This is an interesting article.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/manafort-m ... -1.4385860The indictment this week of former Donald Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his aide Richard Gates, runs to 31 pages.
Much of it reads like a bank ledger, listing dozens of wire transfers both men allegedly made over several years, moving millions of dollars into the United States without paying taxes. Most of those wire transfers came from roughly a dozen bank accounts in Cyprus.
For anyone familiar with the money-laundering tale uncovered by Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, that's an interesting coincidence. The financial fraud case he discovered in Moscow in 2007 also saw millions passed through bank accounts in Cyprus.
Magnitsky's name has come-up quite a bit lately.
In Canada, the government passed sanctions which are very similar to the American Magnitsky Act. Russia is not pleased.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/r ... 33644.htmlCanada's move to impose sanctions on 30 Russian officials was "senseless and reprehensible" and has led to retaliatory measures, Russian officials said.
Canada announced the sanctions on Friday against Russian officials it accused of complicity in the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 while he was in prison after alleging state tax fraud.
Kirill Kalinin, a spokesman for the Russian diplomatic mission in Ottawa, told the official TASS news agency late on Friday retaliatory actions against Canadians had already been set in motion.
"Canada's decision on extending anti-Russian sanctions under a false pretext of a hypocritical protection of human rights is absolutely senseless and reprehensible," said Kalinin.
Ottawa's move "is isolating itself from one of the key global powers" and "pushes Canada's foreign policy back to the narrow black-and-white world view, incompatible with modern geopolitics", he added.
Kirill, if you have to say you're 'one of the key global powers'... eh, whatever. You be you, KK.
Back to
the first article.
"Cyprus is, effectively, the money-laundering country of choice for criminals from Russia," says U.K. hedge fund manager Bill Browder. "And the reason … is because the Cypriot authorities turn a very active blind eye to the money-laundering."
Magnitsky was working for the fund manager when he discovered several of Browder's companies had been effectively stolen by Russian criminals with ties to the country's judiciary, netting them $230 million US ($293.2 million Cdn).
Magnitsky uncovered a
$230 million dollar tax scheme. For his efforts, he was jailed in Russia, and somehow up and died while there.
Angered by the U.S. government's decision in 2012 to pass the Magnitsky Act, seizing the U.S. assets, and barring the travel of Russians connected to his death, Russian President Vladimir Putin retaliated by cancelling the pending adoptions of Russian children by U.S. families.
Remember that Donald Trump Jr. meeting? The story which the administration tried to spin was that it was about the adoption thingy, related to the Magnitsky act.
The Russian lawyer who attended the meeting was apparently there to encourage Trump Jr. to convince his father to repeal the Magnitsky Act if he won the presidency.
To add to the fun, the Russian lawyer with whom these jackasses met has been denied entry into the US, and the judge wasn't exactly subtle about the background of the case.
http://www.businessinsider.in/A-federal ... 500736.cmsA federal judge in New York has denied a request by the Russian-owned real-estate firm Prevezon to grant temporary immigration parole to its lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, according to a court document filed late Friday afternoon.
[..]
Pauley implied in his ruling on Friday that Prevezon should have been eager to pay the $5.9 million because, absent settlement, "the trial would have showcased a tale of international intrigue - a massive tax fraud in Russia resulting in the transfer of $230 million through a Byzantine web of shell companies."
The investigation into whether Prevezon, which is incorporated in Cyprus, laundered millions of dollars into New York City property garnered high-profile attention given its ties to a $230 million Russian tax-fraud scheme and Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose suspicious death aroused international media attention.
And it gets better!
The trail ultimately led to Manhattan, where Preet Bharara, then the US attorney there, accused Prevezon in September 2013 of receiving "at least $1,965,444 in proceeds from the $230 million fraud scheme" in early 2008 via wire transfers from at least two suspected shell companies through the Southern District of New York. The company then invested those funds "in various New York properties," according to the complaint.
Remember Preet Bharara? Yeah, Trump fired him in March. Who has done some shady real estate deals in New York? Manafort, who was found-out at least in part
by a local Brooklyn blogger who dug into the goings-on behind a multi-million dollar building. New York, shady real estate dealings with international intrigue... hmmm.
We have a
$230 million dollar Russian scheme revealed in the midst of a kleptocracy, and one of the key guys - Magnitsky - doesn't end-up a celebrated hero of the people, but instead ends-up dead in a Russian jail. Multi-hundred-million dollar schemes in Russia don't happen without the boss, Putin, giving his okay, and taking a cut.
Russia is plenty sensitive about this whole thing.
But why would Putin be so concerned about repealing the act? Browder believes he knows why.
"He hates it because it affects him personally. It affects his personal money. His net worth. He thinks that his money will eventually be frozen under the Magnitsky Act.
[...]
In an attempt to turn the tables, the Russian government posthumously convicted Magnitsky, accusing him of engineering the very fraud he had found, and convicted Browder in absentia, for the same thing. It has several times tried unsuccessfully to get Interpol to return Browder to Russia to serve a prison sentence. "
So far, we have Cypriot banks who earn mucho bucks by turning a blind eye toward money laundering, and a Russian ruler who profits, bigly, from said scams (the likes of which
he's been pulling since he was running Saint Petersburg), and is understandably concerned about keeping such schemes under wraps, to the point that the Magnitsky act comes-up over and over again.
On the other side, we have Manafort, who was deeply connected to a notoriously corupt leader of Ukraine, who also happened to be a Russian puppet, while Manafort seems to have been pushing millions through banks in Cyprus. We also have the son of a presidential candidate, along with Manafort and Kushner, attending a meeting with a Russian lawyer about (drum roll) the Magnitsky act, apparently leveraged by being able to deliver dirt on the presidential candidate's opponent.
Trump and Putin are quite similar in that neither has an ideological bone in their body, unless making money - via any available means - is an ideology. I don't know if Trump directly colluded, or ordered/accepted collusion. However, he surrounded himself with questionable people, and also has had questionable dealings in highly corrupt countries. Large American banks stopped dealing with Trump a while ago, yet he squirmed through debt crunches. Kushner also has a looming debt problem.
Trump's own family has said they do a lot of business with Russia - not necessarily in Russia, but with Russian money (the very, very rich in Russia are constantly looking for ways to get their money out of Russia), while Trump stated he has no deals in Russia (which may be true, but is not the same as not having deals
with Russian interests).
It will be the money that pulls it all down. Mueller has an A-Team of international money laundering investigators. There is now demonstrable momentum, and these investigators are going to turn-over every slimy rock they find. Trump stands to lose money, and his ever-coveted love of his base. Putin may also end-up out a few billion (unlike Trump, Putin can afford it, and will remain in power). Cyprus needs to be very careful, because if the Western world turns it's ire toward Cypriot banking, a lot of very rich people will be in a bit of a pinch (and not only Russians).
Trump didn't need to run for POTUS, but in some way, he was compelled. Manafort didn't need to run the Trump campaign - and for free, no less - but he did it anyway (perhaps looking to leverage the position to get a few million back from Russian-controlled parties, since Manafort wasn't in a good place, financially ). It is obvious that Trump didn't understand the level of scrutiny to which he'd be subjected, or he figured he'd be able to deal with it by being what he thought of as CEO of the USA.
A quantum state of signature may or may not be here... you just ruined it.