trump “wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to a microphone and say investigations, Biden and Clinton,” according to the Washington Post.

Even the minor characters are similar. In 2016, we had low-lifes like Kilimnik and “Professor” Joseph Mifsud running around on the fringes of Russia’s efforts to penetrate the Trump campaign and influence the presidential election. For 2020, we’ve got a couple of real jewels by the names of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, both born in the former Soviet Union, and you guessed it! Both are currently under indictment on federal campaign finance charges. In 2016, the connections to Trump were made through Manafort and campaign advisers like George Papadopoulos. This time, it’s Giuliani who is Trump’s cut-out to these foreign-born scam artists. And what was Giuliani using Parnas and Furman for? According to The New York Times, beginning in January of this year, “Mr. Giuliani had enlisted Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman to collect information and make connections in Ukraine that could be used to damage Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential contender, and to undermine the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.”

Even the way they have been moving funny money around was reminiscent of 2016. Back then, Manafort had pulled in millions from his work for former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, which he laundered through shell companies and bank accounts in Cyprus. This year, Parnas and his buddies used a company called Fraud Guarantee, that apparently had no employees and no customers, to funnel money to Giuliani through a complicated deal with a Long Island lawyer and a shell company in Belize

...

Parnas and Fruman were tapped out, having recently made the illegal $325,000 contribution to America First Action, a super PAC supporting Donald Trump, for which they are now under indictment. But they wanted a connection to Giuliani they could use back in Ukraine to drum up business deals, and apparently the way you get connected to Giuliani is to give him money.So they got a Long Island lawyer named Charles Gucciardo, who was a Trump supporter and large-money donor, to invest in their company, and then used the good offices of Fraud Guarantee to funnel $500,000 to Giuliani.

...

active meas doc busted/fined mult times, ceo went cyprus bank?!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/23/wilbur-ross-russian-deal-bank-of-cyprus-donald-trump-commerce-secretary

trump's commerce secretary oversaw Russia deal while at Bank of Cyprus

This article is more than 2 years old

Questions raised over Trump appointee Wilbur Ross and his ties to politically connected Russian oligarchs

Stephanie Kirchgaessner

@skirchy Email

Thu 23 Mar 2017 05.27 EDTLast modified on Fri 9 Feb 2018 13.48 EST

Bank Of Cyprus

Wilbur Ross was previously vice-chairman of the Bank Of Cyprus.

Wilbur Ross, the Trump administration’s new commerce secretary, presided over a deal with a Russian businessman with ties to Vladimir Putin while serving in his previous role as vice-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus.

The transaction raises questions about Ross’s tenure at the Cypriot bank and his ties to politically connected Russian oligarchs. It comes amid confirmation by the FBI that it is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow to influence the outcome of the presidential election.

White House accused of blocking information on bank's Trump-Russia links

In 2015, while he served as vice-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, the bank’s Russia-based businesses were sold to a Russian banker and consultant, Artem Avetisyan, who had ties to both the Russian president and Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. At the time, Sberbank was under US and EU sanctions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Avetisyan had earlier been selected by Putin to head a new business branch of the Russian president’s strategic initiative agency, which was tasked with improving business and government ties.

Avetisyan’s business partner, Oleg Gref, is the son of Herman Gref, Sberbank’s chief executive officer, and their consultancy has served as a “partner” to Sberbank, according to their website. Ross had described the Russian businesses – including 120 bank branches in Russia – as being worth “hundreds of millions of euros” in 2014 but they were sold with other assets to Avetisyan for €7m (£6m).

Ross has not been accused of wrongdoing and there is no indication the Russian deal violated US or EU sanctions. Ross resigned from the Bank of Cyprus board after he was confirmed as commerce secretary last month.

Democrats raised questions about Ross’s tenure at the Bank of Cyprus before his confirmation, but Ross has said the White House has refused to allow him to respond to the queries. Senator Cory Booker and other Democrats recently sent a third letter to Ross with more questions, including whether Ross had ever done business with companies that were under US sanctions.

In 2014, the Bank of Cyprus was still considered to be in a precarious state following a dramatic €10bn rescue of Cyprus’s banking sector by the ECB and the IMF. Under the terms of the deal, many of the bank’s wealthy Russian deposit holders lost their cash and became shareholders in the bank.

Ross, who had made billions of dollars years earlier by betting on bankrupt steel mills, was known for taking risky bets. But his decision to inject €400m into the bank with other investors encompassed a different kind of risk. It put him at the centre of the biggest financial institution in a country that was widely considered to be a tax haven for Russian oligarchs, even as the US and EU were imposing sanctions on Russia. In 2014, the year he made his investment, the US State Department considered Cyprus an area of “primary concern” for money laundering (pdf), according to its official assessment.

Ross was appointed vice-chairman at the bank after his investment in 2014, a post he shared with a deposit holder-turned-shareholder, Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, referred to in Russian media as a former KGB official and Putin ally. According to the bank’s annual reports, the two attended two board meetings together in 2014 and as many as five together in 2015 before Strzhalkovsky’s May 2015 resignation from the board. One of the questions that has been posed to Ross by Democratic senators is whether he ever had contact with Strzhalkovsky.

One of Ross’s first big decisions at the bank was the appointment of former Deutsche Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann as chairman, whom he chose in part because of Ackermann’s “huge Rolodex”, according to a 2014 Bloomberg interview.

Ackermann’s ties to Russia were especially strong, including a warm relationship with Putin and Herman Gref of Sberbank.

Peter Harrell, who served as the deputy assistant secretary for counter-threat finance and sanctions in the State Department at the time and is now an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said Cyprus was “obviously” one of the places the Obama administration was worried about at the time because it was seen as a place that could help Russian entities evade sanctions, imposed as a result of the conflict over Crimea.

“Cyprus is an EU member state, but given the opacity of the environment there, given the history, there was a risk that it could be used to evade sanctions,” Harrell told the Guardian.

But Ross seemed unfazed by the conflict and its potential impact in an interview with Fox Business News in 2014, telling Maria Bartiromo the tourism industry was surging in Cyprus. When pressed to explain his plans for the bank’s assets in Russia, Ross said they had not been particularly profitable and were only worth “a couple of hundred million euros”.

“Clearly when they are in the middle of a war is not the right time to do anything,” he told Bartiromo.

A year later, Bank of Cyprus announced (pdf) it was offloading the Russian business, including loan exposures, to Avetisyan for €7m. The core assets had been purchased for €450m in 2008. Deutsche Bank’s London office advised Bank of Cyprus on the deal.

There are many factors that could have depressed the price including the financial crisis and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

The Bank of Cyprus said the sale of its Russian business was part of a restructuring plan to dispose of non-core assets and that the deal had been agreed after a “rigorous sale process involving experienced external advisers”. It said the sale price reflected the market price and that the sale had resulted in a “significant reduction of risk” and reduced the bank’s exposure to the Russian economy.

“The buyer was both unknown to and unconnected to members of Bank of Cyprus Group’s board of directors,” the bank said.

A spokesman for the commerce department said Ross had been a successful chairman or lead director of over a hundred companies and was an “incredibly successful investor who made the best business decisions possible”.

“In that role, he had a duty to get the best deals for his company, which is a skill he will now bring to bear for the American people,” the spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for Avetisyan declined to comment.

Legal experts who specialise in sanctions law said the deal did not violate EU or US sanctions.

But Harrell, the former Obama administration official, said he found connections between Russia and the Trump administration to be “strange and troubling” and that he included Ross’s tenure at the Bank of Cyprus among the “long list of concerns”. He said: “As an American, doing business between Cyprus and Russia, I would want a higher standard of scrutiny on any deal.”

In a separate management decision under Ross’s watch, Bank of Cyprus gave Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private bank, until 2019 – four more years than originally planned – to pay back a €100m debt it owed in connection to Alfa’s purchase of the bank’s Ukrainian assets. Alfa Bank still owed Bank of Cyprus €57m as of the end of September. Bank of Cyprus said the extension was provided because of the “worsening geopolitical situation in Ukraine”.

John Koenig, former US ambassador to Cyprus, told the Guardian he did not believe Ross had ever gone out of his way to favour Russian investors or the Kremlin. At the time, he recalled, officials were actively seeking investments from big US and European banks but nobody was interested until Ross came along.

“There is no reason to look for a sinister narrative,” Koenig said. “This was a high-risk environment and there were not a lot of external investors interested. It’s the kind of situation he specialises in, isn’t it?”

DC rept

...

Cyprus Connection

Another major client of Burck was the corrupt FBME bank in Cyprus, which worked closely with Deutsche Bank to move money for its Russian-speaking clients.

In 2014, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) charged that FBME Bank was purposely promoting a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” approach to money laundering regulation compliance “to attract illicit finance business from the darkest corners of the criminal underworld.” FinCen is our government’s anti-money laundering agency. It is staffed with IRS agents who specialize in tracing illicit money flows.

BuzzFeed described FBME “as a major conduit for funds linked to terrorism, organized crime, and chemical weapons, and revealed how blue-chip Western institutions enabled its activities.”

After the Mueller investigation was launched soon after Trump was sworn in, in 2017, McGahn hired Burck as he was trying to navigate the shoals between his obligations as White House counsel and the requests of Mueller’s investigators. This may have been especially important as one of the U.S. attorneys who signed Sater’s cooperation agreement in 1998 was Andrew Weissmann, a financial fraud expert who was also on Mueller’s team.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/putin-wants-trump-hand-over-three-dhs-agents-who-are-investigating-company-linked

Lost in all the controversy over President Vladimir Putin asking Donald Trump to turn over former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul to Kremlin investigators for questioning — in return for access to Russian officials indicted by the Justice Department for meddling in the 2016 election — was the fact that Putin had a whole list of Americans he wanted to be turned over.

According to Michael Weiss, writing for the Daily Beast, far down Putin’s shopping list are three Department of Homeland Security agents whom he has accused of running off with over $400 million in Russian money – when in fact they were investigating associates of Putin laundering that money.

The agents — identified as Todd Hyman, Aleksandr Schwartzman, and Svetlana Angert — were included by Putin, who reportedly explained to Trump that some of that stolen money was funneled to the 2016 presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "It might have been legal, the contribution itself, but the way the money was earned was illegal,” Putin offered at the Helsinki meeting.

As Weiss writes, “Hyman, Schwartzman, and Angert were not laundering money, as Putin and his prosecutor would suggest; they were investigating money launderers.”

According to a deep dive into their careers, the three agents were principals in a civil asset forfeiture case brought againstPrevezon Holdings, a Cyprus-registered company suspected of laundering Russian public funds — some of which was invested in Manhattan properties which raised red flags with federal investigators.

According to Weiss, “In 2013, $24 million of Prevezon’s U.S.-based assets were frozen in a civil asset forfeiture complaint brought by the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. The case was settled out of court in May 2017, with the company agreeing to pay $5.9 million in damages in exchange for not having to admit to any wrongdoing.”

Where this circles back around to Trump — and possibly why he initially called Putin’s request an“incredible offer” — is a principal in Prevezon: Natalia Veselnitskaya,who later met with Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign officials in a 2016 Trump Tower gathering that is currently being investigated by the FBI.

“So, fast-forwarding to the summer of 2018 and that press conference in Helsinki, it appears Putin was recapitulating in front of the whole world ‍the rough contours of risible guilt-by-association conspiracy theory first mooted hush-hush by Veselnitskaya to Trump’s son, son-in-law, and his now-indicted campaign chairman who currently is on trial,” Weiss writes.

You can read the whole in-depth report here.“That Putin for a moment thought this shambolic quid pro quo proposal would be entertained by the American establishment tells you quite a lot about the contempt in which he holds that establishment under its current leadership,” Weiss continued.”Putin clearly feels as if he doesn’t have to try very hard anymore to abase and undermine our country, perhaps because he is himself impressed at how easy that is to do.”

mojo

Wilbur Ross

In 2014, the billionaire (and “king of bankruptcy”) led a group of investors in a takeover of the Bank of Cyprus, an ailing financial institution with deep ties to Russia. Other top investors included oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and former KGB official Vladimir Strzhalkovsky. During Ross’ confirmation process for commerce secretary, Senate Democrats asked him for more details about the bank, including any loans made to Trump or his company. The Trump White House blocked the release of that information. But this probably isn’t the last we’ve heard about the bank: US Treasury officials are probing payments routed to lobbyist (and former Trump campaign chairman) Paul Manafort through Cyprus—a hotbed of illicit Russian cash. In March, the Associated Press reported that $1 million was directed to a Manafort-linked company in 2009 via the Bank of Cyprus.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53475/trump-cabinet-russia-business/

I have to say that, judging from his press availability, and as a first impression, Congressman DevinNunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is a very impressively arrogant fellow. From contemptuously shuffling the Logan Act aside ("You a Logan Act guy?" he asked one reporter.) to his arch dismissal of the calls for a special prosecutor, to his clammy misuse of the word "McCarthyism," to his robotic insistence that the real problem here are the leaks about possible Russian influence over the administration—rather than, say, Russian influence over the administration—Nunes is going to be someone to watch going forward. But let's write something new about Russia anyway.

All of the Trump Administration's Ties to Russia

The essential folks at McClatchy have raised some questions about the ownership stake in a Cyprus bankheld by Wilbur Ross, who by eight o'clock tonight likely will be your Secretary of Commerce. The bank that does a lot of business with various Russian oligarchs, including, it is alleged, as a spin cycle for money that the Russian kleptocracy would like to have cleaned.

More recently, he led a rescue of Bank of Cyprus in September 2014 after the Cypriot government — in consultation with Russian President Vladimir Putin — first propped up the institution. "Cyprus banks have a long and painful history of laundering dirty money from Russians involved with corruption and criminality," said Elise Bean, a former Senate investigator who specialized in combating money laundering and tax evasion. "Buying a Cyprus bank necessarily raises red flags about suspect deposits, high-risk clients and hidden activities." The Russian business and government elite have often sought financial security in the Mediterranean island's banking system. Oligarch Dmitry Ryvoloviev took a nearly 10 percent stake in Bank of Cyprus in 2010. Two years earlier, amid the U.S. financial crisis when real-estate prices were softening, Ryvoloviev purchased Donald Trump's Palm Beach mansion for $95 million. The transaction generated questions because of its inflated market price, about $60 million more than Trump had paid for the Florida property four years earlier. When Europe's debt crisis spread and affected Cyprus in 2012 and 2013, that nation's second biggest bank, Laiki Bank, was closed. The government imposed losses on uninsured deposits, many belonging to Russians.

As you might imagine, this whole business came up to no great effect during Ross's confirmation hearings.

Ross had little history in global banking, but in 2011 he took an ownership stake in Bank of Ireland, the only bank in that nation the government didn't seize. Ross tripled his investment when he sold his Irish stake in June 2014, then months later, he took a gamble on Bank of Cyprus. Six Democratic senators, led by Florida's Bill Nelson, asked for details about his relationship with big Russian shareholders in Bank of Cyprus, including Viktor Vekselberg, a longtime Putin ally, and Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former vice chairman of Bank of Cyprus and a former KGB agent believed to be a Putin associate. Aides to several of the senators confirmed late Friday that Ross hadn't responded to their questions. The White House sent McClatchy to a Commerce Department transition aide, who didn't respond to questions.

(David Cay Johnson's DC Report adds that, when Ross took over the Bank of Cyprus, he installed as chairman a guy who had left Deutsche Bank under a cloud, including a $650 million fine for laundering Russian money. Deutsche Bank, Johnson reminds us, is the president*'s largest known lender.)

It is nothing close to McCarthyism to point out that the entire Cabinet will be full to the gunwales with people who have done serious business with the Russian kleptocrats. At least they'll all have a lot to talk about over vodka at lunch.

===

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article135001474.html

Ross is likely to be confirmed as Donald Trump’s secretary of commerce on Monday despite unanswered questions about his ownership of a Cyprus bank that caters to wealthy Russians.

Ross, a wealthy business turnaround artist, has not responded to a Feb. 16 letter from six Democratic senators asking him to explain his relationship with several Russian oligarchs who hold stakes in the once-troubled foreign bank.

Ross’s involvement with the Cyprus bank adds to a list of Russia connections that have dogged Trump’s tenure in the White House. Investigations are underway by the FBI, the intelligence community and Congress into ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia’s plot to influence the U.S. election. The president has dismissed those suggestions as a “ruse.”

THE RUSSIAN BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT ELITE HAVE OFTEN SOUGHT FINANCIAL SECURITY IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ISLAND’S BANKING SYSTEM.

Ross, who turns 80 in November and was a Democrat for much of his life, is a billionaire who has turned around high-profile companies in the steel, coal, textiles and auto-parts sectors. His manufacturing acumen is more relevant to his appointment as commerce secretary.

More recently, he led a rescue of Bank of Cyprus in September 2014 after the Cypriot government — in consultation with Russian President Vladimir Putin — first propped up the institution.

“Cyprus banks have a long and painful history of laundering dirty money from Russians involved with corruption and criminality,” said Elise Bean, a former Senate investigator who specialized in combating money laundering and tax evasion. “Buying a Cyprus bank necessarily raises red flags about suspect deposits, high-risk clients and hidden activities.”

The Russian business and government elite have often sought financial security in the Mediterranean island’s banking system. Oligarch Dmitry Ryvoloviev took a nearly 10 percent stake in Bank of Cyprus in 2010. Two years earlier, amid the U.S. financial crisis when real-estate prices were softening, Ryvoloviev purchased Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion for $95 million. The transaction generated questions because of its inflated market price, about $60 million more than Trump had paid for the Florida property four years earlier.

When Europe’s debt crisis spread and affected Cyprus in 2012 and 2013, that nation’s second biggest bank, Laiki Bank, was closed. The government imposed losses on uninsured deposits, many belonging to Russians.

SIX DEMOCRATIC SENATORS, LED BY FLORIDA’S BILL NELSON, ASKED FOR DETAILS ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH BIG RUSSIAN SHAREHOLDERS IN BANK OF CYPRUS.

The Cypriot response was partly negotiated with Putin, who the Russian media said wanted to punish wealthy Russians who protected their fortunes abroad. A consortium led by Ross took a majority stake of 18 percent in September 2014. Ross now serves as vice chairman, a post he promised to resign when the Senate confirms him.

Ross had little history in global banking, but in 2011 he took an ownership stake in Bank of Ireland, the only bank in that nation the government didn’t seize. Ross tripled his investment when he sold his Irish stake in June 2014, then months later, he took a gamble on Bank of Cyprus.

Six Democratic senators, led by Florida’s Bill Nelson, asked for details about his relationship withbig Russian shareholders in Bank of Cyprus, including Viktor Vekselberg, a longtime Putin ally, and Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former vice chairman of Bank of Cyprus and a former KGB agent believed to be a Putin associate.

Aides to several of the senators confirmed late Friday that Ross hadn’t responded to their questions. The White House sent McClatchy to a Commerce Department transition aide, who didn’t respond to questions.

Ross was involved with Russia during the 1990s when President Bill Clinton appointed him to serve on the U.S-Russia Investment Fund. The U.S. government set up an investment fund in 1995 to help push the new Russian nation toward a free-market economy after the Soviet Union collapsed.

The fund was converted to a nonprofit corporation in 2008 and many of its assets sold off. The banking investments were purchased by a subsidiary of German financial giant Deutsche Bank, led at the time by Josef Ackermann. Ross asked Ackermann to serve as chairman of the reconstituted Bank of Cyprus after his 2014 investment.

Ackermann left Deutsche Bank in 2012. The bank paid $7.2 billion in fines last year to the U.S. government over toxic mortgages it packaged and sold between 2005 and 2007. And last month, the bank agreed to pay almost $630 million to regulators in London and New York to end investigations into complex stock trades in Russia between 2011 and 2015.

Cyprus also features prominently in the Panama Papers, the massive leak of offshore company data from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. Journalists from McClatchy and across the globe, working together under the umbrella of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, showed last year how politicians, kingpins and the wealthy all used shell companies to hide their money.

Many in Putin’s inner circle were tied to foreign shell companies that received payments through Russian Commercial Bank in Cyprus and other bank operations there. In fact, Cyprus appears more than half a million times in the roughly 11.5 million files that make up the Panama Papers.

David Goldstein in Washington contributed.

Kevin G. Hall: 202-383-6038, @KevinGHall

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article135001474.html#storylink=cpy