Investigative Journalists

"Ivankov recruited two brigades... of 250 athletes and... veterans of the Afghan war... to kill his enemies and establish ties..."

"Even after he was locked up... in 1996, Ivankov continued to order... s... Witnesses... were forced to take new identities... FBI agents who investigated him ended up on his hit list. The same was true for journalists."

"[A]fter Putin’s appointment... 's newspaper... headlined "Vladimir Putin Became Head of the FSB Unlawfully." ...[T]wo men assaulted him ...shattering his skull ...He died ...[S]ix men... held a... press conference in Moscow. All... had investigated organized crime for the FSB... [T]hey told... journalists... the... unit... had been transformed into a brutal and corrupt criminal enterprise..."

"[[w:1999 Russian apartment bombings|[H]einous bombings]] that killed... three hundred... were likely the product of a "" operation that enabled Putin to consolidate power, much as Adolf Hitler did after the ."

"[A]n American businessman... [was] talking to a rich Uzbek cotton trader about the pay-for-play K Street lobbyists in Washington. The Uzbek... "You mean you have firms with highly paid professionals who are paid to bribe congressmen?" He couldn’t get over it. Americans had sanitized corruption, institutionalized it, and made it into part of the white-collar, professional world! Not only was it legal, it was a highly paid profession."

"Trump had a unique résumé for... a presidential track. ...[T]ies to Russian money stretched... two decades... laundering money, s and real estate were the vehicles of choice..."

"[T]he Russians knew, real estate was... [an] efficient way to launder billions in flight capital, and Trump’s newest projects were perfectly suited... [e.g.,] Trump World Tower..."

"...Eduard Nektalov ...bought a condo ... directly below ...Kellyanne Conway. ...Nektalov ...related to Lev Leviev ...was being investigated by a Treasury Department ...for mob-connected money laundering. He and his father, Roman Nektalov, had been targeted in Operation Meltdown... that uncovered a scheme through which diamond merchants laundered $8 million in Colombian drug proceeds. ...May 2004 ...a ...man ...fired once in ...Nektalov’s head ...two more ...into his back ..."

"Trump struck a deal... to attach his name to three high-rises in Sunny Isles Beach ... known as "Little Moscow." ...[A]t least sixty-three buyers with Russian addresses or passports spent $98 million on Trump's properties in South Florida."

""Trump specifically marketed his Sunny Isles, Florida, apartment units in... [Russia] to attract... organized crime money"..."

"In the wake of his massive debts and multiple bankruptcies, Wall Street... said no... The banks... said no to Trump. ...But Bayrock ...said yes..."

"... was Bayrock's... man... Sater’s FBI handler described Felix’s father, Michael Sheferovsky... "a... Mogilevich crime syndicate boss." Felix... as a teenager, counted among his friends Michael D. Cohen..."

"I would argue Mogilevich... has a direct relationship to Putin... [T]hat's come out in ...WikiLeaks releases... David Bogatin, going back to 1984, was tied to the Mogilevich crime gang, and Mogilevich is tied to Putin."

"[W]hen was he first compromised by Russia? ...1984 ...David Bogatin, who allegedly had ties to the most powerful crime gang in Russia... who doesn't... [seemingly] have [legitimate] means of making a living... meets with Donald Trump, and... buys... five luxury condominiums for more than $6 million... in ... [T]he State Attorney General Office ...ruled ...that was money laundering for the ."

"The "tower full of oligarchs," ...became a model for Trump’s projects ..."

"I found... 13... episodes... , the president's home, was... a [] center for operations for... a long period..."

"Sater's ... did not appear to be a deal breaker for Trump. "Donald is happy with me...""

"Trump, the Soviets... discovered... was... intoxicated... with boatloads of cash... in dubious transactions..."

"[A]ccording to the FBI... [] was the key money-laundering contact for the Solntsevskaya Bratva... one of the richest criminal syndicates in the world. ...[R]unning a multibillion-dollar worldwide racket ...drug trafficking and prostitution rings ...accused of selling ...stolen ...ground-to-air missiles and armored troop carriers, to Iran. ..."He uses ...wealth and power ..." the FBI says, "...to influence governments and their economies.""

"Yeltsin... would... describe Russia as "the biggest in the world.""

"According to the FBI... Mogilevich paid a Russian judge to spring... Vyachelsav Kirillovich Ivankov, from a... . ...Ivankov was the enforcer ...torturing ...victims and boasting about ...murders ..."

"During the '80s and '90s, we... repeatedly saw... criminals... use condos and high-rises to launder money," says Jonathan Winer... "it was a way of turning dirty money into clean money... and it explained why there are so many high-rises... sold but no one... living in them."

"In 1984... David Bogatin... former pilot in the ... specialty... shooting down Americans over ... plunked... $6 million to buy... five [Trump Tower] luxury condos. ...According to ... Trump personally attended the closing... Russian mobsters were beginning to invest in high-end real estate... an ideal vehicle to launder money..."

"A Senate investigation... revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His ...ties ...led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with ..., whom the FBI considers the "boss of bosses" of the ... Mogilevich ...was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal syndicate into America."

"[T]he public record makes clear that Trump built his business empire in no small part with a lot of dirty money from a lot of dirty Russians—including the dirtiest and most feared of them all."

"Boris Yeltsin's shift to a market economy was so abrupt that... s and corrupt government officials were able to privatize and loot state-held assets in oil, , s, and banking."

"After Vladimir Putin... Russian intelligence effectively joined forces with the country’s mobsters and oligarchs..."

"According to James Henry... $1.3 trillion in illicit capital has poured out of Russia since the 1990s."

"James Moody... told Friedman. "...we found out that Ivankov] was living in a luxury condo in ." ...high-level Russian mobsters came to view the future president's properties as a home away from home."

"[U]ntold millions from the former Soviet Union... wasn’t enough to save Trump from his... failings as a businessman. He owed $4 billion to... 70 banks... [F]ortunately... his... economic crisis coincided... In 1998, Russia defaulted on $40 billion... causing the ruble to plummet and... banks to close... oligarchs and mobsters scrambling to find a safe place... [for] their money. ... ...[c]onstruction got underway in 1999 ...one-third of the units on the ... priciest floors... [were] snatched up ...by individual buyers the former Soviet Union ...or ...companies connected to Russia."

"[E]xamining... deeds, bank records, and court documents... ' concluded... Trump SoHo had "multiple ties to an alleged international money-laundering network.""

"In ...2013 ...police ...rounded up... suspects in... gambling rings... prosecutors called "...world's largest sports book," ...in —including the entire fifty-first floor ...[A] condo ...below one owned by Trump ...served as headquarters for a "sophisticated money-laundering scheme" that moved ...$100 million out of the former Soviet Union ...into ...the United States ...under ...protection of ..."

"...35 Trump Towers ...8,000 or 10,000 units. It would be interesting to figure out ...the scale of ...[D]uring the same period, since Putin's been in power ...$1.3 trillion in flight capital from Russia... to launder."

"If you're in a relationship with the , they're the boss. You're . ...[T]hey have compromised him, and they are ...an arm of the Russian government. Russia is a ."

"[H]is first trip to Russia... hoping to build a Trump Tower in Moscow... ...the first ...presidential ambitions surface. ...in '88 ...a full page ad in The New York Times and '... the same kind of foreign policy... since ...president, attacking , attacking NATO... that appears to be in Russia's interest..."

"[A] free-for-all where he's laundering massive amounts of Russian money?"

"In Vladimir Putin's regime, business... organized crime and intelligence... can... be used as weapons of the state. ...[O]ne company that potentially questionable Russian money flowed through was Bayrock."

"[Jody] Kriss... alleged that Bayrock was "covertly mob-owned and operated... backed by oligarchs and money they stole from the Russian people... engaged in... financial-institution fraud, tax fraud, partnership fraud, , , , and, on occasion, real estate.""

"[A]ttorneys Frederick Oberlander and Richard Lerner... qui tam suit against Bayrock... charged ...laundering $250 million in profits from Trump SoHo and other projects, and... evading] $100 million in... taxes."

"Jonathan Winer... [said] "What anyone in Trump’s position should have done is investigate those allegations [about Sater’s criminal past] to ensure that there was not a money-laundering operation.""

"Trump would not... put up a ... penny, but... get 18 percent of... profits... for licensing... as Bayrock financed and developed... Trump... SoHo."

"The Oberlander and Lerner lawsuit... alleged... $250 million of Bayrock’s projected profits as... co-developer of Trump SoHo and three other projects were "to be laundered, untaxed, through a sham Delaware entity to Iceland (and reportedly then Russia), intending to evade up to $100,000,000 of U.S. taxation.""

"Without the 's move into New York, Donald Trump would not have become president of the United States."

"Russians had begun collaborating with Italian mobsters as early as 1980..."

"[A]s long as they had money... Trump was listening."

"Vladimir Putin... waged a shadow... "virtual" war... of s, disinformation, and cyber warfare."

"[I]n Russia... scores of people... died mysteriously after investigating the alleged crimes of Putin and his oligarchs."

"Americans cracked down on organized crime, Putin co-opted...[and] weaponized it."

"Cohn, as for the two biggest crime families in New York, the Genoveses and the Gambinos, was invaluable in helping Trump traverse... contractors... and the like, controlled by the mob."

"In Red Mafiya... Friedman documented how Ivankov organized... a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise. According to the FBI, he recruited... "combat brigades" of Special Forces veterans from the Soviet war in Afghanistan to run the... and kill... enemies."