Human rights group calls for probe of Giuliani, Trump money-laundering scheme
By
David Cay Johnston, DCReport Editor-in-Chief
The complaint is clearly aimed at examining how much money
stolen from a former Soviet satellite ended up benefiting Trump. He
is named 16 times in the complaint’s footnotes.
The complaint
describes “one of the biggest fraud cases ever” in which “some of these money
flows ultimately ended up in the Netherlands” because “Dutch service providers
helped to cover up the money laundering acts.”
“The money laundering
network started in Kazakhstan, where a figure of up to USD 10 billion was
purportedly embezzled,” the complaint asserts.
“This money was subsequently circulated by two Kazakh oligarch families via a worldwide network of shell companies. A number of these companies were established in the Netherlands. The money was subsequently invested in real estate projects in the United States and Europe, after which it was paid out as ‘profits’ via – once again – a network of shell companies.”
“This money was subsequently circulated by two Kazakh oligarch families via a worldwide network of shell companies. A number of these companies were established in the Netherlands. The money was subsequently invested in real estate projects in the United States and Europe, after which it was paid out as ‘profits’ via – once again – a network of shell companies.”
Netherlands banks and other firms play a significant role in illicit flows of cash around the world through sophisticated techniques to hide income and corporate profits.
Many of these techniques appear to push the envelope on legal tax avoidance. When money laundering is involved these aggressive techniques could cross a line into aiding and abetting criminal tax evasion.
The complaint asserts
that a small slice of the missing billions was run through Dutch shell
corporations with help from Rudy Giuliani’s old law firm, Bracewell &
Giuliani. Until 2016, Giuliani was a partner in the 470-lawyer firm.
Neither Giuliani nor
anyone at his firm Giuliani Security & Safety LLC responded
to requests for his side of the story. Multiple requests for comment prompted
no response from Greg M. Bopp, managing partner of what was then Bracewell & Giuliani but
is now called only Bracewell.
The complaint was
filed by Avaaz, a global human rights organization in
Washington which claims 48 million members. It has issued an open call to
prosecutors around the world to investigate “the giant web of corruption” that
it says propelled Trump’s rise.
Avaaz says it has
approximately 290,000 members in the Netherlands. The complaint was filed Oct.
22 with J.J.M. van Dis-Setz of the Dutch Public Prosecution Service by Barbara
van Straaten, a lawyer in Amsterdam.
The complaint filed
with the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service in Amsterdam relies on court
records from several countries that were dug up by investigative journalists,
including James S. Henry, the investigative economics editor of DCReport.
The Dutch television
program Zembla aired an investigative piece on Trump and his Russian associates in
2017. It followed up with an expose of a Trump business partner’s role in a Dutch
money laundering scheme.
The complaint is aimed
at uncovering the full details of Russian money flowing to various Trump projects
using so-called anonymous wealth companies. Those are shell companies created
to hide the identities of the owners.
Trump and his family are known to have received vast sums from shell companies and have bragged about how much of it came from people in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet empire. Trump contends the deals were all lawful and he has no knowledge of any money laundering.
Trump and his family are known to have received vast sums from shell companies and have bragged about how much of it came from people in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet empire. Trump contends the deals were all lawful and he has no knowledge of any money laundering.
A criminal
investigation by Dutch prosecutors could help that country avoid banking
sanctions and loss of reputation by showing that Amsterdam enforces its own
laws and respects laws on transnational crimes.
Roughly $10 billion
was stolen from Kazakhstan, a former Soviet satellite located in Central Asia.
The current Kazakh government is in court in Switzerland and elsewhere trying
to recover the money and prosecute members of two families it says stole the
money and laundered it in the West.
Other lawsuits connected to the stolen money are being litigated in London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles.
Other lawsuits connected to the stolen money are being litigated in London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles.
The $10 billion theft
was uncovered by PricewaterhouseCoopers during its 2009 audit of BTA Bank, the
largest in Kazakhstan. In addition, there is about $300 million missing from
Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan.
Court documents
identify the suspected thieves as Viktor Khrapunov and Mukhtar Ablyazov,
oligarchs whose families are bound not just by extensive business ties, but
also by marriage.
Khrapunov is the former mayor of Almaty. His son Illyas is married to Ablyazov’s daughter.
Khrapunov is the former mayor of Almaty. His son Illyas is married to Ablyazov’s daughter.
“There are strong
indications that the revenues of these crimes were probably mixed via a complex
money-laundering network, and there was a great deal of mutual overlap” between
the companies and people suspected of the crimes, the complaint states.
Both Khrapunov and
Ablyazov are fugitives.
Khrapunov, who was
tried in absentia in Kazakhstan, has been convicted of corruption.
Ablyazov, who was
president of the looted bank, had his worldwide assets with an estimated value
of $4.9 billion frozen six years ago by a British High Court.
Trump has done business
since 1983 with Russian oligarchs and wealthy former officials and business
people in former Soviet satellites, including Kazakhstan, Georgia and
Azerbaijan. A number of mobsters – American, Russian and others – live in Trump
Tower apartments. The building has long been known to local, federal and
international law enforcement as a nest of criminal residences.
In 1987 the Kremlin,
then still a communist state, provided Trump and his first wife Ivana with a
luxury trip to Russia.
While a number of journalistic
investigations have looked into Trump’s dealings with oligarchs and their money
using public records and sources they were limited to public records, which are
often scant. Dutch prosecutors, however, have the power to subpoena banking and
other records, forcing their disclosure to prosecutors and, potentially, the
public.
Trump is known to have
done deals with some of those mentioned in the complaint, including Felix
Sater, a violent Long Island felon who was born in Russia.
For years Sater traveled extensively with Trump working on deals named in the complaint and handing out his Trump Organization business card. Despite these long ties and both videos and still photos showing the men together, Trump claimed during the presidential campaign that he would not recognize Sater if they were in the same room.
For years Sater traveled extensively with Trump working on deals named in the complaint and handing out his Trump Organization business card. Despite these long ties and both videos and still photos showing the men together, Trump claimed during the presidential campaign that he would not recognize Sater if they were in the same room.
Sater is believed to
be cooperating with Robert Mueller, the American
special prosecutor investigating Trump.
In one deal involving
Sater, millions of dollars from the Trump SoHo hotel and apartment tower
disappeared into an Icelandic bank that was under the control of a Russian
oligarch. That bank was part of a multi-billion-dollar scheme to defraud Dutch
and British pension funds. Trump has testified that he was due 18% of profits
from the building.
The faux gold letters
bearing the name, under an agreement reached a year ago, have been pried from the building façade.
Just three weeks
before the 2016 election, a massive expose of Trump’s role in helping Kazakh
oligarchs hide their illicit money appeared in The Financial Times, a British
business newspaper.
“Dirty Money: Trump
and the Kazakh Connection” described “evidence a Trump venture has links to
alleged laundering network.”
The newspaper said its
investigation found that Trump had “assembled an eclectic collection of backers
and collaborators. Some had chequered pasts, with links to organized crime or
fraud schemes.
But perhaps the biggest risk for Mr. Trump’s complex, often opaque, business empire was that it might be used for a purpose US officials fear is rife in the country’s real estate sector: laundering dirty money.”
But perhaps the biggest risk for Mr. Trump’s complex, often opaque, business empire was that it might be used for a purpose US officials fear is rife in the country’s real estate sector: laundering dirty money.”
Trump’s SoHo project
“has multiple ties to an alleged international money laundering network.
Title deeds, bank records and correspondence show that a Kazakh family accused of laundering hundreds of millions of stolen dollars bought luxury apartments in a Manhattan tower part-owned by Mr. Trump and embarked on major business ventures with one of the tycoon’s partners,” the British newspaper The Financial Times reported after an extensive investigation.
Title deeds, bank records and correspondence show that a Kazakh family accused of laundering hundreds of millions of stolen dollars bought luxury apartments in a Manhattan tower part-owned by Mr. Trump and embarked on major business ventures with one of the tycoon’s partners,” the British newspaper The Financial Times reported after an extensive investigation.
Trump and his
partners, the FT asserted, engaged in condo sales that appear to have violated
the Patriot Act, the post 9/11 law that requires banks, developers and others
to know who their customers are and the sources of their money.
Investigations to
identify anonymous buyers of luxury apartments in New York and Florida to
determine the extent of any money laundering were announced in January 2016 by
the federal government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
Three months later the
FinCEN director, Jennifer Shasky Calvery, spoke about her years of work on
transnational Russian organized crime networks. Much of her
work involved Russian crime families “laundering their funds through the U.S.
financial system. Often, this involved the suspected purchase of personal
residences with criminal proceeds.”
In July 2016, the
month the GOP nominated Trump, FinCen announced it would be investigating sales of luxury apartments beyond
New York and Florida because of its growing concern about flows
of illicit cash disguised in real estate deals.
While Giuliani calls
himself Trump’s personal lawyer, his role is primarily to spread Trumpian
disinformation about Special Prosecutor Mueller’s investigations into Russian
collusion and related matters concerning Trump and his 2016 presidential
campaign.
Because Giuliani appears on so many cable and other television shows, but not in court, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell calls the former New York City mayor “Trump’s TV lawyer.”
Because Giuliani appears on so many cable and other television shows, but not in court, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell calls the former New York City mayor “Trump’s TV lawyer.”
