Thread by @DawsonSField

California state legislator pleads guilty to fraud & #moneylaundering case from 2007-2014.
Misleading investors & skimming off cash to build coffee shops in San Francisco area BART transit stations.

#ButNothingsHappening
msn.com/en-us/finance/…

Seems simple enough, but I think this is the opening case in a wider scheme as I will explain below.

So instead of using all of the money from his investors for the BART coffee shops, instead he was sending some of it to shell company accounts incorporated in Delaware.
My suspicion is that this money was being used to provide kickbacks to people affiliated with BART...

So his fraud is using the money for something other than the BART projects he said the investors' money would go toward. But we have no explanation yet, of where that cut of the cash went...

When he was indicted last year, it was claimed that he was diverting the money to a lover in Thailand...
Wonder if that is legit or just a cover story for the money laundering?
sfchronicle.com/crime/article/…

But to me it appears very Swampy for a former state assemblyman to become the CEO of a coffee company getting a rare license to operate inside a regional transit authority.

His rent with BART was based upon revenues with a minimum level. Seems odd that he would spend 7 years running coffee shops & rarely exceed the minimum revenue levels to pay higher fees. Was he also manipulating sales figures to avoid paying higher rent? Don't know...

Is it possible that his investors weren't victims of a fraud but participants? Time will tell...

I haven't found much on his investors yet. But they seem to employ a variety of former CBRE executives & have done a few big deals with CBRE in the San Francisco area.

CBRE's chairman is Richard Blum Chairman of CBRE & his firm Blum Capital is the largest shareholder in CBRE.

If you are not familiar with Richard Blum, he is mister Diane Feinstein, US Senator from California. One of the 2 members of the Congressional Gang of 8 that left that role that allowed Comey to brief the Go8 on his real Russia investigation...

CBRE affiliated individuals have become heavy donars to the Swamp on both sides, but in recent years that has been slanted toward the Democrats.
opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.ph…