How a Trump SoHo Partner Ended Up With Toxic Mining Riches From Kazakhstan
This is a long read, there are a lot of dots to connect. Amazing how many of Trumps crooked connections lead back to Russian dirty money............
How a Trump SoHo Partner Ended Up With Toxic Mining Riches From Kazakhstan
The long road from the old Soviet republic to the offshore financial centers of the Caribbean to London—and all the way to a partner in Midtown Manhattan's Trump SoHo.
(From left) Eric Trump, Tevfik Arif, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump attend the Trump SoHo press conference at the construction site on Sept. 19, 2007.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-11/how-a-trump-soho-partner-ended-up-with-toxic-mining-riches-from-kazakhstan
All of this starts at the Aktyubinsk Chromium Chemicals Plant (AZXS), a Nikita Khrushchev-era complex. It shares an industrial zone with a vast smelting plant; together, they have yielded lavish private wealth since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In one sense, it’s a familiar snapshot of post-Soviet capitalism: state assets bought for a song, workers saying they were cheated out of shares and connected businessmen getting wildly rich.
This story, however, carves a path from near Kazakhstan’s northern border with Russia to the offshore financial centers of the Caribbean, to London and all the way to Trump property in Midtown Manhattan. How and why funds from former Soviet states flowed into Trump-branded real estate has been the focus of speculation since the start of the 2016 presidential campaign. One theory, propounded by opponents of President Donald Trump is that his admiration for Russia’s Vladimir Putin comes down to money, a suggestion Trump has forcefully denied.
Still, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is digging into Trump’s business dealings, and the scramble for Kazakhstan’s chromium riches may fill in a piece of that puzzle. Company records, court filings and interviews in Kazakhstan and London suggest millions of dollars from the Aktobe plant wound their way to the U.S. and a development company with which Trump partnered to build a controversial Trump SoHo hotel-condominium complex in Manhattan.
It was on the 24th floor of Trump Tower that Kazakh businessman Tevfik Arif, a key figure in Aktobe chromium, established Bayrock Group LLC. The plant passed millions of dollars to Bayrock, which organized financing for the Trump SoHo high-rise that Trump once hailed as a “work of art.” Earlier last month, Trump Soho’s new owner bought the Trump Organization out of its management contract for the project.
MUCH more on the link-
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-11/how-a-trump-soho-partner-ended-up-with-toxic-mining-riches-from-kazakhstan
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