In the mid-1980s, Haitian dictator Baby Doc Duvalier needed a place to park his cash - and decided on Trump Tower.
My dive into Trump's first blush with a kleptocrat, and the precedent it set: thinkprogress.org/trumps-first-k…
My dive into Trump's first blush with a kleptocrat, and the precedent it set: thinkprogress.org/trumps-first-k…
Duvalier's formula was simple: sign up a Panamanian shell company, hire an American lawyer, and purchase a Trump Tower luxury apartment. Kleptocracy 101.
Here's Trump's signature on the deed, right next to the signature of the lawyer for Duvalier's Panamanian shell company:
Here's Trump's signature on the deed, right next to the signature of the lawyer for Duvalier's Panamanian shell company:
Easy to forget, but Duvalier was one of the most egregious kleptocrats of the past half-century, up there with Milosevic and Fujimori. And for him - instead of investing in things like, say, clean water - Trump Tower in New York was as safe a place to protect his money as any. 
Duvalier, in the midst of pillaging Haiti, didn't make it difficult to link him to Trump: He literally wrote checks for "apartment in Trump Tower." thinkprogress.org/trumps-first-k… 
Trump eventually received a letter from Treasury, telling him the Trump Tower apartment was tied directly to "the Duvalier regime." But by then it was too late - the apartment had already been offloaded to another company. thinkprogress.org/trumps-first-k… 
Duvalier's ties to Trump have been all but forgotten in the U.S. - but not in Switzerland, where Duvalier's rank corruption helped spur some of the foremost anti-kleptocracy legislation still going. 
Moral of the story: We know plenty about the money laundering drenching Trump property in Panama, in Azerbaijan.
But Trump's Duvalier deal set the precedent for how little he cared that kleptocrats would pour money into his properties, helping decimate their countries back home.
But Trump's Duvalier deal set the precedent for how little he cared that kleptocrats would pour money into his properties, helping decimate their countries back home.
Oh, and it probably goes without saying, but:
Haiti never recouped any of the money its former dictator poured into Trump Tower.
Haiti never recouped any of the money its former dictator poured into Trump Tower.
Twenty-eight years ago today(!), the Reagan administration helped Baby Doc Duvalier flee Haiti for France: nytimes.com/1986/02/08/wor…
ICYMI
