By The Wayne Madsen Report
Donald Trump has solid criminal links. Donald Trump also used foreign money to help finance his almost-broke presidential campaign in the mid-summer of 2016. Foreign hackers did penetrate the computers of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. However, none of these events were connected to the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin. Any suggestion to the contrary is an attempt to whitewash the roles of what can be called the "Red Kosher Nostra" -- billionaire oligarchs from the collapsed Soviet Union, all Jewish or claiming to be Jewish, who are linked to the business activities of both the Trump Organization and the Kushner Companies.
The Western corporate media has been misrepresenting this important fact by coming up with diversionary throw-away phrases like "Russian hackers," "Putin's agents," "Russian cyber warfare," and other terms meant to be pejorative toward Russia. Nowhere in the din of corporate propaganda about Trump's criminal connections is heard "Russian-Israeli," "Ukrainian-Israel," "Uzbek-Israeli," "Bashkir-Israeli," "Kazakh-Israeli," or "Kyrgyz-Israeli," yet billionaire gangsters and tycoons hailing from the republics of the former Soviet Union dominate Donald Trump's and his son-in-law Jared Kushner's business empires. For the media to fail to mention the nature of the Trump/Kushner-connected eastern European mafia as being Jewish is as disingenuous as the media failing to recognize the Sinaloa and Los Zetas drug cartels as Mexican; the Cosa Nostra, Camorra, and
'Ndrangheta as Italian, the Yakuza as Japanese, and the Crips and the Bloods gangs as primarily African-American.Trump fired Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey primarily because Comey asked for additional resources from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to beef up the FBI's "follow-the-money" investigation of the Trump campaign. The FBI's receipt of data from the Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) regarding the money laundering involving Trump and Kushner businesses, accounts maintained by the Bank of Cyprus, HSBC, Bank Hapoalim of Israel, and other banks, and the Trump presidential campaign are what lie at the heart of the FBI's investigation of Trump. The FBI is reportedly focused on Trump's associates' financial dealings with banks in Cyprus. As with previous political scandals, including Watergate and Iran-contra, most of the perpetrators were caught when federal investigators began to "follow-the-money."
WMR has counted at least eight past and current separate FBI investigations involving those close to Trump, including members of his own family, as well as that of Trump's close adviser, his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Among the criminal investigations involving Trump associates were those prosecuted by Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who was fired by Trump after the sacking of acting Attorney General Sally Yates. While Yates was the Deputy Attorney General from 2015 to her sacking by Trump on January 30, 2017, she was also involved in criminal cases targeting Trump business associates in the shady underworld of the Red Kosher Nostra.
Among the federal and a few state crimes for which Trump/Kushner associates have either been convicted or investigated are wire fraud, extortion, money laundering, bribery and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, first degree assault, homicide, obstruction of justice, smuggling, racketeering, tax evasion, prostitution, and illegal gambling.
The complex nature of the network and sub-networks of criminal syndicates doing business with the Trump family and/or the Kushners would have necessitated Comey to ask for more resources for the FBI to pursue the Trump/Kushner connection to the money laundering operations that helped finance the Trump campaign. These criminal syndicates involve secret bank accounts, offshore tax havens, and dummy corporations.
Felix the Trump consigliereAlthough there are a multitude of gateways from the Trump Organization to the world of organized crime, one of the major links is that of Trump Organization figure and Bayrock Group LLC senior adviser Felix Sater, aka Felix Sheferovsky. Imprisoned for a year in 1991 for breaking a margarita glass in a midtown Manhattan bar and stabbing another bar patron, a crime of first degree assault, seven years later Sater pleaded guilty to a penny stock pump and dump scheme. Sater's 1998 trial involved his White Rock Partners LLC. In a deal in which Sater pleaded guilty to racketeering and fraud charges, U.S. Attorney for Brooklyn Loretta Lynch sealed for ten years the court records on case in return for Sater becoming a federal informant. Sater has close ties to Donald Trump's top attorney, Michael Cohen.
Bayrock Group's owner is Tevfik Arik, a national of Kazakhstan and a former Soviet official. In 2010, Arik was arrested in Turkey for running a prostitution ring.
The Trump-Kushner global criminal syndicate
Although Arik claims not to be Jewish, he has donated handsomely to the Chabad House of Port Washington, New York. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have affiliated with a Chabad synagogue in Washington, DC. Jared's father and mother, Charles and Seryl Kushner, have donated $342,500 to Chabad institutions over the years. In 2005, Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering and spent a year in prison in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2016, Charles Kushner donated $100,000 to Trump's Make America Great Again PAC. Chabad Houses around the world have been identified by law enforcement agencies of providing fronts for organized crime and Israeli espionage.
Trump's criminal sub-syndicates: "K-Trio, Sapir Organization & Chodiev GroupArik's and Sater's Bayrock Group saw their Icelandic affiliate FL Group amid charges of fraud. Bayrock was a significant investor in the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium complex in Manhattan, a project that was also financed by the "K-Trio" -- the "Kazakhstan Trio" -- of Kazakh-Israeli Alexander Mashkevich, Uzbek-Belgian Patokh Chodiev and Alisan Ibragimov. The K-Trio are principals in the Eurasian National Resources Corporation (ENRC); Alferon Management, which is involved in mining in Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Russia, and other countries; ACCP, a chromium mining company once headquartered in the British Virgin Islands and now owned by the Chinese; and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC), a branch of the World Jewish Congress. The K-Trio have been under investigation by the FBI for forgery and money laundering. Mashkevich had a project to develop a "Jewish version" of Al Jazeera, the Arab-owned satellite news network broadcasting from Qatar.
Bayrock was linked as a partner to another business syndicate, the Sapir Organization, headed by Donald and Ivanka Trump's and Jared Kushner's good friends Rotem Rosen and Israeli citizen Alex Sapir. The Sapir Organization is involved in major hotel projects in New York and around the world, including the Trump Tower in Toronto. Others involved with the Toronto Trump Tower include Uzbek-Israeli diamond tycoon Lev Leviev, accused of trafficking in African "blood diamonds" and Canadian-Russian-Israeli businessman Alexander Shnaider, owner of Talon International Development Inc, and co-owner of Midland Resources Holding Inc. with his partner Ukrainian-Russian billionaire , who is also vice-president of the World Jewish Congress
. Shnaider's father-in-law is Boris Birshtein, a citizen of Canada, Switzerland, and Israel, who is strongly believed to be a top Mossad operative. Birshstein's firm, Seabeco Group, has been charged with money laundering in Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova. The firm has been at the center of Red Kosher Nostra activities, including the
fixing of elections in countries around the world. Birshtein is accused of fraud and money-laundering in Russia, Canada, Belgium and Switzerland and of the theft of gold from the Soviet reserves after the collapse of the USSR. FBI has maintained an investigation of Birshstein's activities for many years.
Chodiev's "Chodiev Group," a member of the K-Trio, was linked to the Uzbek-Israeli billionaire Michael Cherney, aka Chernoy, a billionaire who lives in Israel and is wanted on an Interpol arrest warrant for money laundering and criminal racketeering. Cherney made his fortune in the post-Soviet collapse Russian aluminum market. Together with his brother Lev Cherney and the publicity-shy British metals market billionaire brothers David and Simon Reuben, Michael Cherney established the Trans World Group (TWG), Russia's largest company that produced aluminum for customers around the world. The Reuben brothers are investors in Manhattan's famed Plaza Hotel.
TWG was also linked to the businesses of Russian-Jewish aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska owns United Company RUSAL, a major aluminum producer. Major investors in RUSAL include Nathaniel Rothschild and Glencore. In a disclosure from classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents released by Edward Snowden, it was revealed that NSA's Australian partner, the Australian Signals Directorate, was monitoring the communications of the Reuben brothers' large international law firm, Mayer Brown. When it comes upon intercepts of communications involving non-U.S. nationals that is of a criminal nature, the NSA can share that information with the FBI.
Glencore was once owned by the late expatriate U.S. felon Marc Rich, who was pardoned in 2001 by the outgoing President Bill Clinton for his criminal convictions in an eleventh hour deal. Rich's attorney was Scooter Libby, vice president Dick Cheney's adviser who was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to FBI agents in the public exposure of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent.
Among TWG's partners was Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, a former partner of the late Boris Berezovsky. Abramovich, who spends much of his time in Britain and owns the Chelsea Football Club, has been the subject of Russian government investigations for theft, anti-trust, bribery, fraud, and stock manipulation. Berezovsky, who became a bitter opponent of Putin and subsequently offered assistance to him, was found hanging in his English estate in 2013. Berezovsky had previously broken with Abramovich. British police ruled that Berezovsky's suspicious death was a suicide. Berezovsky also owned a condo in the Trump Tower in Manhattan.
TWG owns Global Switch, one of the world's largest carrier-neutral data centers that provided digital telecommunications services to Europe and the Asia-Pacific. What could provide the connectivity for a global group of hackers to penetrate the computer systems of the Democrats and the Clinton campaign and then blame it on the Russian government? You are looking at it with Global Switch.
Along with Interpol, the FBI has investigated the Cherney brothers, along with the "K-Trio." Cherney set up the Intelligence Summit in New York in 2006 and named two former Central Intelligence Agency directors -- James Woolsey and John Deutch -- to the Intelligence Summit's board of advisers. They made their decision after federal law enforcement informed them that Cherney was under investigation as a member of the "Russian mafia." Again, it is the "Red Kosher Nostra," not the Russian mafia, which has been the target of the FBI. The Russian government has more arrest warrants out for the members of the Red Kosher Nostra than does the FBI or Interpol.
The Trump Tower in Manhattan has been a virtual criminal lair for the Red Kosher Nostra. If the tower and its dodgy residents had been wiretapped by the FBI, there was a good reason for it. Owning five condos in the Manhattan tower was ex-con David Bogatin, who the FBI considered to be one of the primary lieutenants of Ukrainian-Jewish crime boss Semion Mogilevich. Bogatin was the founder of the First Commercial Bank of Lublin, Poland, which was involved in major money laundering and other fraudulent operations, including tax evasion and gasoline smuggling.
Owners of Trump Tower condos in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida include Russian gangsters previously investigated by the FBI, including Anatoly Golubchik and Michael Sall and Ukrainian businessman Peter Kiritchenko, who was involved in money laundering through his Bainfield Company, Ltd. shell corporation in the British Virgin Islands with former Ukrainian Prime Ministers Peter Lazarenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.
The "boss of bosses"It was through Ukrainian intermediaries linked to organized crime that Trump's short-lived presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort could be connected to Ukrainian crime "boss of bosses" Mogilevich. These criminal networks also relied heavily upon money laundering through the Bank of Cyprus, whose vice chairman was Wilbur Ross, Trumps' current Commerce Secretary.
Not only did the FBI have taps on Trump Tower Sunny Isles Beach but, from 2011 to 2013, the FBI was intercepting phone calls and text messages from the Manhattan Trump Tower triplex condo owned by U.S.-Israeli gangster Vadim Trincher, who ran illegal gambling operations with his sons Illya and Eugene Trincher.
One of the key members of the Trincher crime syndicate was Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, aka “Vor,” translated as “Thief-in-Law,” indicted in 2002 for bribing officials of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and remaining a fugitive from U.S. justice.
According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, none other than Preet Bharara, who Trump fired, the Trincher criminal syndicate, known as the "Taiwanchik-Trincher Organization, ran a major illegal sports betting operation in the United States. Bharara's indictment specified the "Taiwanchik-Trincher Organization (the "Organization") was a criminal enterprise with strong ties to Russia and Ukraine. The enterprise operated a high-stakes, illegal sports gambling business out of New York City that catered primarily to Russian oligarchs living in Ukraine and Russia." In other words, the same tower that Donald Trump called home was the center of a major illegal sports betting operation. Given Trump's own ties to gambling casinos and professional sports, there is little wonder why Trump viewed Bharara and Comey as threats.
Bharara netted a major Red Kosher Nostra criminal gang with his nailing of the Trincher Organization. Among those indicted, in addition to the Trinchers, Sall, and Tokhtakhounov, were Alexander Zaverukha, Molly Bloom, Noah Siegel, Nicholas Hirsch, Anatoly Shteyngrob, John Jarecki, Arthur Azen, Stan Greenberg, Alexander Katchaloff, Abraham Mosseri, Hillel Nahmad, William Edler, Bryan Zuriff, William Barbalat, Kirill Rapoport, Dmitry Duzhinsky, David Aaron, Moshe Oratz, Peter Feldman, and Ronald Uy. It does not take the FBI to ascertain what these individuals have in common, aside from being involved in illegal bookie operations run partly out of the Trump Tower.
Trump's Manhattan condo owner David Bogatin has other suspicious criminal ties. His crime partner in New York's Howard Beach community in the 1980s was Michael Markovitz, a Romanian Jew who ended up being shot to death in Brooklyn in 1989 after agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, the one from which Loretta Lynch gave a pass to Trump associate Felix Sater, likely maintains a record on the investigation of Markovitz's death after he agreed to help prosecutors nail Bogatin.
Bogatin, via Mogilevich, was linked to two other principal members of the Red Kosher Nostra, both of whom did not live very long to talk about their exploits. One was Vladimir Vinogradov, a Bashkir Jew and the owner and president of Russia's failed Inkombank, which was partially financed by Russian Red Kosher Nostra oligarchs Vladimir Gusinsky, vice president of the World Jewish Congress; Leonid Nevzlin, an Israeli billionaire who was tried
in absentia in Russia in 2008 and found guilty of several counts of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to life imprisonment; and former Yukos oil magnate and expatriate Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, convicted and imprisoned in Russia for tax evasion and fraud and released in 2013. Vinogradov died in 2008 at the age of 52 from a stroke.
The other Bogatin associate is Vyacheslav Ivankov, who worked with the Mogilevich gang in Brighton Beach, New York and the Tariel Oniani Georgian Kutaisi gang in the 1990s. In 2009, Ivankov was shot to death in Moscow by a sniper. During the 1990s, Ivankov resided in the Trump Tower and his personal phone book contained the private numbers for top Trump Organization officers.
The Kushner clanThe other side of the Trump White House is the business empire of the Kushner family. It was recently reported that Jared Kushner's sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer, tried to woo prospective millionaire Chinese buyers of Kushner family real estate in the New York-New Jersey area with guarantees of receiving EB-5 U.S. visas with a further prospect of U.S. permanent residency. Of course, Ms. Kushner Meyer stressed her "special contacts" within the Trump administration to Chinese guests at a business conference in Beijing.
The Kushner Companies and Kushner Real Estate Group have a close relationship with Israel's Bank Hapoalim and the large Harel insurance company of Israel. Bank Hapoalim is a chief target of the international boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel
for its financial activities on the West Bank.
A Kushner project to redevelop Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood involves the family of Israel's diamond magnate billionaire family. The Kushner deal involves Raz Steinmetz, whose uncle is Beny Steinmetz, the owner Steinmetz Diamond Group and BSG Resources, the latter under an FBI investigation for violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for bribes paid to officials of the West African Republic of Guinea for mining concessions in that nation. Steinmetz companies also conduct business through a British Virgin Islands shell company called "Rebar LLC."
Ras Steinmetz's brother, Daniel Steinmetz, was involved in business with Jared Kushner through Gaia Investments Corporation of Tel Aviv through an affiliate Gaia JC LLC. After Jared Kushner became a chief adviser to Trump, said to be one of only a few in a Trump "inner circle" that also includes daughter Ivanka Trump, communications specialist Hope Hicks, and Trump "body man" Keith Schiller, the Steinmetz-Kushner firm changed its name to "65 Bay LLC."
Steinmetz is represented in the U.S. by Greenberg Traurig, which came to the public's attention as the firm where convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff hung his shingle, and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Of course, Dershowitz's name has also come up in the civil suits filed by then-underage Mar-a-Lago "towel girl" Virginia Roberts. Ms. Roberts, now Ms. Giuffre, contended that she was forced to engage in sexual activities at the age of 15 with not only Dershowitz, but his client, close Trump friend and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump's pal, the "fertilizer king"A recent letter, dated March 8, 2017, and addressed to President Trump from his tax attorneys, Morgan and Lewis of Washington, DC, was intended to silence critics of Trump who contend he is hiding something in his, as of yet, not-fully release tax returns. The letter, with the subject line "Transactions with Russian counterparties reported on your U.S. federal income tax returns, states that Trump only received Russian money from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and the $95 million sale of the 18-bedroom Maison de L'Amitié in Palm Beach, Florida to Russian-Jewish potash-fertilizer billionaire magnate and owner of the AS Monaco football team Dmitry Rybolovlev.
It is noteworthy that Rybolovlev is a minority stake owner in the Bank of Cyprus, which was owned by Trump's Commerce Secretary Ross. Rybolovlev is also no stranger to gangster-like violence. In 1996, Evgeny Panteleymonov, Director of Neftekhimik, a firm partly owned by Rybolovlev, was shot and killed in his home. In May 1996, Rybolovlev was indicted and arrested for the contract killing of his partner Panteleymonov. Rybolovlev was later released after the sole prosecution witness recanted his testimony.
According to golf historian and writer James Dobson, President Trump's son Eric Trump, who has, along with his brother Donald Trump, Jr., assumed control of the activities of the Trump Organization from their father, told the writer in 2013 that the Trumps relied on Russians to financially back Trump golf courses. Dobson quoted Eric Trump as saying, "Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia," adding, "Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time."
Of course, the term "Russia" and "Russian" are merely misstatements that actually mean the Red Kosher Nostra. In another widely reported comment, this one from Donald Trump Jr. at a real estate conference in 2008, the president's son allegedly said, "And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." But as discovered by WMR's investigation, "SoHo's major investors included the Red Kosher Nostra figures of the "K-Trio," in addition to the Kushner Companies and the Steinmetz family of Israel. Where are the "Russians" who Donald Trump, Jr. spoke of?
There are reports of possible federal grand juries being empaneled in Alexandria, Virginia and Washington, DC. These grand juries may be on the trail of Trump's true benefactors, but given a recent case in New York, those who believe in the rule of law should not raise their hope.
Bharara was a prime target of the Trump team and their crime syndicate palsIn a case that was vigorously pursued by fired U.S. Attorney Bharara in Manhattan, the U.S. Justice Department, now under Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy Rod Rosenstein, has agreed to a settlement with Moscow businessman Denis Katsyv and his hedge fund firm Prevezon Holdings, Ltd. just three days before scheduled jury selection for the trial. Prevezon and its eleven related companies had been charged with money laundering for a criminal network extending from Russia to Moldova and Latvia to New York and Israel. What was at the heart of the money laundering case? You guessed it. the Red Kosher Nostra. Katsyv's partners included his Russian partner Timofey Krit and Israeli businessman Alexander Litvak.
Trump's firing of Yates, Bharara, and Comey had nothing to do with the 2016 election and everything to do with Trump covering for his and the Kushners' friends and business colleagues in the Red Kosher Nostra. Chief presidential strategist Steve Bannon, accused of anti-Semitism, is clever window dressing for an administration that is owned, lock, stock and barrel by the Red Kosher Nostra. As long as Bannon is on the scene, Trump buys off any criticism from his allies in the alt.right movement, including Klan leader David Duke and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. After all, Donald Trump claims he mastered the "art of the deal." Trump's deal has been to blindside the hard right while selling out the United States to the vilest of all crime syndicates.
