Trump’s Son Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Information on Clinton
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These CACs are saying Obama let this Russian lawyer in so that they could wiretap Trump Tower... they are saying this is the real story ...nigga! like this has to be some experiment... this shit gets more outrageous every day
The CIA let her in because they was wiretapping her for the money laundering case and then Trump people just start popping up on the radar that's exactly how I think it went down
Every thing fucked up crackas do black folk get all the blame lmaoo
But my man...white supremacy always turns on itself.
White supremacy is the reason why white folks are killing themselves at epidemic levels. It's why their birthrates are no longer at replacement levels. It's why their median age is the oldest it's been in US history.
As horrible as it is to us, it's finally caught up to THEM.
This Trump shit show is Watergate 2.0.
Yep that's exactly why I have been saying at this point and pretty much obvious.
This is waaaay worse than Watergate
lmbaoooooooooooooooooooooo....man.. what in the fuck.... these muthafuckas are guilty as fuck
See all of this bullshit really went into high gear when homeboy badmouth the intelligence community overseas
Imagine the shit Mueller has? He's way ahead of what the public even knows at this point...
He just bought on high level career FBI officials to the team.. Mueller is going to destroy trump
Holy fucking shit.... Look at the players within this letter.
Does anyone see a familiar name on the first page "William Browder" and does anyone else see the date that Mr. Browder filed a formal complaint with the Justice Department alleging that Rinat Akmetshin failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act... July 2016.
So this known lobbyist.... was at this meeting with Donald Trump Jr as an unregistered Foreign Agent for Russian interests.
And Donald Trump is trying to say that this meeting was nothing.....
Here are some more facts that I picked up.... Just from this April 7, 2017 letter...
According to this letter.... Rinat Akmetshin was reportedly working with Fusion GPS, the company that oversaw the creation of the controversial dossier alleging a conspiracy between President Trump and the Russian government, on the pro-Russian lobbying effort at the same time the dossier was being created.
Who is Fusion GPS?
Fusion GPS is a commercial research and strategic intelligence firm based in Washington D.C. The company conducts open-source investigations, provides research and strategic advice for businesses, law firms and investors, as well as for political inquiries, such as opposition research.[1] Fusion GPS uses "source networks to find information that is not readily accessible or in the public domain".[2]
Well what were some of the things that Fusion was working on...
Oh just a couple things... Nothing major...
USA v. Prevezon
During 2015 and 2016, Fusion GPS was hired by the BakerHostetler law firm which was defending Prevezon from an asset seizure by the U.S. government.[8][9] As part of their litigation support, Fusion GPS investigated Bill Browder, a witness central to the case.[10] During the course of the case, Browder claimed that Fusion GPS had previously been hired to undertake a pro-Russia campaign to aimed at stopping passage of the Magnitsky Act,[11] named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who died while being held without charges in a Russian government prison after he revealed that the Kremlin had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from Hermitage Capital Management.
On March 30, 2017, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa called for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into connections between Fusion GPS and Russia, and an inquiry as to whether Fusion GPS was acting as an unregistered foreign agent.[11] The company has denied the claim that they were engaged in lobbying or violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[9][12]
Here is where SHIT get's super crazy...
Trump dossier and Christopher Steele
In September 2015, Fusion GPS was hired to do opposition research for Republicans who opposed Donald Trump's bid during the Republican primary campaign for the 2016 presidential election. When Trump had emerged as the probable Republican candidate for the 2016 U.S. presidential election in the spring of 2016, Republican donors stopped funding the investigation, and Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton became Fusion GPS's new clients. In June 2016, after the Democratic National Committee had been hacked and its emails began to be published online, Fusion GPS retained Christopher Steele, a private British corporate intelligence investigator and former MI-6 agent, to research any Russian connections to Trump. Steele issued a series of memos from June to December 2016, which became the document known as the Donald Trump–Russia dossier.
In January 2017, the U.S. intelligence community briefed then-President Barack Obama and President-Elect Donald Trump on the contents of the dossier.[14] CNN reported that U.S. investigators had corroborated some parts of the dossier in February 2017, however none of the learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals..[15] In March 2017, former FBI director James Comey confirmed that the FBI was conducting an official investigation into one of the central allegations in the dossier, that the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 Presidential election.[16]
In March 2017, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley initiated an inquiry into whether the FBI had relied on the dossier and on Steele to further its investigation into Trump and his Russian ties.[11] Others have credited Steele with raising questions about the alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.[17]
Remember.. the letter alleging that Rinat Akmetshin had ties to fucking Fusion GPS.... this would have been around the time that Rinat met Donald Trump Jr. Also remember that Fusion was originally hired by the Republicans, but then hired by Democratic Supporters of Hillary Clinton and then... Around this same time Hillary gets hacked.
But Oh WAIT... did ya'll naccums think I was done.... Get this shit..
So you might be wondering... Why did Fonz highlight Bakerhostetler.... Oh no reason..
Lobbying firm touts former GOP congressman as 'Trump Whisperer' and friend of Speaker Ryan
by Timothy P. Carney | Nov 11, 2016, 2:46 PM
Email this article
Here's how lobbying firm Baker Hostetler is touting the head of its Federal Policy division, former Rep. Mike Ferguson, R-N.J.:
As businesses try to get a handle on what will be the new normal in Washington under a Trump presidency, few legal and legislative firms are as well positioned as BakerHostetler.
And the best place to begin to understand that is with former four-term Congressman Mike Ferguson(R-NJ), who now heads the Federal Policy team at BakerHostetler,
Ferguson can claim a genuine connection with President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, Speaker Paul Ryan and Transition team Chairman New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Ferguson was dubbed the "The Trump Whisperer" by Politico's Playbook ahead of Trump's selection of Pence — a longtime friend and former House colleague of Ferguson — as VP candidate.
Ferguson also served as co-chair of Chris Christie's gubernatorial campaign.
Additionally, he is an ally of House Speaker Ryan, and can provide unique insight into the challenges the Speaker will face in the next Congress.
The sizable Federal Policy team at BakerHostetler is comprised of legislative experts and former capitol hill staffers with in-depth relationships with the Trump transition team and many people who are positioned for senior roles in the incoming administration – including in the executive branch, on Capitol Hill and at various departments such as HHS, CMS and the FDA. Ferguson is in close contact with members of the Trump transition team during this critical time.
Let us know if you'd like to hear more about BakerHostetler's Federal Policy team or if you want to be put in touch with Ferguson to discuss how the legislative/political environment in Washington will evolve over the next few months.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/l...er-and-friend-of-speaker-ryan/article/2607194
Oh but I'm not finished yet... Get this shit..
Inside the link between the Russian lawyer who met Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump dossier
By Josh Rogin July 11
This week’s revelations about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer have shined a new spotlight on a small Washington opposition research firm that worked with her on a legal case for years and then subsequently commissioned a dossier full of salacious allegations of the Russian government’s attempts to collude with the Trump presidential campaign.
The firm, Fusion GPS, will be one subject of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing next week that was planned well before the story broke of Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Fusion GPS says it had no involvement in the meeting although it did work on a lawsuit that involved Veselnitskaya for more than two years. The firm’s work on the Trump dossier was on a different timeline. Nevertheless, Trump’s legal team is already conflating the two issues as part of their defense of the president’s son.
Emails released Tuesday by Trump Jr. reveal that his friend Rob Goldstone pitched the meeting based on the promise of damning information on Hillary Clinton that supposedly was being offered by senior Russian government officials. On Monday, Mark Corallo, a spokesman for President Trump’s outside counsel, alleged that the meeting had been set up under false pretenses and implied that Veselnitskaya’s association with Fusion GPS was relevant to the alleged deception.
“Specifically, we have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS, a firm which according to public reports, was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the president and which commissioned the phony Steele dossier,” Corallo said in a statement.
Even before Trump’s legal team suggested the Veselnitskaya meeting was a dirty trick to set up the younger Trump, pro-Trump media outlets had been calling on federal and Senate investigators to look into the activities of the firm, which is run by two former journalists and has done research for both Republicans and Democrats alike.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has been pressing the Justice Department to follow up on a complaint, which is posted on Grassley’s website, alleging that the firm and others violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act by not filing disclosures required when representing foreign entities.
Grassley has scheduled an as yet unannounced hearing July 19 entitled, “Oversight of the Justice Department’s (Non) enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” which will include testimony from William Browder, the chief of Hermitage Capital, who filed the complaint against Fusion GPS and several other entities he alleges were working on behalf of the Russians.
Committee sources cautioned that the date and witness list for the hearing is not final until announced. On Tuesday, ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) publicly called on Trump Jr. to testify before the committee. As of now, the committee is only planning to hear from Justice Department officials and Browder on separate panels.
Browder told me the he will testify that the fact Veselnitskaya was trying to convince Trump campaign officials and family members to change U.S. policy on Russia clearly shows she was acting as an agent of the Russian government.
Veselnitskaya has been a major detractor of the Magnitsky Act, a law that penalizes Russian officials accused of participating in the detention and subsequent death of Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky, who died in detention after being severely beaten, was Browder’s lawyer and had uncovered a $230 million tax fraud scheme perpetrated by Russian authorities.
“Repealing the Magnitsky Act was the single biggest priority of Vladimir Putin and she was acting as the single most active proxy of the Russian government to achieve that objective in Washington,” Browder said. “I’m sure that this was an attempt by the Russian government to repeal sanctions that annoyed them by going to the possible next president of the United States.”
Fusion GPS has said that it was working for the law firm BakerHostetler, which was representing Prevezon, a Russian holding company based in Cyprus, in its defense against Justice Department allegations that Prevezon laundered money stolen in the fraud Magnitsky uncovered. Veselnitskaya was Prevezon’s lawyer. Fusion GPS started working on the case in 2013 and the case settled in May with no admission of guilt by Prevezon.
Fusion GPS told me its work on the Prevezon case had nothing to do with the 2016 presidential election and they were not involved in the outreach to the Trump campaign.
“Fusion GPS learned about this meeting from news reports and had no prior knowledge of it,” the company told me in a statement. “Any claim that Fusion GPS arranged or facilitated this meeting in any way is false.”
As a subcontractor for BakerHostetler, Fusion GPS would not have been required to register under FARA. Senators may want to know why BakerHostetler decided that it did not need to register. Neither Veselnitskaya nor Mark Cymrot of BakerHostetler, who handled the Prevezon case, responded to requests for comment.
Regardless, senators on the committee may now use the FARA hearing to press Justice Department officials on what they know about Veselnitskaya, Prevezon, Fusion GPS and their connections to both the Trump campaign or the Russian government.
(THIS IS THE PART THAT'S GOING TO BLOW YOUR DOMES)
Prevezon is owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv. His father, Pyotr Katsyv, was vice premier and minister of transport of Moscow region from 2004 to 2012. Katsyv’s deputy minister was Alexander Mitusov, Veselnitskaya’s ex husband.
yES YOU READ THAT RIGHT... Fusion GPS began its separate work on the Trump-Russia connections in October 2015, working for unnamed Republican clients. After Trump won the primary, Democratic funders continued to push the effort. Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who compiled the dossier, was brought on in May 2016.
There’s no evidence that the work Fusion GPS did for BakerHostetler on behalf of Prevezon and their work on the Trump dossier were connected. In fact, the former seems to advance Russian interests while the latter is hugely problematic for the Russian government. It’s entirely possible that the firm was working on two separate Russia-related projects for clients who had opposing interests, roughly at the same time.
If the Trump team continues to allege the two cases are related, the congressional and perhaps federal inquiries into the firm could be just getting started. And Veselnitskaya’s meeting with Donald Trump Jr. is not mentioned in the dossier the firm produced for its American political clients.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...and-the-trump-dossier/?utm_term=.90feeb4261fc
YES you saw that shit right.... The former spouse of the Deputy minister to the Vice premier of Transport of Moscow, who is also the father of the owner of Prevezon.... just so happens to be the same person that met with Donald Trump Jr.
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We are talking about whites protecting other whites
I think Mueller is way ahead on the money laundering shit. I'm not so sure about the election shit.
It's probably too early but i wouldn't't be suprised if Mueller's ready to present the shit now, give Trump & his boys
that treatment!
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In two weeks, you do know it will be another "scandal" right?
Like i told you the other day are they really this stupid to not see info is leaked in piecemeal in efforts to garner a denial, and then contradicting evidence leaks out shortly after to further destroy credibility.. Its clear as day and they keep taking the bait..making public statements and tweeting denials.. These people really are morons.
Now watch when its confirmed that info was exchanged they will say "Well when we said nothing came from the meeting we never said info wasnt exchanged. What we meant is we never used it or deemed it useful. It was all discarded immediately."
When it goes down, so many Amerikkkans will be shell shocked.
It's probably too early but i wouldn't't be suprised if Mueller's ready to present the shit now, give Trump & his boys
that treatment!
Not on Trump, directly. I bet you he has info on lots of low-level people in terms of the money laundering but shit like this takes a long time to build a real case...especially against a sitting president. He just got an office that also has a room for viewing classified documents in a secure setting and they're still building the team out.. that is where we are right now.
Yes...and they are not protecting white folks. They gave up Nixon.
True that...let's just hope he doesn't get too ahead of himself with all these people he's bringing in,
some of these people could be Trump plants imo!
As long as they view Trump as theirs they won't.
They said Mueller running 6 parallel investigations lmao
Man on man... Now that I know the Players.. I'm just going back looking at Older articles... Articles that didn't mean shit to us at the time. When you look at this shit now.... "to quote HNIC"... This Shit is WIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDDDEEEEE Open!!"
Laundering Suit Ends as Russian Firm, U.S. Claim Victory
By
Jef Feeley
and
Bob Van Voris
May 12, 2017, 8:44 PM CDT May 13, 2017, 12:39 PM CDT
The U.S. agreed to take $5.9 million to settle a money-laundering lawsuit tied to a $230 million Russian tax fraud, avoiding a trial that was set to begin Monday.
Both the U.S. and a Cyprus-based company controlled by a Russian businessman claimed victory in avoiding a trial that promised to shed light on an intricate web of shell companies and middlemen that were allegedly used to spirit dirty money out of Russia in violation of international financial regulations.
Prevezon Holdings Ltd. said in an emailed statement that it agreed to settle the U.S. claims for less than 3 percent of the amount initially sought by the U.S. government. Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said the settlement amount was roughly 10 times the money that was allegedly traced directly into U.S. accounts and real estate.
"This settlement is nothing short of a victory for Prevezon," Faith Gay, a lawyer for the company, said in a phone interview. "It’s almost an apology by the government."
The attempt to seize a lower Manhattan condominium acquired by the Russians and other assets began four years ago with then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara filing the claim. Bharara was fired in March by President Donald Trump and Kim, Bharara’s successor, announced the settlement late on Friday.
“The nearly $6 million represents three times the money that flowed to Prevezon from the Russian treasury fraud and more than 10 times the portion they invested in U.S. real estate,” James Margolin, a spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, said in a statement Saturday. “However they want to rationalize it, Prevezon agreed to give up multiples of the laundered money they brought into New York.”
Decade-Long Drama
U.S. lawyers were set to head to court to seize the condo, which they said was linked to hundreds of millions of dollars looted by politically connected Russians. The case was at the heart of a decade-long drama stretching from Moscow to Moldova to Manhattan -- part high political intrigue, part murder mystery. There’s an investment fund manager drummed out of Russia; Russian officials who may have helped in the fraud, and two dead people who may have known too much.
The trial was scheduled to start Monday, after years of delay, with the U.S. set to offer the jury perhaps the deepest look into the way dirty Russian money was laundered.
The last-minute deal comes against a backdrop of diplomatic tensions and enormous interest in the illicit movement of Russian money. FBI Director James Comey was fired last week in the midst of a probe of Russia’s influence over the U.S. presidential elections and U.S. prosecutors are also looking into how wealthy Russians may have moved as much as $10 billion out of the country earlier this decade through Deutsche Bank AG, which has since conceded massive compliance lapses.
Government lawyers intended to argue that a trio of Russians bought U.S. assets with ill-gotten cash, including money made from defrauding Hermitage Capital, once the largest foreign owner of Russian stocks. The Russian businessmen denied the claims, saying there was no evidence to support they were part of the scam or that they knew the money was dirty.
Hermitage Chief Executive Officer, Bill Browder, who started a private investigation into the tangled web of companies that he alleged were created to move cash from the tax fraud out of Russia was expected to testify at the trial, providing a glimpse of how funds flowed from Russia to Moldovan and Latvian banks and into companies such as Prevezon via wire transfers routed though banks in the U.S.
Browder was barred from Russia more than a decade ago. One of his lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky, complained to Russian authorities that Hermitage was a victim of a fraud. He was arrested and died in a Russian prison at 37. Magnitsky’s death triggered a diplomatic standoff between Moscow and Washington and tit-for-tat sanctions, with Bharara being one of several Americans barred from Russia.
Browder said he saw the Prevezon settlement as a victory in his pursuit for justice in Magnitsky’s November 2009 death. “This sends a clear message to the people who received that money in the West that it’s not safe and will be seized,” the hedge fund manager said Saturday in an emailed statement. “I believe that this payment will give the green light to other countries to follow suit.”
Prevezon Targeted
The U.S. claimed the Manhattan condo was bought with a chunk of $230 million from fraudulent Russian tax refunds, linked to the Hermitage affair through Prevezon. The government was targeting Prevezon, owned by Moscow businessman Denis Katsyv, and 11 of its related companies in the forfeiture case. Katsyv, son of an ex-Moscow transportation minister, is involved in the firms along with Russian colleague Timofey Krit and Israeli businessman Alexander Litvak, according to court filings. Prevezon didn’t admit wrongdoing in the settlement.
The allegations were narrowed after the lawsuit was filed. At the trial, the U.S. sought the seizure of not only the luxury condo at 20 Pine Street, but also assets including more than $8.5 million from the sale of four other units bought with money allegedly tainted by Russian tax fraud funds. The government said $1.9 million from the fraud was co-mingled with clean money in Prevezon accounts, making it all subject to seizure.
The building on Pine Street was constructed in 1928 as Morgan Guarantee Trust’s headquarters. The condos are currently marketed as having 10 1/2-foot beamed ceilings and ebony-stained hardwood floors.
The case stems from Russian Interior Ministry officials’ 2007 decision to raid Hermitage’s Moscow offices and those of its law firm, hauling away boxes of records and corporate seals. A Russian criminal organization then used the seals to steal the corporate identities of companies belonging to Hermitage’s investment portfolio, according to court filings.
The organization re-registered the firms and sued the companies, winning default judgments of $973 million, the government said in court filings. The group claimed the judgments were equal to the profits of the former Hermitage companies and applied for a tax refund. A Russian tax official approved the $230 million refund on Christmas Eve in 2007, according to the filings.
Magnitsky, who was helping Browder investigate the alleged fraud, died in jail from heart failure and toxic shock caused by untreated pancreatitis, according to Russian authorities. Browder has said he believes Magnitsky was beaten to death while in custody.
U.S. lawmakers enraged Russia’s President Vladimir Putin by enacting the so-called Magnitsky Act, three years after the attorney’s death. The law sanctioned Russian officials, judges and investigators that the U.S. said were involved in human-rights abuses. Russia countered by banning U.S. lawmakers and officials, including Bharara, from traveling to Russia.
Whistle-Blower Dies
Browder hired other lawyers in the U.S. and Russia to track wire transfers of some of the $230 million. The fund manager got a break when a whistle-blower named Alexander Perepilichny showed up in 2010 with bank records related to the scam, Browder said in his book, ‘‘Red Notice.” Perepilichny moved to the U.K. to help Browder with his investigation, then died.
Police said the 44-year-old’s collapse while jogging in 2012 wasn’t suspicious. Others weren’t so sure. Magnitsky’s mother, Natalya, told The Telegraph at the time that “it looks strange.”
The case got even stranger earlier this year when Nikolai Gorokhov, a Russian lawyer representing Magnitsky’s family who’d turned over documents he’d uncovered about the tax fraud to Browder, fell from a window of his Moscow apartment building. The fall occurred the day before he was scheduled to appear in a Russian court in a case tied to Magnitsky’s death. Browder tweeted Gorokhov, who survived the fall, was "thrown from 4th floor apartment in Moscow."
The case is US v. Prevezon Holdings Ltd, CA No. 13-cv-06326 (TPG), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...million-deal-in-russian-fraud-laundering-case
This fucking shit is like an episode of "The Americans"....
Laundering Suit Ends as Russian Firm, U.S. Claim Victory
By
Jef Feeley
and
Bob Van Voris
May 12, 2017, 8:44 PM CDT May 13, 2017, 12:39 PM CDT
The U.S. agreed to take $5.9 million to settle a money-laundering lawsuit tied to a $230 million Russian tax fraud, avoiding a trial that was set to begin Monday.
Both the U.S. and a Cyprus-based company controlled by a Russian businessman claimed victory in avoiding a trial that promised to shed light on an intricate web of shell companies and middlemen that were allegedly used to spirit dirty money out of Russia in violation of international financial regulations.
Prevezon Holdings Ltd. said in an emailed statement that it agreed to settle the U.S. claims for less than 3 percent of the amount initially sought by the U.S. government. Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said the settlement amount was roughly 10 times the money that was allegedly traced directly into U.S. accounts and real estate.
"This settlement is nothing short of a victory for Prevezon," Faith Gay, a lawyer for the company, said in a phone interview. "It’s almost an apology by the government."
The attempt to seize a lower Manhattan condominium acquired by the Russians and other assets began four years ago with then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara filing the claim. Bharara was fired in March by President Donald Trump and Kim, Bharara’s successor, announced the settlement late on Friday.
“The nearly $6 million represents three times the money that flowed to Prevezon from the Russian treasury fraud and more than 10 times the portion they invested in U.S. real estate,” James Margolin, a spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, said in a statement Saturday. “However they want to rationalize it, Prevezon agreed to give up multiples of the laundered money they brought into New York.”
Decade-Long Drama
U.S. lawyers were set to head to court to seize the condo, which they said was linked to hundreds of millions of dollars looted by politically connected Russians. The case was at the heart of a decade-long drama stretching from Moscow to Moldova to Manhattan -- part high political intrigue, part murder mystery. There’s an investment fund manager drummed out of Russia; Russian officials who may have helped in the fraud, and two dead people who may have known too much.
The trial was scheduled to start Monday, after years of delay, with the U.S. set to offer the jury perhaps the deepest look into the way dirty Russian money was laundered.
The last-minute deal comes against a backdrop of diplomatic tensions and enormous interest in the illicit movement of Russian money. FBI Director James Comey was fired last week in the midst of a probe of Russia’s influence over the U.S. presidential elections and U.S. prosecutors are also looking into how wealthy Russians may have moved as much as $10 billion out of the country earlier this decade through Deutsche Bank AG, which has since conceded massive compliance lapses.
Government lawyers intended to argue that a trio of Russians bought U.S. assets with ill-gotten cash, including money made from defrauding Hermitage Capital, once the largest foreign owner of Russian stocks. The Russian businessmen denied the claims, saying there was no evidence to support they were part of the scam or that they knew the money was dirty.
Hermitage Chief Executive Officer, Bill Browder, who started a private investigation into the tangled web of companies that he alleged were created to move cash from the tax fraud out of Russia was expected to testify at the trial, providing a glimpse of how funds flowed from Russia to Moldovan and Latvian banks and into companies such as Prevezon via wire transfers routed though banks in the U.S.
Browder was barred from Russia more than a decade ago. One of his lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky, complained to Russian authorities that Hermitage was a victim of a fraud. He was arrested and died in a Russian prison at 37. Magnitsky’s death triggered a diplomatic standoff between Moscow and Washington and tit-for-tat sanctions, with Bharara being one of several Americans barred from Russia.
Browder said he saw the Prevezon settlement as a victory in his pursuit for justice in Magnitsky’s November 2009 death. “This sends a clear message to the people who received that money in the West that it’s not safe and will be seized,” the hedge fund manager said Saturday in an emailed statement. “I believe that this payment will give the green light to other countries to follow suit.”
Prevezon Targeted
The U.S. claimed the Manhattan condo was bought with a chunk of $230 million from fraudulent Russian tax refunds, linked to the Hermitage affair through Prevezon. The government was targeting Prevezon, owned by Moscow businessman Denis Katsyv, and 11 of its related companies in the forfeiture case. Katsyv, son of an ex-Moscow transportation minister, is involved in the firms along with Russian colleague Timofey Krit and Israeli businessman Alexander Litvak, according to court filings. Prevezon didn’t admit wrongdoing in the settlement.
The allegations were narrowed after the lawsuit was filed. At the trial, the U.S. sought the seizure of not only the luxury condo at 20 Pine Street, but also assets including more than $8.5 million from the sale of four other units bought with money allegedly tainted by Russian tax fraud funds. The government said $1.9 million from the fraud was co-mingled with clean money in Prevezon accounts, making it all subject to seizure.
The building on Pine Street was constructed in 1928 as Morgan Guarantee Trust’s headquarters. The condos are currently marketed as having 10 1/2-foot beamed ceilings and ebony-stained hardwood floors.
The case stems from Russian Interior Ministry officials’ 2007 decision to raid Hermitage’s Moscow offices and those of its law firm, hauling away boxes of records and corporate seals. A Russian criminal organization then used the seals to steal the corporate identities of companies belonging to Hermitage’s investment portfolio, according to court filings.
The organization re-registered the firms and sued the companies, winning default judgments of $973 million, the government said in court filings. The group claimed the judgments were equal to the profits of the former Hermitage companies and applied for a tax refund. A Russian tax official approved the $230 million refund on Christmas Eve in 2007, according to the filings.
Magnitsky, who was helping Browder investigate the alleged fraud, died in jail from heart failure and toxic shock caused by untreated pancreatitis, according to Russian authorities. Browder has said he believes Magnitsky was beaten to death while in custody.
U.S. lawmakers enraged Russia’s President Vladimir Putin by enacting the so-called Magnitsky Act, three years after the attorney’s death. The law sanctioned Russian officials, judges and investigators that the U.S. said were involved in human-rights abuses. Russia countered by banning U.S. lawmakers and officials, including Bharara, from traveling to Russia.
Whistle-Blower Dies
Browder hired other lawyers in the U.S. and Russia to track wire transfers of some of the $230 million. The fund manager got a break when a whistle-blower named Alexander Perepilichny showed up in 2010 with bank records related to the scam, Browder said in his book, ‘‘Red Notice.” Perepilichny moved to the U.K. to help Browder with his investigation, then died.
Police said the 44-year-old’s collapse while jogging in 2012 wasn’t suspicious. Others weren’t so sure. Magnitsky’s mother, Natalya, told The Telegraph at the time that “it looks strange.”
The case got even stranger earlier this year when Nikolai Gorokhov, a Russian lawyer representing Magnitsky’s family who’d turned over documents he’d uncovered about the tax fraud to Browder, fell from a window of his Moscow apartment building. The fall occurred the day before he was scheduled to appear in a Russian court in a case tied to Magnitsky’s death. Browder tweeted Gorokhov, who survived the fall, was "thrown from 4th floor apartment in Moscow."
The case is US v. Prevezon Holdings Ltd, CA No. 13-cv-06326 (TPG), U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...million-deal-in-russian-fraud-laundering-case
This fucking shit is like an episode of "The Americans"....