Thread by @karolcummins

‼️Alexandre Ventura Nogueira

(Trump Ocean Club Panama 2005)

The developer (Kalif) recalled that Trump wanted to use the Panama project as a “baby” for his daughter Ivanka, who had just joined the Trump Org, to gain experience in the property business
.
reuters.com/investigates/s…

To get the project off the ground Trump needed to pre-sell units to get the financing needed.

This was where Alexandre Nogueira came came on board.

The Brazilian had arrived in Panama in the mid-2000s from Spain, where he had worked as a car salesman.
reuters.com/investigates/s…

In Panama Alexandre V. Nogueira soon gained the reputation as an alleged fraudster in business with a money-launderer and two alleged criminals from the former Soviet Union.Birds of a feather!
reuters.com/investigates/s…

“Nogueira said he first got involved with the Trump Ocean Club project at an early sales meeting in 2006 in Panama arranged by Khafif, whom he knew already.”

“Ivanka Trump and other real estate brokers were there, he said.”
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“Nogueira set out to impress was Ivanka.”

“Nogueira said he met and spoke with Ivanka “many times” when she was handling the Trump Organization’s involvement in the Panama development.

“She would remember me.”
reuters.com/investigates/s…

At a meeting with Ivanka Nogueira remembered listening as a minimum price of $120,000 for condominiums was considered.

Nogueira said the price was too low.

“Here, it is Trump selling. You have to give a value to that name. Make it $220,000!”
reuters.com/investigates/s…

He said Ivanka asked: “Can you sell it?”

Nogueira asked for a week to prove himself & within a week he managed to collect deposits on over 100 apartments, and after that Khafif made him a leading broker, working on a 5% commission of gross sales, he said.
reuters.com/investigates/s…

“Ivanka was impressed with his sales skills, Nogueira said, that she helped him become a leading broker for the development and he appeared in a video with her promoting the project.”
reuters.com/investigates/s…

📌Nogueira said that in the months that followed he discussed promotion and sales with Ivanka in Panama, Miami and New York.
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Nogueira said he also joined a group that travelled with Ivanka on a private chartered jet to look at a potential site for another Trump project in Cartagena, Colombia.
reuters.com/investigates/s…

📌📌While Donald Trump was not the owner of the Panama project, the Trump Organization participated in many details down to “choosing the furniture and fittings,” said Nogueira.
reuters.com/investigates/s…

📌📌The day-to-day responsibilities of the project was assigned to Ivanka, he said, adding: “I spoke to her a lot of times, a lot of times.”

📌He also met Donald Jr. and Eric Trump.
reuters.com/investigates/s…

“An investigation found Nogueira was responsible for between one-third and one-half of advance sales for Trump Panama.

📌The probe also found he did business with a Colombian who was later convicted of money laundering & is now in detention in the US.”
reuters.com/investigates/s…

In addition a RU investor in the Trump Panama project was jailed in Israel in the 1990s for kidnap and threats to kill; and a Ukrainian investor who was arrested for alleged people-smuggling while working with Nogueira and later convicted by a Kiev court.
reuters.com/investigates/s…

📌Three years after getting involved in the Trump Ocean Club, Nogueira was arrested by Panamanian authorities on charges of fraud and forgery, unrelated to the Trump project.

Released on $1.4 million bail, he later fled the country.
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He left behind a trail of people who claim he cheated them, including over apartments in the Trump project, resulting in at least four criminal cases that eight years later have yet to come to trial.

📌The Trumps’ hire only the best people....🙄
reuters.com/investigates/s…

📌📌”Legal experts say the episode raises questions about the steps Trump took to check the source of any income from there
b/c Panama was “perceived to be highly corrupt.””
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📌📌”Anyone engaged in business in Panama should conduct due diligence on others involved in their ventures.”

📌”If they did not, legal experts say, there was a potential risk in U.S. law of being liable for turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.”
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📌📌”Additionally, a legal expert said any businessman should avoid working with “anyone with a potential link to criminality” simply as a matter of good ethics.”

reuters.com/investigates/s…

📌📌”All questions were referred to Trump org, which said they “never had any contractual relationship or significant dealings” with Nogueira.” 🙄🙄🙄
reuters.com/investigates/s…

“Nogueira said he only learned after the Ocean Club project was almost complete that some of his partners and investors in the Trump project were criminals, including some with what he described as connections to the “Russian mafia.””

Sure Jan...🙄
reuters.com/investigates/s…

“Nogueira said he had not knowingly laundered any illicit money through the Trump project, (🙄🙄🙄) although he did say he had laundered cash later in other schemes for corrupt Panamanian officials.”
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📌Nogueira said it was not his job to check the source of money that investors used to buy units in the Trump Ocean Club,
reuters.com/investigates/s…

Nogueira said “I didn’t know the money was coming from anything illegal.

📌As long as they were doing wire transfers and not cash, I wasn’t worried about the source of it.”

#WireFraud
reuters.com/investigates/s…

📌”Nogueira said that no one asked him about the source of funds.

📌”Nobody ever asked me. The banks didn’t ask. The developers didn’t ask. The Trump Organization didn’t ask me.

📌Nobody asked me: ‘Who are the customers? Where did the money come from?’”
reuters.com/investigates/s…

📌”Initially, Nogueira declined to answer questions. Writing on October 4, he said in an email: “Anything I would say could also damage a lot of important and powerful people. I am not sure I should do that.”
reuters.com/investigates/s…

It is unclear how much, if any, laundered money went into the Trump project.

#Cohen knows, as does #Weisselberg—follow the money. 🤗

@threadreaderapp unroll please and thank you.

#Nogueira
#TrumpOceanClubPanama
reuters.com/investigates/s…