This is just a stub, a quick summary of a story reported briefly on Rachel Maddow. I hope someone will do a proper diary, but it’s such an important story, I would like to bring it to the attention of Daily Kos. From the FT, my summary from last night [edited for spelling and with some additions]:
“Alex Shnaider, a Russian-born Canadian amassed his billions with the aid of his father-in-law, Boris Birshtein, who was involved in moving money out of the collapsing USSR and with the assistance of a KGB operative Georgi Arbatov. Another KGB figure Leonid Veselovsky, said to be the master money launderer, was involved but now has disappeared. Another associate of Birshtein is a Russian mob figure Sergei Mikhailov, who heads the Moscow crime organization Solntsevskaya Bratva. Shnaider made his money through Ukrainian steel, where his partner was Eduard Shyfrin ran the Zaporizhstal facility through the company Midland. The Russians, financed through VEB muscled in on the plant. The sales agent was Igor Bakai. Midland got $850M. Money from this deal ended up in the Trump Toronto tower. A representative of the Austrian bank Raffeisen, which had been involved in Midland, was at the groundbreaking for that tower. Raffeisen graciously loaned $310M Canadian for the tower and got only $9M back when the tower went bankrupt.”
[Adding some additional points. Trump claims his role was only in licensing his name and in managing the Tower. The building cost $500M Canadian, so Raffeisen was the primary source of funding.When construction fell behind, Shnaider put up $40M more.
The Zaporizhstal steel mill employed 50,000 people. Shnaider sent $100M to a Moscow-based fixer representing Russian investors who were backed by the Kremlin for Zaporizhstal, apparently through VEB. This may have been less than they had been offered by Rinat Akhmetov, a Ukrainian oligarch. Crimes may have been committed in enriching Russian officials. Shnaider and Shyfrin also bought into the Red October Russian steel mill, which was possibly supplying the military.
A former Trump official calls the attitude at Trump organization “willful obliviousness,” and Abe Wallach, formerly of the Trump Organization was quoted as saying “Donald Trump doesn’t do due diligence.” Birshtein has denied any connection with Trump Toronto. ]
Although the story is behind a paywall, you can access it by registering with the Financial Times.
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Another important, probably unrelated story is developing at emptywheel.net.