Haitian government claims ousted dictator Duvalier laundered stolen money through Trump Tower

[sunonmars]

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/haitian-government-claims-ousted-dictator-baby-doc-duvalier-laundered-stolen-money-through-trump-tower/

Donald Trump insulted Haiti during an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers, but he once signed off on a shady real estate deal with the nation’s ousted dictator.


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More than a fifth of Trump’s condominiums in the U.S. have been purchased since the 1980s in secretive cash transactions that fit a Treasury Department definition of suspicious transactions, reported Buzzfeed News.

Records show more than 1,300 Trump condos were purchased through shell companies, which allow buyers to shield their finances and identities, and without a mortgage, which protects buyers from lender inquiries.

Those two characteristics raise alarms about possible money laundering, according to statements issued in recent months by the Department of Treasury, which has investigated transactions just like those all over the country.

The agency may even require real estate professionals to adopt new programs to keep illegally obtained funds from being plowed into luxury housing to conceal the money’s origins.

Trump companies reportedly sold $35 million in real estate last year alone — mostly to secretive shell companies that open the president up to possible influence peddling.

According to the Buzzfeed News report, the Haitian government complained in the 1980s that former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier laundered money stolen from the Caribbean nation’s treasury by purchasing an apartment in Trump Tower.

Duvalier, nicknamed “Baby Doc,” was overthrown in 1986, but three years earlier used a Panamanian shell company called Lasa Trade and Finance to buy apartment 54-K in Trump’s Manhattan tower for $446,875 cash.

Trump, the future U.S. president, signed the deed of sale.

Federal prosecutors charged a Russian native in 1984 with laundering the proceeds from a gasoline bootlegging operation through five Trump Tower condos purchased for $4.9 million.

David Bogatin pleaded guilty in 1987 and served eight years in federal prison.

Trump Taj Mahal casino was charged under anti-money laundering regulations 106 times in 1990 and 1991 by failing to identify gamblers who bought or cashed out more than $10,000 in chips.

Those reports are required to help authorities identify gamblers who may be laundering money, and Trump’s casino paid a $477,000 fine to the Treasury Department in 1998 without admitting wrongdoing.

............................

Trump's company is apparently just a money laundering washing machine, quell surprise....

[disndat]

1. Real Estate is that natural place

to launder vast amounts of money, but must be difficult to prove. New York, Trump's home, real estate is a magnet for foreign money.

[sunonmars]

2. Mueller just needs to keep pulling those threads....and the whole thing will fall apart.

[IluvPitties]

3. Trump doesn't like black or brown people....

But he loves the green stuff.

[L. Coyote]

4. Where did Trump hide the billion $$ he claimed as a loss to avoid taxes for 20 yrs?

I hope Mueller finds that money and takes it all.

[spanone]

5. K&R...

[MrsCoffee]

6. Thats why he thinks he is such a great businessman despite all the bankruptcies.

The businesses themselves mean nothing to him. They were just the shells for his money laundering schemes, which were apparently very successful. Then the Bankruptcies would not only cover his crimes but also protect him from future taxes. That doesn’t make him “like a smart person”, it makes him a fucking mob boss. So they put him in charge of the most evil mob in the country. The KGOP.

I seriously hate them. I know that is worse for me than them, but I can’t help it. I hate them.

[The_REAL_Ecumenist]

7. Oh-oh! As a descendent of people from that part of the world...

I couldn't help but chuckle when I heard what he said about people who look like me In AFRICA & The Caribbean. Believe what you want but I have seen too much to be stupid enough to be dismissive & disrespectful some who are native to those areas and expect things to continue my way..

Frankly, I think that it's hilarious that this idiot is so arrogant as to believe that he wouldn't inspire someone to go looking for yet ANOTHER albatross to hang around his chubby orange neck... If he wasn't within reach of the bombs, it would be drop down, BELLY BUSTING hilarious.