The Curious Case of Felix Sater

Felix Sater has and continues to be an enigma of sorts, a figure the media often misrepresents in articles and someone who purportedly has done a lot for this country, perhaps for the world.

Felix Sater first entered the public consciousness around 1998. 'The Case of the Gym Bag That Squealed', Bloomberg [11/9/1998]
Source

A "Marina Shap" failed to pay the rent on her cubicle at Manhattan Mini-Storage in the SoHo section of New York. When the manager opened the bin last January, however, he found an intriguing assortment of knickknacks: Two 9-millimeter pistols, a 12-gauge shotgun, and, the FBI asserts in a court filing, "various documents in a box and gym bag." The fluke discovery of the guns was hardly earth-shattering in gun-happy New York. But the documents drew the attention of the FBI's Russian organized crime squad. According to a sealed criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn and obtained by BUSINESS WEEK, the FBI maintains that the mini-storage document trove sets forth a tale of stock manipulation and money laundering. Allegedly involved are more than 30 foreign shell companies and bank accounts that, the complaint maintains, were used to launder the proceeds from illegal stock sales during 1994 and 1995.

The feds are charging that the stock scheme involves two individuals--Gennady "Gene" Klotsman and Felix Sater--who they say ran a now-defunct micro-cap brokerage, White Rock Partners & Co., which later changed its name to State Street Capital Markets. Both are charged with stock manipulation and money laundering.

This stock fraud scheme Felix participated in (and later pled guilty to) took place seven years after a bar fight [1991] where he cut another man's face with a broken margarita glass.

However, after the stock fraud scam, we know he became an asset for the FBI and cooperated. This was however not known when the first Trump-Sater-Russia accusations began.

BuzzFeed News, of all sources, was the first to really cover the Felix Sater undercover story in their article, 'How A Player In The Trump-Russia Scandal Led A Double Life As An American Spy.'
Source

In the sprawling Trump-Russia investigation, one name constantly pops up: Felix Sater. In story after story, Sater is described as Donald Trump’s former business partner, a convicted stock swindler who was born in the Soviet Union, worked in Russia, tried to win Trump a deal in Moscow, and even helped broker a Ukrainian peace plan that Vladimir Putin would have loved.

Basically, he’s portrayed as something just short of a Russian spy. Effectively, he has been a spy — but for the United States.

For the first time, BuzzFeed News has verified the surprising sweep of Sater’s undercover work and many of his specific exploits. He worked as an asset for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (or DIA) and tracked Osama bin Laden. Then he worked for more than a decade for the FBI, providing intel on everything from the mob to North Korea’s drive for nuclear weapons. He still operates as a source for the bureau, according to two current FBI agents.

Today, as he is being questioned about Trump's business deals and ties to Russia, he has built relationships with at least six members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, some going back more than 10 years.

Oh, ok. So basically this dude the mainstream media keeps linking up with Trump as a Russian mobster is still working for the FBI as a source and has built relationships with at least 6 members of Mueller's team, some going back more than a decade. Weird.

Mueller found no Russian collusion within the Trump campaign, despite reports of emails between Michael Cohen, ex-Trump personal lawyer, and Sater, with Sater himself writing to Cohen, "I will get Putin in on this program and we will get Donald elected." www.independent.co.uk...

So, what did Mueller's investigation finally conclude re: Sater?

Mueller Report, [p. 69] Source

Sater contacted Cohen on behalf of I.C. Expert Company, (I.C. Expert) a Russian real-estate development company controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007, and in 2014 had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert.

Cohen was the only Trump Organization representative to negotiate directly with I.C. Expert or its agents. In approximately September 2015, Cohen obtained approval to negotiate with I.C. Expert from candidate Trump, who was then president of the Trump Organization. Cohen provided updates directly to Trump about the project throughout 2015 and 2016, assuring him the project was continuing. Cohen also discussed the Trump Moscow project with Ivanka Trump as to design elements (such as possible architects to use for the project) and Donald Trump Jr. (about his expeirence in Moscow and possible involvement in the project) during the fall of 2015.

More to come.

Ugh. I had a ton typed out and the screen refreshed somehow and it was all lost. I'm so annoyed I'm starting over.

Some of the most interesting portions of legal reports are in the footnotes.


All of Sater's Mueller investigation testimony took place in 2017-early 2018. Why then was he testifying to the House Committee in 2019, then to be delayed, and delayed again, if his testimony wasn't important?

March 8, 2019 Source

“Due to scheduling issues, the Committee has moved Mr. Sater’s open interview to March 27. He continues to cooperate with the committee,” a spokesperson for the House Intelligence Committee said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

March 25, 2019 Source

“In light of the cursory letter from the Attorney General, and our need to understand Special Counsel Mueller’s areas of inquiry and evidence his office uncovered, we are working in parallel with other Committees to bring in senior officials from the DOJ, FBI and SCO [special counsel’s office] to ensure that our Committee is fully and currently informed about the SCO’s investigation, including all counterintelligence information,” a spokesperson for the House Intelligence Committee said Monday. “With the focus on those efforts this week, we are postponing Mr. Sater’s open interview,” the spokesperson said.

So what is a proffer agreement detailed in Mueller's report footnote? Source

...a proffer agreement is a written agreement between federal prosecutors and individuals under criminal investigation which permit these individuals to give the government information about crimes with some assurances that they will be protected against prosecution. Witnesses, subjects or targets of a federal investigation are usually parties to such agreements.

Proffer agreements are not complete immunity agreements. Although the government cannot use actual proffer session statements against the individual in its case-in-chief, the information provided can be used to follow up leads and conduct further investigations. If those leads and further investigations lead to new evidence, the new evidence can be used to indict and convict the individual who gave the information in the proffer session. Proffer agreements typically contain a clause allowing the government to impeach you with your proffer statement in a subsequent proceeding if your testimony is inconsistent with your proffer.

Interesting.

So, what does the Mueller report say bottom line regarding Sater? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Though I'll confess to not having read the entire thing yet, just using a searchable version for Sater.

Yet, we continue in 2019 to have reports of additional allegations of crimes tied to Sater regarding money laundering. This will be the next post.

Biggest question being if, as the BuzzFeed News article states and Felix Sater alleges, he is still working as an undercover asset for the FBI then why isn't he ever criminally charged for anything?

All of these thousands of Felix Sater-Trump-Muh-Russia articles have amounted to ZILCH.
And an interesting "Proffer Agreement."

News broke March 2019 regarding a money laundering lawsuit against Sater.

Source

... a new lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York by a bank from the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan alleges that Sater helped launder millions of dollars stolen from the bank and funnel them into real estate projects, some of which may have been linked to President Donald Trump. The lawsuit centers on BTA Bank’s decade-long battle to recuperate billions of dollars allegedly stolen by its former chairman, the fugitive Mukhtar Ablyazov. The Kazakh bank claims that Ablyazov stole over $4 billion dollars before fleeing to Russia and later Europe, and it has pursued numerous lawsuits against him in a wide range of jurisdictions.

On Sater's Wikipedia page, there is reference to a FT article that has a pay wall, so I can't read it. However, the wording in the citing states he has "agreed to cooperate" with investigators into this international money laundering scheme.

The Financial Times, citing five sources with knowledge of the matter, reported that Sater had agreed to cooperate with investigators looking into an international money laundering scheme involving Viktor Khrapunov, a former government minister in Kazakhstan. Khrapunov, who now lives in Switzerland, has been accused by the Kazakhstan government of embezzling millions of dollars and is wanted by Interpol.[11]

But isn't this all during the time he's been an undercover asset for the FBI? Hmmm.

Wait for it. I promise the plot thickens further. Further on in the referenced Newsweek Sater Kazakhstan money laundering article, there's this:

Meanwhile, BTA’s fight to recuperate the stolen funds has reached President Trump's inner circle. It was mentioned during the public Congressional testimony last month of Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen. The embattled lawyer, who is going to jail for financial crimes related to his work for Trump, noted that BTA had paid him to help relocate the bank's assets.

Word? Let's keep in mind during all of this that Sater+Cohen are friends from childhood, so I do not profess to have any idea what the bleep is going on. Let's continue. (Source: Sater-UC Berkeley journalism students interview, YouTube) Link

“Michael Cohen was recommended to BTA Bank in 2017 as a person who had access to the best legal resources, and was hired by BTA to assemble a winning team," Matthew Schwartz, a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and former federal prosecutor who represents BTA Bank and the City of Almaty, told Newsweek. "Instead, Michael Cohen did absolutely nothing of value, and BTA quickly tore up its agreement with him. Since that time, BTA has cooperated fully with all law enforcement investigations of Michael Cohen," Schwartz added. Sater, another Trump associate and a longtime business partner of the Khrapunov family, has also been drawn into the fight between BTA and Ablyazov. The dispute culminated on Monday, when BTA sued Sater, accused him of money laundering and noted that Trump had met with the young Khrapunov.

Now, this money laundering was considered the largest, like, ever. So wouldn't undercovers be part of this like bees on honey?

Sater received multiple subpoenas to produce documents and be deposed in the case against Mukhtar Ablyazov who is alleged to have defrauded BTA Bank of up to $5 billion as chairman.[39] Ablyazov's alleged fraud is one of the biggest cases of financial fraud in history.

So, this dude fled to Russia? Huh. Does the article state anything else interesting?

Monday's lawsuit alleges that Sater traveled to Russia around 2013 at Ilyas Khrapunov's request in order to look for potential locations to invest the money stolen by Ablyazov. "Sater conspired with Ilyas to invest the stolen funds to develop a Trump Tower project in Russia," the court documents read. That same year, Sater’s former development company Bayrock helped Ilyas Khrapunov purchase three condos in Trump Tower SoHo and quickly resell the properties. It is unclear whether Trump knew about the origin of the funds at the time, but financial experts have long claimed that the money was likely laundered through Trump Tower. Sater told Newsweek that he was not involved in Khrapunov’s purchase of Trump Tower condos, and that he had already left Bayrock before the purchase was complete. Monday’s lawsuit, however, argued that Sater conspired with his former clients to launder money through a variety of real estate projects, including five in the U.S., and avoid asset freezing orders against Ablyazov and the Khrapunov family. “Felix Sater is a notorious New York ‘businessman’ and two-time felon who, along with wanted criminals Mukhtar Ablyazov and Ilyas Khrapunov, and others known and unknown, participated in an international criminal conspiracy to launder and conceal at least $440 million that was stolen from the Plaintiffs in Kazakhstan, and to evade lawful asset freezing and receivership orders issued by the courts of the United Kingdom,” the lawsuit filed Monday reads.

What's interesting is different sources list different volumes of money. Here's what is detailed on BTA Bank's Wikipedia page.

It was revealed in 2009 that the bank was defrauded of up to $6 billion of cash in one of the world's biggest cases of financial fraud.[4] The banks former chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov is alleged to have perpetrated the fraud. Ablyazov has said that under his leadership BTA did conceal assets to protect them from being seized by the government.]

There is more I will be adding soon. Stay tuned.

BTA Bank Events 2008-2012

Spring 2008 - BTA Bank underwent rebranding, which resulted in the change of the name, logo and corporate identity of the bank. Currently BTA Bank JSC name is not perceived as an acronym anymore.

February 2009 - Samruk-Kazyna Fund purchased 75.1% of BTA Bank's shares as part of contingency measures of the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan. As the result the bank gained additional capital of KZT 251.3 bln.

2009–2010 BTA Bank has completed restructuring of its certain financial indebtedness. As the result the bank's indebtedness decreased from $16.65 bln. to $4.2 bln, Samruk-Kazyna Fund's share in the capital increased up to 81.48%, both domestic and foreign creditors became the Bank's shareholders holding 18.5% in the capital.

2011 - Due to aggravation of the Bank's financial status, relative shortage of liquid assets and negative financial performance .... led to ...

2012 - BTA Bank started the second restructuring which resulted in cancellation of the Bank's certain financial indebtedness. In consideration, the creditors received $1,618 cash and $750 mln. New Notes.

Samruk-Kazyna Fund extended $1.592 bln. loan to BTA Bank JSC subordinated to the New Notes and RCTFF. During the restructuring BTA Bank was recapitalized for around $10 bln. Share of Samruk-Kazyna in the Bank's equity increased up to 97.3%. Creditors' share amounted to 2.5%, share of minority shareholders, who held shares prior to 2009–2010 restructuring, amounted to 0.2% of the Bank's shares in aggregate.

en.wikipedia.org...

BTA Bank sought bankruptcy protection in 2010 from U.S. creditors while it restructured $11.6 billion of debt.[5] The debts were incurred by alleged mismanagement and embezzlement by former BTA Bank Chairman Muktar Ablyazov.

So, we've seen reports of $4 Billion laundered or embezzled, or up to $6 Billion, and now that in 2010, BTA Bank had to file bankruptcy and restructure over $11 Billion in debt, which it alludes to be in part responsible for this allegation of Ablyazov stealing/embezzling cash.

Sater is being sued as being part of this scam, though if he is/was working undercover for the FBI [as it came out in 2018], this work being done back then was more than likely doing normal business in his role, but as an asset/source still for the FBI.

Questions for Loretta Lynch on Secret Dockets thehill.com...
SIde note: For those who are skeptical about the weight of Sater's cooperation with the US government, consider this. Loretta Lynch, in her nomination hearing for Attorney General in the Obama administration was asked about keeping the file on Felix Sater sealed for so long. It permitted him to continue to do business in the world and not have the charges on his record. Her response was,

"The defendant in question, Felix Sater, provided valuable and sensitive information to the government during the course of his cooperation, which began in or about December 1998. For more than 10 years, he worked with prosecutors from my Office, the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and law enforcement agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies, providing information crucial to national security and the conviction of over 20 individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud and members of La Cosa Nostra. For that reason, his case was initially sealed.

Loretta Lynch Statement Regarding Felix Sater

Back to Sater, BTA Bank, Why does this feel to me like it had something to do with the 2008-2010 financial crisis?
Let's continue.

Now here's where I get further frustrated. BTA Bank ended up getting its shares bought by a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF). If you don't know what these are, quite a few countries seem to have at least one. For the US, it's the Alaska National Fund.
More on this later.


What Is a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF)? www.investopedia.com...

A sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is a state-owned investment fund or entity which comprises of pools of money derived from a country's reserves. Reserves are funds set aside for investment to benefit the country's economy and its citizens. The funding for an SWF comes from central bank reserves which accumulate because of budget and trade surpluses, official foreign currency operations, money from privatizations, governmental transfer payments and revenue generated from the exporting of natural resources.

The amount of money in an SWF is substantial. According to the World Economic Forum, as of 2018, the UAE's fund was worth about US$683 billion. The Forum also finds that Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, has exceeded US$1 trillion since 2017.

There is a concern that SWFs have political influence. Some of the most significant sovereign wealth funds, except for Norway, are not entirely transparent about their investments and corporate governance practices, which leads some to think they are for political, not financial motives.

Where all of this got more curious for me is seeing BTA Bank has a subsidiary in UKRAINE.


3/5/19 - Statement House Committee, Sater Testimony will be rescheduled to 3/27 "due to scheduling issues"
3/22/19 - Barr/Mueller announce completion of Mueller investigation and report
3/23/19 - No statement reschedule of Sater House testimony is necessary
3/23/19 - No statement reschedule of Sater House testimony is necessary
3/25/19 - BTA Bank files lawsuit against Sater; House Committee makes statement Sater testimony will need to be rescheduled so they can spend time on the Mueller report which hadn't been released yet

To date, 4/20/19, his testimony is not rescheduled as far as I have been able to tell.

Why do they seem to really need to grand jury testimony in Mueller report? I might harbor a guess it's in particular to see Sater's grand jury testimony. Anyway, all of this will make sense soon. It's a lot to unpack.

I did the trial period for Financial Times to read more detail on these articles about this huge fraud case and understand Sater's alleged involvement.

Again, the mainstream media wrote thousands of articles alleging this guy was everything from a Russian mobster tied to mob boss Semion Mogilevich, and had been part of this stock fraud scheme way back in the 90s and one time got in a bar fight. Yet all of these recent allegations of money laundering and Bayrock from approx the 2000s on have never resulted in any criminal indictments or criminal investigations of Sater we know of at all.

In fact, if you go off of his direct interview on YouTube with UC Berkeley investigative journalism students, he was still assisting authorities during the 2000s in determining where the "scam" was in any financial scheme.

So according to the Financial Times article I can neither link to or copy/paste without violating their terms, I will summarize.

Their restructuring deal which wiped out two-thirds of their $16bn debt in 2010 obliged foreign investors to take "$7.7bn haircuts." More pain was inflicted on them in 2012 on their foreign creditors when the bank restructured another $11bn of debt. After the new state owners of BTA Bank (new owners post 2008 financial crisis) discovered this hole in the bank's books, they started legal action against Ablyazov in the UK. His assets worldwide were frozen, he had to disclose his investments. A total of 11 civil cases were brought against him and other defendants in an effort to recover about $6bn of assets allegedly misappropriated from the bank while he was chairman (2005-2009).

Mr Ablyazov, who says he was under pressure from Mr Nazarbayev to surrender a 50 per cent share in BTA even before the global financial crisis, has denied wrongdoing. Under his leadership, BTA concealed assets to guard against forced nationalisation, he says.]Source[/url]

Another interesting article gives more details about this saga, titled 'The Ablyazov Affair: ‘Fraud on an Epic Scale’
Link

With the ninth anniversary of his flight from the authorities in his homeland of Kazakhstan fast approaching, the raft of transnational court cases involving fugitive embezzler Mukhtar Ablyazov show no sign of abating. In a saga which stretches from an institutional aversion to tackling kleptocracy in the United Kingdom, to U.S President Donald Trump’s shady business partners, the murky world of Mukhtar Ablyazov even led his family to make a pit stop in the Central African Republic to pick-up diplomatic passports. Yet despite having judgements against him totaling $4.9 billion in the British courts alone, almost six years since he fled from the UK to avoid three concurrent 22-month sentences for contempt of court, Ablyazov remains a free man, living the high life in France whilst bemoaning his plight to be a simple case of “political persecution.”

The control over BTA Bank has been illegally adopted by the National Welfare Fund ‘Samruk-Kazyna’, a holding company owned entirely by the state, despite the healthy condition of the bank. Timur Kulibayev, Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, was the president of this fund.

This was exactly what Nazarbayev wanted in the first place, according to Ablyazov.

Let me take another break and I'll continue. I promise this gets more interesting.

a reply to: ucanthandlethetruth

Biggest question being if, as the BuzzFeed News article states and Felix Sater alleges, he is still working as an undercover asset for the FBI then why isn't he ever criminally charged for anything?

I'm guessing his cover is now pretty well blown. LOL.

He seems the type that will play all sides to get his money. You might do business with him, but you'd never trust him.

His cover definitely got blown. But not until about a year ago. So during all of the years he was working in Trump Tower and doing real estate deals the mainstream media loves to label as "shady," he was not known as working for the FBI. In none of the 2017 to early 2018 news reports about Sater-Trump-Muh-Russia are there any hints, details, suspicions of him being an undercover asset all those years. It was all about he's a shady real estate developer with Russian organized crime ties, yada yada.

I've covered a lot so far so I want to do a quick recap:

2000 - Felix Sater working for Bayrock at Trump Tower; had been working as undercover FBI asset since 1998- assisting in large financial crimes and determining where the scam is being run
2005-2009- Ablyazov is Chairman BTA Bank
2008
Kazakhstan was in serious financial crisis. By decree of the president of Kazakhstan, a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) named Samruk-Kazyna was created by merging two funds "Samruk" and "Kazyna"in October 2008, which ended up buying up the national rail and postal service, state oil and gas company, state uranium company Kazatomprom, etc.
BTA Bank underwent rebranding, which resulted in the change of the name, logo and corporate identity of the bank.
Sater gets sued Bayrock case; his files remain sealed over decade long battle until finally being released (2018)
2009-
Ablyazov flees the country over allegations of this mega fraud; states even then the Kazakhstan President was pressuring him to sell at least 50% of the BTA Bank shares
February 2009 - Samruk-Kazyna Fund purchased 75.1% of BTA Bank's shares as part of contingency measures of the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan. As the result the bank gained additional capital of KZT 251.3 bln.
2009–2010 BTA Bank has completed restructuring of its certain financial indebtedness. As the result the bank's indebtedness decreased from $16.65 bln. to $4.2 bln, Samruk-Kazyna Fund's share in the capital increased up to 81.48%, both domestic and foreign creditors became the Bank's shareholders holding 18.5% in the capital.
2011-2012 Due to relative shortage of liquid assets and negative financial performance BTA Bank started the second restructuring which resulted in cancellation of the Bank's certain financial indebtedness. In consideration, the creditors received $1,618 cash and $750 mln. Which were New Notes. Freshly printed cash. Samruk-Kazyna's stake grew to 97.3%.
2015 - Loretta Lynch testifies on Sater's behalf in her nomination hearing when asked about secret docket cases, of which Sater is one of them
2017 - Sater testifies in Mueller investigation through "proffer agreement" used for witnesses, subjects, or targets; he has built relationships with at least six members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, some going back more than 10 years
2018
Judge rules to unseal Sater files and his deep cover as a spy is outed; Sater realizes his cover is blown and goes to media sources like BuzzFeed news and others to provide his side of the story
Sater does interview at Berkeley with journalism students and states he and Cohen are "childhood friends"
This chick below is really excited when this Sater unsealing happens in early 2018. Even though Mueller's report is now released, Sater is walking around freely, and so is Trump. She may be drinking herself to death now. Status unclear.

2019
- Sater gets hit with civil lawsuit for alleged money laundering for Ablyazov to hide his original fraud in Kazakhstan from BTA Bank using money funneled into Trump brand properties in the U.S.;

- Mueller's report is released and there are no indictments against Sater, no criminal charges
Mueller report states Cohen was the only individual to contact with I.C. Expert or its agents

- Sater House Committee testimony rescheduled twice

- Cohen testifies he was hired in 2017 by BTA Bank to attempt to recover some of the missing money but BTA bank says he never did anything and they are complying with legal actions against Cohen now

At this point, you may be wondering where all of this is going. This has been a lot of information to unpack. I'm not even done. LOL. Maybe you're not that interested.

But let's not forget where the Uranium One scandal started from. Bill Clinton's trip to Kazakhstan with Frank Giustra in 2005 led to Giustra forming Urasia Energy, which sold to Uranium One

Wikipedia - Frank Giustra
UrAsia Energy Ltd. (2004–2007)

Giustra began putting together the company later named UrAsia Energy Ltd. with potential investors in 2004. In 2005, the company paid $75 million for a 30-percent stake in a Kazakhy uranium mine to Jeffcott Group Ltd., a privately-held company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. It also paid $350 million for a 70-percent stake in two other Kazakhy uranium mines to oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov.

In November 2005, UrAsia’s initial public offering was listed on the Canadian TSX Venture Exchange at a value of more than Can$500 million. In 2007, Giustra sold UrAsia to Uranium One Ltd. in a $3.7- billion reverse merger; the directors of UrAsia received $4 million in stock options each.

A New York Times article in January 2008 stated that Giustra was a newcomer to Kazakhstan mining operations and was awarded the rights to buy into the mining ventures because of his connection to Bill Clinton. The article described how Giustra and Clinton arrived on Giustra’s private plane on "the first stop of a three-country philanthropic tour" and attended a "sumptuous midnight banquet," giving the president of Kazakhstan a "propaganda coup" and Giustra a signed agreement two days later; the article went on to mention that "just months after" the deal Giustra donated millions to the Clinton Foundation and pledged millions more. Other media outlets pointed out that the article contained several factual errors. Media Matters cited Canadian publications who had reported on Giustra and his former company Yorkton’s engagements in gold and copper mining in Kazakhstan in the 1990s. Forbes pointed out—among other errors—that according to flight manifests Giustra had arrived on his own plane four days earlier; Clinton arrived on another private plane late on September 6, 2005, and "stayed less than a day" before traveling on to India with Giustra. They attended a state dinner with Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan, and 50 other guests on September 6, 2005.

I also have to show you the link to Rosneft and Glencore, the company Marc Rich founded, the Marc Rich the former President Clinton provided a controversial pardon as he lived in exile as an international fugitive. Rosneft being the so-called Russian company Carter Page was in contact with over some purported bribery or something; that bullcrap from the Christopher Steele "intelligence dossier" which really didn't read like any cool dossier, and certainly wasn't intelligent.

I'll try and get more added soon. What are the chances of all of these coincidences?

If you have managed to get through all of this so far, I commend you. Hopefully once you get it, you'll find it was worth it.

So, why do I think the history of Felix Sater, his close ties to Donald Trump, and his known asset work for the FBI is so interesting? This tie-in between Kazakhstan, money laundering, Uranium One, to the Clintons as well as Trump, with Sater in the mix of it.

This was reported on Feb 19, 2019
World Nuclear News

The sale of 15% of Kazakh state-owned uranium producer Kazatomprom in a dual-listing offering in November, and the acquisition by Kazatomprom of Energy Asia (BVI) Limited's interests in the Kharasan projects, were identified by Uranium One as recent supply-side developments.

... Uranium One has a 30% indirect interest in the Kharasan mine through a 30% interest in Kazakh limited liability partnership Khorasan-U.

How could it be by coincidence Sater, of all people, working as an undercover asset for the FBI and closely with Trump using his brand name on real estate deals, also be someone involved enough in the murkiness of the waters in this Kazakhstan money laundering fraud with players tied to the original sale of the assets linked to the later Uranium One deal/scandal?

Will we later be thanking Felix Sater for whatever he's done?

www.theglobeandmail.com...
Originally published in May 2009, but updated again in May 2018

Canadian miner Uranium One Inc. has been sideswiped by a high-level political scandal in Kazakhstan, after police arrested the head of the state-run nuclear company and accused him of illegally selling uranium properties to foreigners. The former Soviet Republic issued a statement yesterday confirming that Kazatomprom president Moukhtar Dzhakishev and several other executives were under investigation for allegedly embezzling stakes in major uranium fields and "handing them" to offshore companies.

At least one of these deals appears linked to Vancouver-based Uranium One, a development that panicked investors and sent the company's shares plunging by nearly 40 per cent. Kazakhstan's National Security Committee claims it has found several instances of improper transactions, but it identified only one: the sale of a 30-per-cent stake in Kyzylkum, a joint venture that operates one of the country's largest uranium mines. Officials said the stake was sold in 2005 for barely more than $100,000.

Uranium One owns a 30-per-cent stake in the partnership, which it inherited when it bought another Canadian miner, UrAsia Energy Ltd. But UrAsia paid $75-million for the rights in 2005, and it purchased them from a private company called Jeffcott Group - not the government. The murky allegations have sown considerable confusion, not least in the executive suite at Uranium One. A distressed Jean Nortier, the company's CEO, called the situation a "complete misunderstanding." He pointed out that the government had previously conferred its blessing on the deal. "When you do a transaction in Kazakhstan, you need the government's approval. UrAsia got the approval, and when UrAsia merged with Uranium One, that approval was given again," he said in an interview. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev has already jailed the heads of state-owned rail and energy companies, and appropriated a bank owned by the oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who fled the country. Mr. Ablyazov sold stakes in two other uranium properties to UrAsia, Uranium One's predecessor, and Kazakh Communist Party leader Serikbolsyn Abdildin suggested yesterday that the banker's case is connected with that of Mr. Dzhakishev. A group of prominent Kazakh businessmen, meanwhile, attacked the government for arresting Mr. Dzhakishev in an open letter to President Nazarbayev. "His arrest seems to be inexplicable and negatively affects the country's business climate as Kazakh entrepreneurs no longer feel they are protected by law," they wrote. This isn't the first time that Uranium One's Kazakhstan properties have courted controversy. A New York Times article last year probed the relationship between former president Bill Clinton and Canadian mining mogul Frank Giustra, who founded UrAsia and negotiated the company's purchase of the three uranium properties in the country. The article detailed how Mr. Giustra accompanied Mr. Clinton on a diplomatic trip to Kazakhstan at the same time he was attempting to secure exploration rights there. Both men have denied there was any political interference.

Mr. Giustra later arranged a meeting between Mr. Dzhakishev, the jailed Kazatomprom executive, and Mr. Clinton at the former president's home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

Uranium One's Kazakhstan assets are the cornerstone of the company's mining properties.

And during these years, according to the civil lawsuit being brought by BTA Bank (the bank Ablyazov allegedly defrauded), Sater is an undercover FBI asset with strong enough Russian/Kazakhstan, etc. ties and speaks perfect Russian and managed to get 5 of Bin Laden's phone numbers in 2000, to be laundering money for this same Ablyazov who sold the original assets to Guistra for his company, Urasia Energy, which then was sold to Uranium One when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State?

Where do I find this gets more interesting?

Igor Ashmanov of Ashmanov and Partners is married to Natalya Kasperskaya, of you know, Kaspersky Lab. Also InfoWatch. Turns out Mr. Ashmanov was co-founder of the Internet Research Agency (IRA). Yes, the IRA referenced in the Mueller report. Since June 2012, he is also co-chair in the Russia Great Fatherland Party. The IRA was registered in mid 2013, according to a Russian translated article sourced on Wikipedia, but it first became known to the U.S. in the first "attack" we were told came from the IRA in 2014. There was an article on it then, and it is also referenced in the Mueller report as the start of the interference which led up to the 2016 election.

Internet Research Agency

2014 "Attack"
'Documents Show How Russias Troll Army Hit America'

According to the documents, which are attached to several hundred emails sent to the project's leader, Igor Osadchy, the effort was launched in April and is led by a firm called the Internet Research Agency. It's based in a Saint Petersburg suburb, and the documents say it employs hundreds of people across Russia who promote Putin in comments on Russian blogs.

Here is a picture of Putin, Ashmanov with wife Kasperskaya in 2018.



I'm going to post more tomorrow.

Sounds like the Clintons attempted to have an insurance policy in place way back in the 90's when Trump began thinking about running for office. Kind of makes you wonder what else they had planned for possible interventions in their plan (2000 election, Hillary oddly stepping aside in 2008, hum)

90s, or when she was Sec of State post-2008.

My next post is about Ashmanov’s ties to Skolkovo Foundation which was Clinton’s baby during the Russian reset timeframe. She went to Silicon Valley and pretty much okayed the tech-sharing.

Skoltech is the tech partnership where U.S. companies were happily partnering with Russian companies and sharing tech with them.

Wow, you've packed a huge amount of information and connections into this thread.

I find it interesting that none of the Trump haters/Democrat sycophants have posted in your thread. One might almost think they're afraid to acknowledge what you've presented.

I am definitely tuning in to see what else you uncover and may do a little scratching around myself to see if I can shake anything out with regards to the person's and companies you have thus far posted about.

Great thread!

Thanks, JAC!

There was likely a better way to go through all this information (there's still more) but, I think most people see all the words and details and names and run. LOL

Can't say I blame them!

There's definitely an odd set of coincidences here that Sater is being accused in a lawsuit by BTA Bank for assisting in money laundering by a guy [Ablyazov] who initially sold the mines to Giustra in the U1 deal (when it was Urasia) and they had met in 2005 with the Kazakh President for the deal.







The disclosure hidden in a footnote of the fact Sater testified in Mueller's investigation through a proffer agreement also seems important. Perhaps also plays a part in why Dems are so antsy to see GJ materials?

Before I dig into people and connections further, here's a copy of what Sater testified to as far as himself and his background. He didn't seem to take too kindly to some shmuck on Twitter and threw down this link.


Link

"everything confirmed by USA intelligence agencies"

I recommend reading it in full but I'm only going to summarize and quote a couple excerpts.

Sater is Jewish, and came here from Russia when he was seven years old. For all intents and purposes, he feels American. He briefly goes into feeling regret over the bar fight in his past, as well as the stock fraud scam he participated in when he lost his Wall St. license from the bar fight. He states he needed money and fell in with this fraud scam.

"Understanding the gravity of my actions, for the better part of the next 20 years, I provided extraordinary assistance to our government involving serious matters of national security, posing tremendous risks to my safety, and the safety of my family. My cooperation extended to the highest levels of government and implicated some of our nation's greatest enemies, whose terrorism threatened our way of life. I provided crucial intelligence information and assistance to numerous U.S. national security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies regarding well-known terrorists and their organizations, including Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda several years before and after the September 11, 2001 attacks. This assistance significantly enhanced and potentially saved the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of military personnel before and during military operations carried out in hostile countries."

The rest of the document does a good job with bullet points outlining the efforts Sater gave intelligence on over the last two decades.

More to come. Later today or tonight.
For anyone reading ALL THIS...... THANK YOU!! hahaha

Back to the BTA Bank - Sater lawsuit filed. Bloom berg

New York developer Felix Sater is due to testify in Congress this week about his role in Donald Trump’s attempt to build a luxury tower in Moscow. A lawsuit filed Monday may provide new fodder for his inquisitors, with its claim that Sater, a longtime associate of Trump’s, sought to use money stolen from a bank in Kazakhstan to help develop the building.

The suit by BTA Bank JSC alleges that Sater and the wealthy Kazakh businessman Ilyas Khrapunov explored financing the tower deal in 2012 with some of the $4 billion stolen a decade ago by Khrapunov’s father-in-law, ex-BTA Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov. While the Moscow plan fizzled, other transactions tied to Sater helped launder the purloined cash, the bank says.

Let’s keep in mind the Mueller report stated Cohen was the only person in contact with I.C. Expert, the Russian real estate company in talks regarding any Trump Moscow deal.

“Sater helped Ablyazov, Khrapunov and others launder tens of millions of dollars in those stolen funds into the United States,” according to the complaint filed Monday in Manhattan federal court. “Sater also tried to help them stash some of the stolen money overseas, including in real estate in Moscow.” Sater, 53, will testify before a closed-door session of the House Judiciary Committee. He was also scheduled to appear publicly before the Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, but the hearing was postponed on Monday. A central focus of his testimony is expected to be Trump’s longtime effort to build a Moscow tower. The president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, has previously said Trump sought to build in Moscow through the entire 2016 presidential campaign.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong....
But if I’m the Dems and this guy seems wrapped up in this and I’m screaming about the Mueller report....
Wouldn’t I interview this Sater guy?

Nope.
Rescheduled twice.
No new date set.

I’ll explain how this ties into Giuliani’s law firm next.

Newsweek (7.26.18)

On Thursday, a court in Kazakhstan launched preliminary hearings of a corruption case against the former mayor of the Kazakh city of Almaty, Viktor Khrapunov, and his wife Leila Khrapunova, a couple with deep ties to the Trump Organization.

The former mayor and his wife have been accused of a wide array of crimes, including money laundering embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and the creation of an organized crime group. They are currently living in Switzerland, but are being tried in absentia. The couple claims that the charges against them are politically motivated.

Reports and court documents have demonstrated that the couple has deep ties to Trump associates, including Trump’s current lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Trump adviser Felix Sater. They have also been accused of using purchases in a Manhattan Trump tower to launder stolen money.

An investigation published last year by McClatchy, for example, showed that the international real estate and investment firm Bayrock Group, which has partnered with the Trump Organization on multiple projects, was previously in business with the couple.

From the article, we also learn "The Khrapunovs began working with Sater and Bayrock at the same time the company was working on a Trump organization project in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. The couple purchased and quickly resold three condos in the Trump SoHo hotel in 2013."

Further down the article it references Giuliani's former law firm,

The couple also enlisted the legal advice of Giuliani’s former law firm to set up an energy company in the Netherlands in 2007. The company was called KazBay B.V., and was partially owned by Bayrock. Giuliani’s former law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, opened an office in Kazakhstan in 2007, the same year the pair moved to Switzerland. The law firm was allegedly used to raise funds for Guliani’s 2008 run for president.

Further on...

The couple’s son Ilyas Khrapunov is wanted in Ukraine for allegedly orchestrating a hack of the computer systems of a law firm representing the Kazakh bank BTA Bank. The bank’s former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is also Ilyas Khrapunov’s father-in-law, has been accused by his former employer of embezzling billions of dollars of assets. Court documents allege that Ablyazov enlisted the help of his son-in-law to hide the money he purportedly stole from BTA Bank, and that the money was subsequently laundered through Trump towers, in addition to other U.S. properties. It is unclear if Trump or his associates knew about the origins of the funds when the purchases of the Trump tower condo were made.

Moving along, let's look at timeframes.
Based on information we can find regarding Trump SoHo, which is now The Dominick, it was completed in 2008. So we can guess they were doing sales on it from 2007-2009 or 2010? It is also noteworthy to point out Sater is not the only person associated to Bayrock, and Bayrock wasn't the only other party in the Trump SoHo deal.

The project was a collaboration between Donald Trump's The Trump Organization, the Bayrock Group and Tamir Sapir. Trump has not invested his own capital in the project. Before the Trump name was removed, the Trump SoHo was the most recent building project constructed by Trump with his name on it..

The Bayrock Group was founded in 2001 by Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet official from Kazakhstan.

Geez, there's Kazakhstan again.

According to Forbes, Bayrock is "a series of commonly controlled, but not wholly owned, limited liability companies."
Bayrock Group is arranged in tiers, with Bayrock Group LLC having a majority or plurality interest in around 12 subsidiary holding companies. The holding companies in turn have majority interests in companies on lower tiers. The lower tier subsidiaries correspond to individual real estate projects, with Bayrock Spring Street corresponding to Trump SoHo, Bayrock Camelback to the Phoenix hotel project, and Bayrock Merrimac to the Trump Fort Lauderdale hotel. Other Bayrock subsidiaries include Bayrock Whitestone and Bayrock Ocean Club.

Bayrock Group has had strategic partnerships with international entities outside of the United States including Icelandic investment company FL Group.

We will have to get to FL Group later. Stay with me. I'm sorry. THEY made this kinda complex. NOT ME.

What does Forbes have to say in dispute of some of the 2016 articles that alluded to Trump's family being tied up in tax evasion? I'm telling you, this is interesting stuff... maybe just to me.



[url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/07/28/trump-kids-named-but-not-charged-in-250-million-tax-evasion-case/#4bcf485d448c]Forbes[/u rl]
7.28.16
The journalist starts off the article explaining Trump had just clinched the Republican nomination and as Trump and his family were at the convention, "a story was making the rounds on social media, eventually landing in my inbox. The shocking allegations? Trump and two of his children were facing tax evasion charges."

Bless her heart, she then goes on to clarify this inaccurate story. The family is being called as material witnesses

What is true is that Trump is involved in a civil tax fraud case. But his involvement, and that of two of his children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, is this: they are named as material witnesses in a case focusing on a man named Felix Sater....

I learned something else interesting in her article, even though she was entirely too easily convinced this still meant Trump or his family were criminally tied to this in some way.

The Bayrock case is being civilly prosecuted under New York's qui tam law, which means that it has been brought by a third party whistleblower. If you're a regular reader of the blog and feel like you've heard that phrase before, you're not wrong: in 2014, a qui tam case was brought in New York against Vanguard, alleging tax fraud. The Bayrock case is also a tax fraud case. In the Bayrock case, as explained by the attorneys involved in the case, the State's claims are being pursued by the "relators" (the whistleblowers who brought the lawsuit). The relators are represented by attorneys Frederick M. Oberlander and Richard E. Lerner.

Next post I'm going to look directly at the first filed Bayrock lawsuit (2008?) vs. this latest one involving Bayrock and Kazakhstan filed 2019, just recently on March 25th.

Oh, shoot. I said I would show the connection between the Skolkovo Foundation and Clinton’s work while she was Secretary of State. I’ll work on that now while I’m waiting for my child to get out of school. Lol

Let’s keep in mind that Eric Lucas published a book in early 2008, which was published in a second edition in 2014, titled ‘The New Cold War.’
These were 3 reviews of his book in 2008:

“The New Cold War powerfully argues that America and Europe's excessive focus on Iraq and Afghanistan has blinded them to a threat closer to home. Thoroughly informed, steeped in his subject's recent history, with a flinty, caustic style that usually sizes up political phenomena with exacting precision, Lucas reminds us why longtime foreign correspondents surpass rookies who parachute into a foreign hotspot....Lucas offers one of the best briefs on how Yeltsin's Wild West became Putin's chilly petrofascism, detailing the return of rigged elections, forced psychiatric medication, the use of natural resources as foreign-policy bludgeons, and the rogue nations that are once again Moscow's best friends." --Philadelphia Inquirer

“A meticulously constructed indictment of Putin's strong-arm tactics at home and his increasingly aggressive tone in dealing with his immediate neighbors and any other countries that try to question his behavior.”—Newsweek.com
“Brilliantly reported, morally unblinkered look at what has happened to Russia under Mr. Putin…For bringing the nature of the threat so vividly to light, Mr. Lucas has performed a public service.” – Brent Stephens, Wall Street Journal

Yet despite these unveiled hints outlined rather informatively of a looming New Cold War that had started or would start, no one seemed to much blink in the mainstream media when Obama’s administration and Russian foreign policy during his first term was a “reset” in US-Russia relations.

Skoltech and the Skolkovo Foundation are a result of some of this “reset” period.

No one accused President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton of being a “Russian colluder” when Hillary Clinton was encouraging Silicon Valley tech partnerships between the U.S. and Skolkovo, in its quest to become the Russian version of a Silicon Valley. A vast number of collaborations occurred during these years of Clinton’s term.

Igor Ashmanov is a Skolkovo Foundation expert. His wife, Natalya Kasperkaya is on the Grant Committee.

On their list of key partners, Link there are names like General Electric, Accenture, Boeing, Cisco, IBM, Honeywell, Intel, Microsoft, ROSATOM.

Source

Skolkovo Foundation is the principal agency responsible for the Russian Skolkovo Innovation Center, a scientific and technological centre for the development and commercialisation of advanced technologies. It is a non-profit organization founded in 2010 and charged by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev with creating a new science and technology development centre in the Moscow suburb of Skolkovo. The Skolkovo innovation system comprises the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SkolTech) established in partnership with MIT, corporate R&D centres, business incubators, private seed and venture funds, and start-up companies, as well as residential space and social infrastructure. It is a city with over 30,000 residents and employees.

Further down

The Skolkovo Foundation has offices in the United States and questions have been raised concerning the true intent behind their activities in the United States. In April 2014, FBI Assistant Special Agent Lucia Ziobro wrote an unusual article in The Boston Business Journal which indicated that the FBI suspected that Skolkovo "may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research.”

All of this somehow gets even murkier when you know Viktor Vekselberg was a big driver for Skoltech along with Clinton, and PM Dmitri Medvedev, or whatever his name is.

We learn what’s happened to Mr. Vekselberg recently in this article.
Hold on to your hats. Stress to the brain, I’m telling you.

Fort Ross????
Source
(article last updated 1/22/19)

Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch at the center of a widening scandal over influence peddling by President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, has been banned from doing business in America under U.S. sanctions. But as of this week, Vekselberg was still the chairman of a U.S. nonprofit group that boasts support from several Fortune 100 corporations and one of Trump's top advisors.
Named for Renova Group, Vekselberg's sanctioned Russian holding company, the Renova Fort Ross Foundation was established in 2010 to preserve an unlikely historic landmark: a California state park situated along the state's wild northern coastline two hours north of San Francisco. The park contains a 19th-century fort built by early Russian settlers in America. At the Kremlin's request, Vekselberg delivered it from dire financial straits.
Under Vekselberg's patronage, the Fort Ross State Historic Park became a cause celebre among corporations and institutions doing business in Russia. Donors and supporters have included U.S. oil giant Chevron, PepsiCo, Cisco Systems, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Also among the foundation's donors is American billionaire Steve Schwarzman, founder of the Blackstone Group and former chairman of Trump's Strategic and Policy Council.

Topping the list of contributors to Vekselberg's cause are his cousin Andrew Intrater and Columbus Nova, the U.S.-based investment firm that Intrater founded and owns. Earlier this month, Columbus Nova confirmed having paid [Michael] Cohen $500,000 for "real estate" consulting.

Lawyers for Columbus Nova vehemently deny that the firm served as a pass-through for Vekselberg to funnel money to Cohen in exchange for access to members of the Trump administration. Still, the ties between the firm and the Russian oligarch are close enough that special counsel Robert Mueller's agents reportedly stopped Vekselberg in an airport earlier this year to question him about Columbus Nova's hiring of Cohen.
The costs of being associated with Vekselberg rose sharply in April. That's when the Treasury Department sanctioned both Vekselberg personally and the Renova Group. The moves were part of a sweeping wave of sanctions related to issues such as the poisoning of a former Russian spy and the backing of Bashar Assad's regime in Syria. They targeted Russian government officials and some of Putin's closest allies in the private sector.
In a matter of hours, Vekselberg reportedly saw more than $1 billion of his assets frozen by U.S. banks.

This whole article is interesting, so feel free to read it all. But I also have to include a little more for those who don’t click the link. In the next post.

Wow...I'm going to have to read this all again, lot's to digest ! Great research, I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

Further down in the above sourced article, there’s this:

Ever since Renova stepped in to help Fort Ross, the Renova Fort Ross Foundation, or RFRF, has served as a hub for Russian-themed events and outreach that extend well beyond the park itself, always aimed at portraying Russia in a favorable light. Festivals, exhibitions and academic projects put on by the foundation in New York, Moscow and San Francisco have helped raise the profile of the Renova Group in the United States. The goodwill that Vekselberg has accrued through his philanthropy has translated into political access.
Rarely was this more evident than in October 2012, when Vekselberg chaired a $2,500 per person gala dinner held in San Francisco's City Hall to mark the bicentennial of Russian settlers' arrival in California. The black-tie fundraiser epitomized how Vekselberg had managed to turn an obscure state park, thousands of miles away from his home base in Moscow, into a centerpoint of his influence.
According to a Forbes article written by a reporter who attended the event, the program featured speeches by Vekselberg and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who was seated next to the Russian billionaire. An official greeting from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was read aloud by a former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
The Kremlin was also well represented. Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky traveled from Moscow to be there. A greeting from Putin was also read aloud.

Why does it feel like this has been over a decade long sting operation only those with eyes to see can begin to imagine?

I’m getting tired. I’ll add more of what I found soon and maybe create a visual side of the links and connections this week. Lol I even get confused and I’m the one researching all this.