Thread by @karolcummins

‼️Sater hearing delayed re👇🏼👇🏼

A lawsuit filed today with its claim that Sater, a longtime associate of Trump’s, sought to use money stolen from a bank in Kazakhstan to help develop Trump Tower Moscow.

#TrumpMoscow #TrumpSoho
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌The suit by BTA Bank JSC alleges that Sater and the wealthy Kazakh businessman Ilyas Khrapunov explored financing the Moscow tower deal in 2012 w/ some of the $4 billion stolen a decade ago by Khrapunov’s father-in-law, ex-BTA Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌While the Moscow plan fizzled, other transactions tied to Sater helped launder the purloined cash, the bank says.💰💦
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌”Sater helped Ablyazov, Khrapunov and others launder tens of millions of dollars in those stolen funds into the United States,” according to the complaint filed Monday in Manhattan federal court. #SDNY
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌”Sater also tried to help them stash some of the stolen money overseas, including in real estate in Moscow.”

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌A central focus of his testimony is expected to be Trump’s longtime effort to build a Moscow tower.

The president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, has previously said Trump sought to build in Moscow through the entire 2016 presidential campaign.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌”Sater not only met with Ilyas Khrapunov in Trump Tower to discuss laundering the stolen funds, but he also personally arranged meetings between Ilyas and Donald J. Trump to discuss possible investments,” the bank claims.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

It’s claim that Sater joined in the scheme by helping Ablyazov & Khrapunov launder a portion of at least $440M of the stolen funds invested in US & EU real estate, the bank has opened a new front in litigation that stretches from Kazakhstan to EU to NY.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌Sater, a U.S. citizen who was born in Russia, was introduced to Khrapunov and his father, Viktor Khrapunov, the former mayor of Almaty, around 2007 by the founder of Bayrock Group LLC, Tevfik Arif, according to the complaint.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌📌Tevfik Arif & Sater worked together on several investments in Kazakhstan, including oil and coal exploration projects, years before their talks about U.S. real estate.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌📌Side Note: A mystery client has been paying bloggers in India and Indonesia to write articles distancing President Donald Trump from the legal travails of a mob-linked former business associate.

Photo: Trump, Tevfik Arif & Sater
thedailybeast.com/inside-the-onl…

📌Spokespeople confirmed that they had been paid to write articles attempting to whitewash Trump’s ties to Felix Sater & Tevfik Arif, who both collaborated with the Trump Organization on numerous real estate deals from New York to the former Soviet Union.
thedailybeast.com/inside-the-onl…

https://twitter.com/psocialbuterfly/status/1110304356862230543?s=21

📌📌BTA claims that beginning in 2011 Sater helped Ablyazov and Khrapunov launder about $40 million through a number of U.S. business transactions, and that he pocketed as much as $20 million in stolen money as part of a falling out with them.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌With Sater’s help, BTA claims, Ablyazov and the Khrapunovs moved about $40 million from shell companies into U.S. deals including a Cincinnati mall, a mental-health facility in Syracuse, New York, ...
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

And an allegedly fraudulent medical-testing device company that they allegedly used in an immigration fraud scheme to benefit the Kazakh family.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌📌Sater also tried to help the Kazakhs stash stolen money overseas, including in Moscow real estate, and discussed Trump’s Moscow tower, according to the suit.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

TRUMP SOHO

📌📌📌The bank also says Sater personally profited from money stolen from BTA and then used to purchase three units at the Trump SoHo luxury tower in Manhattan, which Sater helped develop as a partner at Bayrock. #TrumpSoHo

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Trump SoHo
.
📌📌The three units in the Trump Soho were bought by Ilyas Khrapunov’s sister, according to the complaint.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌📌Last month, Trump’s ex-attorney Cohen told the House Oversight Committee that in 2017 he signed a 12-month contract worth $1.8 million to provide BTA with legal consulting work on its earlier lawsuit against Ablyazov and his alleged co-conspirators.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌📌Over US$ 30 million from the same tainted source was used to finance other investments in the United States with the help of Felix Sater, a convicted financial fraudster and one-time Trump advisor.
occrp.org/en/investigati…

📌📌📌Sater’s former company, Bayrock Group, partnered with Trump to build the troubled Trump SoHo.
occrp.org/en/investigati…

📌📌The origin of the funds at issue can be traced to a single stash of roughly $440 million connected to a notorious fraud case involving Kazakhstani billionaire Mukhtar Ablyazov.
occrp.org/en/investigati…

📌📌Last year, the fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov. was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison by a Kazakh court on charges that included embezzling billions of dollars from the country’s BTA Bank,
occrp.org/en/investigati…

📌Kazakhstan’s chromium riches may fill in a piece of that puzzle. Millions of dollars from the Aktobe plant wound their way to the US & the Bayrock Group with whom Trump partnered to build a controversial Trump SoHo hotel-condo complex in Manhattan. #SDNY
bloomberg.com/news/features/…

TRUMP SOHO - BAYROCK GROUP

📌📌With Bayrock’s help, Trump began his broad transformation from a builder to a brander.
foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how…

TRUMP SOHO - BAYROCK GROUP

📌Trump reinvented himself and his business model—going from being a force in real estate to a nearly bankrupt but brazen self-promoter who had mainly his name to sell.
foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how…

📌📌In lieu of the big banks, Bayrock helped to bring Trump back into real estate by supplying him with the equity stake he needed to entice new lenders for big projects, according to a former Bayrock official.
foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how…

📌📌The biggest of those projects was the Trump SoHo, the troubled 46-story condominium and hotel that has been a target of lawsuits since it opened in 2010 and is reportedly being investigated by SDNY over whether it was financed partly by Russian money.
foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how…

📌📌That deal gave Trump 18 percent of the equity just for licensing his name. (In addition to Bayrock, the other partner was the Sapir family from the former Soviet republic of Georgia.)
foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how…

📌Side Note: Trump described Sapir as a “great friend,” bought 200 televisions from his electronics company. (I believe this was circa 1990s)

📌In 2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir’s daughter at Mar-a-Lago, and later attended her infant son’s bris.
newrepublic.com/article/143586…

📌📌Sapir also introduced Trump to Tevfik Arif, his partner in the Trump SoHo deal.
newrepublic.com/article/143586…

Tevfik Arif

https://twitter.com/lincolnsbible/status/942800646335447041?s=21

📌Donald Trump associate Tevfik Arif charged with running prostitution ring aboard Turkish yacht
nydailynews.com/news/world/tru…

📌Timeline: Trump’s pursuit of the post-Soviet dream
americanprogress.org/issues/democra…

📌How Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., Avoided a Criminal Indictment re Trump SoHo #SDNYinvestigation
newyorker.com/news/news-desk…

📌The Trump Organization withdrew from the troubled SoHo project in 2017 following a slew of negative publicity.

📌The development is reported to be among the business deals being looked into by #SDNYinvestigation
occrp.org/en/investigati…

📌Here’s how Trump Soho was marketed to Russians

📌DonJr:

“In terms of high-end product influx into the U.S.,” he said, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”
washingtonpost.com/news/politics/…

📌It’s clear that Trump Jr. is mostly talking about Russians buying Trump properties in the United States.

📌That, he said, is certainly the case “with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York.

📌We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
washingtonpost.com/news/politics/…

📌Trump Soho was announced during an episode of “The Apprentice” in 2006 with a planned completion date of 2008.

occrp.org/en/investigati…

📌A 2010 lawsuit against Bayrock alleged that the company was

“backed by oligarchs and money they stole from the Russian people.”

occrp.org/en/investigati…

The suit by BTA Bank JSC alleges that Sater and the wealthy Kazakh businessman Ilyas Khrapunov explored financing the Moscow tower deal in 2012 with some of the $4 billion stolen a decade ago by Khrapunov’s father-in-law, ex-BTA Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

📌Trump Soho was completed in 2008. In September 2009, someone named Aygul Safina registered a new domain: TrumpSoho.ru.

📌The site was basically a Russian-language version of a standardized brochure that outlined the benefits of the property, down to the interview with Donald Trump in which he explains how Ivanka Trump and Trump Jr. influenced the location:
washingtonpost.com/news/politics/…

“My children, Donald and Ivanka, have always been huge fans of SoHo, so they needed little convincing that this was the spot for a Trump property.”

📌Also in that footnote is the sponsor of the site, “Bayrock / Sapir Organization LLC.”
washingtonpost.com/news/politics/…

📌Ivanka Trump’s role in promoting the property went beyond talking up its strong sales.

📌She also starred in magazine ads promoting Trump Soho that ran repeatedly in the Russian-language magazine 100k Russia.
washingtonpost.com/news/politics/…

📌The Russian real estate magazine Mir&Dom; ran spreads on Trump Soho in 2009 and 2010. The 2009 version ran four pages, including multiple images showing interior shots from the hotel — but using architectural renderings instead of actual photographs.
washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/p…

📌TIMELINE OF TRUMP SOHO'S SCANDALS
needtoimpeach.com/corruption/tru…

How a Lawyer, a Felon and a Russian General Chased a Moscow Trump Tower Deal

nytimes.com/2018/11/29/us/…

Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank JSC paid Michael Cohen to help recover stolen money allegedly laundered in the U.S. and has spoken with American prosecutors probing Cohen’s activities, a lawyer for the bank said, confirming part of Cohen’s congressional testimony.
fortune.com/2019/02/27/mic…

Sater Complaint:

documentcloud.org/documents/5780…

📌Two days shy of his anticipated congressional testimony, Russian-mafia tied businessman Felix Sater has been hit with a lawsuit accusing him of trying to launder looted money through the aborted Trump Tower deal in Moscow.
courthousenews.com/sater-had-laun…