The Curious Case of Felix Sater

Excellent thread

I am sorry I missed it when you started it

Tons of info to digest

I don’t know what to make of it all yet but is certainly raises a lot of questions

But this sort of research is exactly what makes ats great

Well done!

a reply to: ucanthandlethetruth

Blaine Internaitonal:

BLANE INTERNATIONAL GROUP, INC.

Company Number
K411314
Previous Company Numbers

906330

Status
Active/Compliance
Incorporation Date
2 May 1994 (about 25 years ago)
Company Type
Domestic Profit Corporation
Jurisdiction
Georgia (US)
Registered Address

6915 SUNBRIAR DRIVE, CUMMING, GA, 30040, USA
United States

Agent Name
TATIANA BLANE
Agent Address
6915 SUNBRIAR DRIVE, CUMMING, GA, 30040, USA
Directors / Officers

TATIANA BLANE, agent
TATIANA BLANE, ceo
TATIANA BLANE, cfo
TATIANA BLANE, secretary

Open Corporates

With regards to TMB International:

TMB INTERNATIONAL, INC.

Company Number
E0546202008-5
Native Company Number
E0546202008-5
Status
Permanently Revoked
Incorporation Date
27 August 2008 (almost 11 years ago)
Company Type
Domestic Corporation
Jurisdiction
Nevada (US)
Agent Name
UNITED STATES CORPORATION AGENTS, INC
Agent Address
500 N RAINBOW BLVD STE 300A, LAS VEGAS, NV, 89107
Inactive Directors / Officers

DAVID MCCALLUM, director
GENE HARRIS, president
STAN FREDRICKSON, secretary
STAN FREDRICKSON, treasurer
UNITED STATES CORPORATION AGENTS, INC, agent

Open Corporates

Looking at the address in Google maps yields a generic looking strip center with modular commercial rental space that has what appears to be office/retail space along with garage/storage space attached:



Same incorporation date as listed at the site you linked so better than average chance this is the same company. There's a few more names for you to run down if you were so inclined.

I'm about to reignite this thread. After that long intermission.

But man, as an aside to my ATS peeps, if the tornado sirens ever go off in your hometown, PAY ATTENTION. Because while I typically lived my life up to Memorial Day weekend not paying much attention to them this was an F4 that did serious serious damage to my area. Talk about scary... the one time it's not a false alarm.

originally posted by: thedigirati
write the book

write the book

write the book

I read it all in one sitting and LOVED it I cannot give enough starts and flags

LOL I do think at this point I could have enough material for a book. It's on the bucket list if someone doesn't beat me to it.

Though I do find it interesting the lack of interest regarding Sater, considering he is quite the character! He truly brings the word enigma to life.

originally posted by: Grambler
Excellent thread

I am sorry I missed it when you started it

Tons of info to digest

I don’t know what to make of it all yet but is certainly raises a lot of questions

But this sort of research is exactly what makes ats great

Well done!

Thanks Grambler! Quite the compliment coming from you - as I've read many of your threads and enjoy them.

It is quite the puzzle and I've not come close to figuring it out myself. It's frustrating to feel like you have tens of thousands of pieces but can't make them all fit together. I've been curious and researching Sater since 2017 and still don't feel much closer to sorting all this out than I was two years ago. So there's that... haha

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: ucanthandlethetruth

Blaine Internaitonal:

BLANE INTERNATIONAL GROUP, INC.

Company Number
K411314
Previous Company Numbers

906330

Status
Active/Compliance
Incorporation Date
2 May 1994 (about 25 years ago)
Company Type
Domestic Profit Corporation
Jurisdiction
Georgia (US)
Registered Address

6915 SUNBRIAR DRIVE, CUMMING, GA, 30040, USA
United States

Agent Name
TATIANA BLANE
Agent Address
6915 SUNBRIAR DRIVE, CUMMING, GA, 30040, USA
Directors / Officers

TATIANA BLANE, agent
TATIANA BLANE, ceo
TATIANA BLANE, cfo
TATIANA BLANE, secretary

Open Corporates

With regards to TMB International:

TMB INTERNATIONAL, INC.

Company Number
E0546202008-5
Native Company Number
E0546202008-5
Status
Permanently Revoked
Incorporation Date
27 August 2008 (almost 11 years ago)
Company Type
Domestic Corporation
Jurisdiction
Nevada (US)
Agent Name
UNITED STATES CORPORATION AGENTS, INC
Agent Address
500 N RAINBOW BLVD STE 300A, LAS VEGAS, NV, 89107
Inactive Directors / Officers

DAVID MCCALLUM, director
GENE HARRIS, president
STAN FREDRICKSON, secretary
STAN FREDRICKSON, treasurer
UNITED STATES CORPORATION AGENTS, INC, agent

Open Corporates

Looking at the address in Google maps yields a generic looking strip center with modular commercial rental space that has what appears to be office/retail space along with garage/storage space attached:

Same incorporation date as listed at the site you linked so better than average chance this is the same company. There's a few more names for you to run down if you were so inclined.

Thanks JAC! His early connection to Blane as his "recruiter" when he was in Russia is a thread I haven't pulled on much yet. This gives me more strings to pull. Appreciate it!

My biggest question regarding his story regarding his "recruitment" is it supposedly occurred AFTER the stock fraud scam when Sater left for Russia (returning to the US 1998) when he himself in an interview stated he was working with military intelligence way before the stock scam. He contradicts his own story there, so I'm skeptical regarding where/when his informant work officially began.

One of the many outstanding Sater mysteries. Maybe this guy has lived a lie so many years he's forgotten his own story to stick to?

The two most curious things he has stated in his interviews is 1) that above contradiction, and 2) the special mention he made in an interview (Aug 2017) where he pointedly states he was working at a Trump building back in 1996.

As a reminder, from the NY Mag Intelligencer Link

When I asked Sater how he first met Trump, he replied, “No comment on anything related to the president of the United States.” He savored a delicious pause. “But back in ’96, I rented the penthouse suite of 40 Wall Street,” a Trump-owned skyscraper. (A contemporary court record confirms he had an office there.) A few years later, Sater started doing deals to license Trump’s name for real-estate projects.

He seems to be making a veiled point here, and it's definitely a strange coincidence given all of the NY commercial real estate available, he would be in a Trump building as the $40 million stock scam was being run. Even back 4 years from 2000 when he states he introduced himself to Trump as part of Bayrock.

The stock scam that brought down some serious Mafia players at the time.

So did he actually flip while he was in prison for the bar fight in 1991, as he had stated his intelligence work began prior to the stock scam. Or did he flip after he got out of prison and came back from Russia with five of Osama bin Laden's phone numbers, as the officlal story is stated?

Bear in mind Rudy Guiliani is Mayor of NYC and still has many connections inside the NY prosecutor's office as this case from the 90s was being investigated and later prosecuted. The idea or notion that Trump-Guiliani trust each other and that Guiliani didn't know who Sater was during 2016-on when all these news reports in mainstream media were making Sater out to be a Russian mobster working for Semion Mogilevich.

So, to sum up the messy chronology of all this -

1991 - bar fight at El Rio Grande, cuts a guys face with a broken margarita glass and he needs over 100 stitches
6/1994 - after a couple appeals and a lengthy process, he enters prison until
9/1995 - he's released from NY prison

Source


NY Times describes the stock fraud case as happening from 1993 to 1996. Link

According to the indictment, the scheme, which lasted from 1993 to 1996, was led by John Doukas, 52, of Cross River, N.Y., and Walter Durchalter, 34, of Middle Village, N.Y., who together controlled the brokerage firms of White Rock Partners & Company and State Street Capital Markets Corporation in downtown Manhattan. In a ploy described as a ''pump and dump,'' Mr. Doukas, Mr. Durchalter and their partners secretly bought huge blocks of stock in four companies, then artificially inflated the stocks' value by flooding the marketplace with false and misleading information, the authorities said. When a stock reached what the brokers assumed was its height, they sold it swiftly and suddenly, the authorities added, ignoring frantic phone calls from helpless investors who also wanted to sell.

So are we the reader supposed to gather that Sater assisted with this stock fraud scam case while he's in prison half the time it's taking place? Confusion.

According to Newsweek, Source

Once out of jail, Sater went back to his job at the pump-and-dump operation; because of his rap sheet, he still couldn't find work in legitimate finance. But after about six more months, he says, he quit. “I was disgusted with myself,” he says. “I needed to leave the dark side.”His next stop: Russia. By the time Sater arrived in the mid-'90s, the Soviet Union had collapsed, Boris Yeltsin was in power, and Moscow had embraced a lawless version of capitalism. The city was anarchic, ruthless, but full of opportunity. Through connections on Wall Street, Sater started a telecommunications company in Russia selling transatlantic cable for voice and data transmission from the newly democratic countries of the former Soviet Union to AT&T. During that era, the once-powerful ­Soviet military and intelligence services were in disarray. Large swaths of both were being privatized. A bevy of former military officers and intelligence operatives went to work for businessmen—some legitimate, some with ties to organized crime, all looking for a piece of the new Russian economy. One man, a senior Soviet military intelligence official in ­Afghanistan during the Red Army's occupation, took an interest in Sater and his telecom company.Sater won't divulge the man's real name—he just refers to him as “E”—but he was an acquaintance who changed the American's life in unimaginable ways. The two soon became close, and Sater routinely went to banyas (saunas) with E and his friends to drink and relax. Almost all of E's friends were also former high-ranking military or intelligence officials.

While I'm super intrigued who "E" could be, what's messy about all this is we have

1994-1995 Sater sitting in prison
1996 - allegedly still helping with stock fraud scam until he went to Russia and starts telecom company, meets a lot of military and intelligence officials thru 1997
1998 - comes back to US and somehow has bin Laden phone numbers, information on Stinger missiles and is doing an agreement deal with people such as Andrew Weismann and Loretta Lynch

The federal indictment wasn't unsealed until the NY Times article came out in March of 2000. So did he come back knowing he was going to be indicted later? When did his cooperation begin? If we go by his own words in the one interview, his intelligence work began PRIOR to the stock scam which would mean the entire time he's in Russia it would be for intelligence work, given his mastery of the Russian language.

Further down in the Newsweek article it states he received a call from the US while he was in Russia in late 1998 letting him know he was going to be charged with fraud from the stock scam case.

Late in 1998, Sater got a call from an FBI agent in New York named Leo Taddeo, who told him about an investigation into the pump-and-dump operation on Wall Street that Sater had left behind—part of a broader probe into the Italian Mafia's expanding presence on Wall Street. The FBI had some dirt on Sater, who had gotten involved with two Brooklyn mob members—“guys whose job it was to keep other mobsters away”—before he went to Moscow, and Taddeo told him he was likely to be charged with fraud. If he came back and cooperated, a judge would take that into account at sentencing. (A former FBI official in New York says Sater's story is accurate.)

But per Sater's own words, he was coming out of prison with no money getting involved in the stock scam, yet the indictment states the scam was from 1993-1996. So how was he involved? I cannot find this detail. Did he come out of prison in Sept of 1995 and jump right back into something that would land him right back in prison??

Interview transcript

SATER: I went to jail and I did a year for that bar fight. When I came out, I had no money. Young child, had no money and in a moment of weakness, nothing that I`m proud of then or now, or have I ever been, got involved in the stock scam which is the shady side of Wall Street which was something that was devastating to me because I had planned to have a very successful Wall Street career. And I did that for less than two years, left voluntarily on my own, got out of it and – because I just hated it. I despised every day and every minute of it. And when I used to go to sleep, I used to hate it.

Ok but Sater, then you state right after that -

SATER: Well, first, let me clear up a small misconception that`s been reported is that the things that I`ve done in terms of national security in terms of my assistance to the government on financial crimes, whether it was Mafia or whether it was financial assaults on our financial institutions by cybercriminals, or terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, what`s most important and which has not been reported is that I started working for U.S. intelligence way before the stock case came around. So nobody came to me and said go do this for us and then you`ll get out of this.

Yes, I'm kind of beating a dead horse here, but I wanted to drive it home that Sater's "back story" and his facts even by his own words don't hold up under scrutiny. It becomes super unclear when/how his involvement with intelligence agencies began.

It wasn't until recently [5.16.19] a Judge in open court officially confirmed Sater did obtain Osama bin Laden's phone numbers. Politico wrote a story.

A federal judge has confirmed for the first time that Felix Sater, a former Donald Trump business associate who drove Trump Tower Moscow negotiations during the 2016 election, helped the U.S. government track down Osama bin Laden. During a hearing on Thursday in the Eastern District of New York — held as part of a lawsuit brought by First Look Media to unseal records related to Sater’s longtime cooperation with the government on various national security issues — Judge I. Leo Glasser said the media group already knew all of the “very interesting and dangerous things” Sater had done through his decade as an FBI informant. “He cooperated,” Glasser said. “And you know what he did over the 10, 11 years, because you told me that you know. He provided the telephone number of Osama bin Laden. He has done an awful lot of very interesting and dangerous things.”

Two files were recently unsealed regarding Sater which confirms he was working a long-term investigation which led to being involved in two long-term investigations around international crime organizations.

These files are from 2004 and early 2005. One states his involvement asking for a delay and the other states he had traveled overseas and already provided over 30 recordings. Consensual recordings.

Source, Source

I'll ignore the fact this came from RawStory as it doesn't seem to be of interest to publications which are more than rags to have a more legitimate source. However, the files released are legit so if you don't like RawStory, just focus on the docs.

2004



2005



So while Sater is two offices down from Trump working on licensing real estate deals for Bayrock with the allure of the Trump brand name, he's also cooperating with the FBI on long-term international crime organizations. Traveling. Making recordings.

2005 was when the Uranium One sale was made on the uranium mining rights for the Kyzylkum mine before Uranium One, and 2005 was the year Muhktar Ablyazov became the Chairman of BTA Bank.

2008-2010 was when the global financial crisis was at its worst, and before this time Sater was meeting the Khrapunovs and Muhktar Ablyazov and traveling to Kazakhstan that we know of in 2007, maybe prior.

Looking for press on Ablyazov between 2008-10 takes us to some WikiLeaks released cables. One cable is interesting because it references a WSJ article alleging to have new information regarding the corruption of the Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev. Source

A July 22 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article bills itself as providing "new details" on the corruption of President Nazarbayev and his family. The article, which is entitled "Kazakhstan Corruption: Exile Alleges New Details," relies heavily on an interview with and documents provided by ex-Nazarbayev son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev, the sole named source. Aliyev claimed to the Journal that Nazarbayev holds vast hidden ownership stakes in various Kazakhstani industries, takes illicit commissions from firms doing large-scale business in Kazakhstan, controls a large network of off-shore bank accounts, and hired a consulting firm to burnish his image in the West and "spy" on his political rivals and enemies abroad. In reality, Aliyev did not substantiate with documentary evidence some of his most significant "revelations" -- e.g., that Nazarbayev secretly owns nuclear company Kazatomprom through offshore entities. (Comment: We do not see how Nazarbayev could own a state enterprise in which the government is the 100 percent shareholder. End Comment.) It is also unclear whether the activities of the consulting firm -- a main focus of the article -- were in any way illegal.

So back in 2008 before these allegations of Ablyazov stealing billions from BTA Bank, Nazarbayev's ex- son-in-law was accusing him of not only secretly owning Kazatomprom through offshore accounts, but also controlling a large network of bank accounts. Which is why it is interesting these are the allegations leveled now against Ablyazov.

Picture this: Ablyazov has this anti-Nazarbayev political party in the early 2000s. As it's disbanded, Ablyazov becomes the Chairman of BTA Bank, whom he states Nazarbayev still had a hand in. Fast forward to the global financial crisis and Ablyazov is stating he's being framed, flees Kazakhstan and one of Nazarbayev's son-in-law's ends up being the new Chairman of the bank after it's financials are restructured multiple times and a Kazakhstan Sovereign Wealth Fund, SWF, gains controlling ownership of the bank.

Sater, in the time leading up to all of this, is seemingly getting in close with the Khrapunovs and getting an invite to the Ablyazov-Khrapunov family wedding in Sept 2007. Was he trying to get close to Nazarbayev?

Alright. So now that I’ve kinda sorta beat the dead horse on making the point Felix’s own story doesn’t add up, I want to circle back to one of my very first posts, if not the first one. I don’t remember or care enough to check.

But it was the 1998 Bloomberg article about The Gym Bag That Squealed. Recall that one?

Here’s the thing. Sater gets in bar fight ‘91. Extends his prison time SOMEHOW by a couple years, finally enters NY prison 6/94-9/95, and the stock fraud scam is from 93-96. Rudy Giuliani is mayor of NY but still likely tight with most of the prosecutors in EDNY and SDNY. Sater gets out of prison and per his own words was cooperating before this stock scam, allegedly continued the stock scam with others until leaving for Russia to start telecom company there. And he just happens to leave ALL the incriminating evidence in a storage locker he forgets to pay rent on? Let’s not forget his story about being recruited by Martin Blane in a men’s restroom in Russia is also horse# per his own words if his “cooperation” began prior to the stock scam.

NYC gets to indict some serious Mafia players from this, YET with the indictment hanging over his head and coming back to the US to face the charges, he brings back info on Stinger missiles and bin Ladens phone numbers and gets plugged into Trump Tower under this newly formed company Bayrock which Sater may or may not be the owner of, or Tevfik Arif. Before 9/11, and after 9/11, doing licensing real estate deals with some shady characters. 2004-05 we now have evidence he was working on not one, but two major international crime organization cases.

Yet do anti-Trumpsters or anti-Sater’s acknowledge these facts and discrepancies? No.
Do they acknowledge it’s more likely per the evidence Sater was doing all of this as an informant to take down some really bad guys? No. When I search Twitter for Felix Sater, I still see way too many tweets calling him a Russian mobster and criminal who belongs in jail.

We are supposed to believe the guy who is as detail-oriented as Sater in providing documents and dotting i’s crossing t’s while working as an informant forgot to pay rent on the storage locker that held the info/evidence to crack the stock fraud case wide open? While possible, I lean towards unlikely.

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.

Weird since Sater was in prison the majority of 1994-95. But he got out of prison and supposedly put all of this evidence in a gym locker, went to Russia, and forgot to pay rent on it which led to his indictment. Eh. Seems like a dummy move and Sater doesn’t seem like a dummy.

One thing I should point out about the documents recently unsealed referenced above from 2004-05. There’s a name mentioned there which may be of interest so I’ll highlight it. Raw Story also made it the focus of their article.

William Burke is actually William Burck, who was seemingly pretty involved with Sater’s work. He had to know what Sater was working during this period at least at a high level as one of the NY prosecutors.

Much more recently, Mr. Burck has represented -
I’ll just use verbiage from Raw Story article (link above in other post w/ docs)

Burck has also been at the center of two highly charged dramas in Washington this past year: the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the Mueller investigation. Yet his roles have gone largely unnoticed by other news organizations. One of Burck’s clients is Don McGahn, the former White House counsel who has been subpoenaed by the House and whose testimony Trump is now trying to block by claiming executive privilege. In the Mueller investigation, Burck’s other clients also include Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff, and former advisor Steve Bannon, as well as McGahn, all of whom the House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed.

Back in 2004, Burck was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. He handled Sater’s case there while Sater was working with Trump and collecting intelligence for Washington about international organized crime. Now, Burck is the lawyer for McGahn, who spent 30 hours spilling the beans to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team about Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s efforts to obstruct its investigation. Burck’s role in Sater’s case has been not publicly revealed before now. That role is especially important given the intimate knowledge Burck has of not only Sater’s activities with international crime organizations while he was working with Trump but also Sater’s relationship with the Trump Organization. That becomes evident in the letters that were just unsealed at the request of the lead reporter on this story. These letters suggest that Burck has a deep and perhaps unique understanding of the nature of the relationship between Sater, Trump, the Trump Organization, the FBI, and Sater’s national security work. Indeed, Burck almost certainly knows what few others do about Sater’s criminal and intelligence activities and his relationship with Trump. The time periods involved also raise a tantalizing question: Are there mysteries from the era of President George W. Bush that relate to the Mueller investigation that Sater’s case touches upon? The unsealed letters date to Bush’s presidency, when the Department of Justice was shielding Sater’s confession to stock fraud from the public. His case in Brooklyn federal court was what is known as “double sealed.” It is common for a criminal case to have a docket number and for the record to be sealed. In Sater’s case, the docket itself was sealed—completely hidden—something that evidence suggests applies to fewer than 100 cases nationwide, the vast majority of them in Brooklyn, the home to many Russian-speaking criminal enterprises. Sater was a “cooperating witness” through September 2009, the first year of President Barack Obama’s first term. The unsealed letters relate to Sater and his work as an FBI intelligence operative. They date from 2004 and 2005, when Burck was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. The Southern District encompasses Manhattan, where Trump Tower is located. Sater’s criminal case was on the docket in the Eastern District, which is in Brooklyn.

What is comical to me observing all of this in a fairly non-partisan way, (I’m an independent who is indifferent towards Trump - don’t love or hate) is virtually all mainstream media who covers any of the pieces of this really seem to believe or want to lead the readers to believe that Sater while being an informant and working on major international crime cases is going to be stupid enough to be doing illegal # with/for Trump at the same time, like he wouldn’t be caught. His handlers don’t check up on him?

Or the argument I might here is he’s still building a case. Sooooo they were using Sater to investigate Trump all this time, but allowed him to 1) run for President 2) win the presidency 3) get Mueller to investigate which leads to an anti-climatic resolution, and 4) still do nothing? Sater worked with Trump for over a decade, they say maybe investigating him, but Sater got nowhere. Right.... all he seemed to get were countless Bayrock civil lawsuits, no criminal charges ever from the FBI, and no proof or evidence in everything unsealed about him and his work thus far to indicate he was ever investigating Trump or the Trump Organization.

If we assume based on Sater lawsuits and unsealed docs, he was looking into international crime/money laundering then we circle back to the charges against Ablyazov. Whether they are politically motivated and Nazarbayev the Kazakh President is using him and others as frame-job scapegoats, or the money was really stolen by him remains to be seen.

Source
‘Trial over bank’s plundered billions has cast resembling a spy thriller’

Jody Hudson, the head of human resources for the Department of Energy before leaving the federal government last year, is scheduled to testify this week in a Virginia money-laundering trial in which lawyers for a Kazakh bank and its court-appointed receivers claim that Hudson’s longtime girlfriend, Gaukhar Kussainova, received millions in funds stolen from a Kazakh bank. She used that money, they claim, to purchase, among other things, the multimillion-dollar Virginia home in which she and Hudson live. The money was allegedly stolen by Kussainova’s brother, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is accused by Bank TuranAlem, or BTA, of having stolen more than $4 billion from the bank when he was its chairman, before fleeing Kazakhstan in 2009.

If the bank sounds familiar, it’s because it made a surprise appearance in Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee last month, in which Trump’s former personal attorney was questioned about his short-lived — but lucrative — work for the bank in its efforts to recover the money allegedly stolen by Ablyazov.

Some of that money had allegedly flowed into U.S. real estate purchases and investments by his family members, including three units at the former Trump SoHo. The bank has also paid another controversial former Trump associate, Felix Sater, who was also Cohen’s partner on a potential Trump Moscow deal.

Ablyazov, who has opposed Kazakhstan’s long-ruling, autocratic ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has maintained that the bank’s legal pursuit of him and his family is politically motivated.

The bank said in the New York federal case that Hudson helped Ablyazov, the banker, evade the French authorities. At the time, Ablyazov was the subject of an Interpol red notice — meaning he is wanted in his homeland — and he had shuffled between villas in the south of France to evade detection before his arrest. When the authorities finally found Ablyazov, after tailing one of his lawyers, he was with Kussainova. After three years in a French prison, Ablyazov was freed by French authorities, who reversed an extradition order to Russia, citing concerns about political pressure exerted by Kazakhstan. Hudson declined to address the bank’s allegations about his role in Ablyazov’s attempts to evade authorities, suggesting again that it was likely to come out at the trial. Kussainova declined through her lawyer to comment.

In 2009, Hudson began working at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. His work for the NRC, which required him to obtain a security clearance, took him across the globe, representing the agency numerous times at the International Atomic Energy Association in Vienna, as well as at conferences in United Arab Emirates and Madrid.

Oh. So Hudson was on the NRC in 2010 when the Uranium One deal was approved, AND he helped Ablyazov evade the authorities?

I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. lol

What seems clear to me is Sater was working long term on hunting down an international crime organization, and it is either President Nazarbayev (who has a history of accusing and framing political opponents or those who stand in his way), or Ablyazov who allegedly sold the UrAsia uranium mining assets to Frank Guistra (or Nazarbayev really did and blamed Ablyazov) and this stolen laundered money estimated $4 to $6 billion would be Sater’s focus.

So why does the evidence point to Sater’s work abruptly ending during Obama’s first year in office? Pretty close to the time Ablyazov fled from Kazakhstan. What happened to his work? I cannot find any arrests during 2009-on that align to what the documents detail Sater had been working on long-term.

I also want to point out (again) the brief excerpt of what Mueller stated during his Iron Triangle speech.

Intelligence and partnerships are key to our success in countering these threats. In the past nine years, we in the FBI have shifted from a law enforcement agency to a national security service that is threat-driven and intelligence-led. With organized crime, we are using intelligence to expand upon what we already know, from phone, travel, and financial records to extensive biographies of key players. And we are sharing this information with our partners around the world. But we are also building a long-term strategy for dismantling these enterprises. Last year, we set up two units, called Threat Focus Cells, to target Eurasian organized crime. The first focuses on the Semion Mogilevich Organization; the second on the Brother’s Circle enterprise.

Wonder what the FBI considers to be a long term strategy? Mueller left as FBI Director in 2013, which doesn’t feel long term. Is this “long term strategy” still ongoing? It’s been 8 years since this speech. Yet finding recent news on Semion Mogilevich and/or Brother’s Circle do not indicate any arrests.

Politico

Lawmakers had initially said the interview — which is expected to focus on the negotiations surrounding the failed Moscow real estate project — would be public. But the panel decided to make it private because the subjects are extremely sensitive and concern national security issues, including Sater’s previous work as an undercover asset for the Defense Intelligence Agency on Russia issues, said a person familiar with the matter. A spokesman for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) declined to comment. The Washington Post first reported Sater’s scheduled appearance.

So the public interview now has a confirmed date set for Friday, yet has been changed to a private interview before the House.

This is strange in a couple ways:
1. First time DIA has been thrown up along with national security concerns as an excuse to keep Sater’s testimony private, when the questions are reportedly regarding the failed Trump Russia Moscow Tower deal. How a real estate deal could possibly have DIA ramifications or national security risks is nowhere near explained.
2. Adam Schiff had nothing to say. Felix Sater! The man, the myth. The legend. About to testify. No comment?

Dbl

This infamous "boss of bosses" Semion Mogilevich. The press does love to say Sater has ties to him, which Sater denies as being based in any form of reality. In the Berkeley interview he had with journalism students if you watched it, he says he didn’t even know the guy's name until he was asked by the FBI if he knew of him.

Semion is described in virtually every media article as a Russian mobster, yet by neither birth nor ethnicity is he Russian. By easily searchable sources, he’s listed as being born in Ukraine in 1946 and also has Israeli, Russian and Ukraine citizenship. How this became “Russian mobster” is a mystery only the media can answer.

Case Docket
The only case I can find on this alleged “boss of bosses” is this from March 2002.

There is this FBI report from 1996 Link which was only six years prior. It’s lengthy so unless you love reading, I’ll try to as briefly as possible summarize what was being stated by the FBI about Mr. Mogilevich around 15 years before Mueller references him in this 2011 Iron Triangle speech.

The report starts with detailing a group of multiple agencies brought together in 1994 in Moscow to discuss organized crime focused in on the “Semion Mogilevich Organization” with approximately 250 members. He is described as a “leader of a Ukrainian criminal organization based in Budapest, Hungary.

The FBI report states the center of the Mogilevich Organization’s financial operations is Arigon, Ltd., dealing extensively with Ukraine. The organization is tied to two other major organized crime groups, the Vyacheslav Ivankov Organization and the Solntsevskaya Organization. It also mentions he stays out of the day-to-day operations and isolated himself from the criminal activities making it harder to implicate him.

What makes this FBI report kinda odd is the repetitive statements without known sources of information to back up the claims, frequent misspellings, and overall feeling of being thrown together for some reason.

There is someone who already did a decent summary of this report on their blog so I'm going to copy pasta a few of their conclusions, as I have much of the same thoughts. Source< br />

Another significant discrepancy involves differing accounts of an alleged plot to whack Mogilevich in Czechoslovakia. I am indebted to David Habbakuk for being the first to notice the significant differences. Here is the FBI account: In May 1995, Czech police raided a summit meeting of Eurasian Organized Crime leaders at the U Holubu Restaurant in Prague. Leaders were meeting on the occasion of Sergey Mikhailov's birthday to discuss carving up criminal jurisdictions and to iron out a dispute between Semion Mogilevich and the Solntsevskaya Organization. . . .Mogilevich and his lieutenant, Alexei Alexandrov, were absent from the meeting. This meeting, unlike the February 1995 meeting in Vienna, Austria, . . . was attended by bosses only. The meeting did not resolve differences between Mogilevich and Solntsevskaya. Prior to the meeting, an unidentified Russian delivered an anonymous letter to the chief of police in Budapest, Hungary, in which it was alleged that Semion Mogilevich was to be assassinated that evening at the summit meeting in Prague. The Czech prosecutor decided to initiate action to prevent the killing and ordered a raid on the restaurant. The police detained the meeting participants and took photographs, fingerprints, diaries, journals, and other records for photocopying. Following their release from police custody, the participants returned to various destinations, including Germany, Hungary, Russia and Israel. There is ongoing debate over the tip to Czech police concerning the time and place of the meeting. Mogilevich may have made the tip himself as a protective measure, or, having arrived late, noted the police presence and fled. In the aftermath of the meeting and raid, Semion Mogilevich initiated counteraction against the Czech police; To recap--a "summit" of Eurasian crime bosses was held in May 1995 and Semion's Prague, Czechoslovakia restaurant. Someone tips the the Chief of Police in Hungary that Mogilevich will be murdered at the Prague meeting (the FBI report does not indicate when this supposed tip was made). Somehow (again, not explained) the Hungarians alert the Czech prosecutor who in turn order the police to raid the meeting and arrest the attendees. Mogilevich subsequently "initiates" counteraction against the Czech police. We are asked to believe that Mogilevich decided to hurt the police who detained the people who were supposedly plotting to kill him. This borders on the nonsensical. Even more troubling is the fact that the meeting that took place to generate this report about Mogilevich's nefarious activities took place in November 1994, but the "summit" of crime bosses came six months later. David Habbakuk kindly directed me to a December 1999 Panorama program, The Billion Dollar Don, that provides a very different account...

(to be continued)

‘BOB LEVINSON: In May of 1995 the number two man in the most powerful gang , the Solsnetskaya (sic) organisation – a man by the name of Victor Averin – was celebrating a birthday. Traditionally the birthdays are used as an excuse to get members of the group together, primarily the leaders ... the brigade leaders. And so a meeting was planned and we got wind of it.

‘MANGOLD: The FBI saw Averin’s birthday guest list as a “Who’s still Who” of Russian organised crime. There was Sergei Mikhailov, alleged head of the notorious Solsnetskaya organisation, a gang linked by the FBI to Mogilevich. Gafour Rakamov – the most powerful gangster in Uzbekistan, allegedly a major trafficker of heroin into Europe. Dzhemal Khachidze - narcotics, Moscow. And Aleksandr Sedov, reputedly one of the most vicious killers in Russia.

‘BOB LEVINSON: They were having an elaborate dinner and entertainment, they had a Russian singer and a comic and they had some cabaret entertainers, and everyone was having a very good time for themselves. Somewhere in the middle of the performances, ropes from the ceiling came down and members of the Czech Republic’s organised crime SWAT team came into the restaurant, jumped on the stage and with machine guns basically ordered the crowd not to move. Everyone was transfixed, thinking it was part of the show. It was a ... it was an elaborate joke at their expense. Slowly people realised that the men in the black clothing with the machine guns were not a joke but the real thing.

‘MANGOLD: It was also a rotten night out for the girls from the Black and White club as they too were hauled off, still in their working costumes, by an enthusiastic SWAT squad. This was a deliberate humiliation designed to warn Mogilevich that even the minor figures in his empire were not immune.

‘BOB LEVINSON: Everyone was identified. They were photographed, the cameras were seized and basically to get, in effect, an order of battle from this organisation and identify the players. It was a very successful raid.

‘MANGOLD: But the one man who escaped the indignity, the one man the Czechs and FBI most wanted to have a chat with, avoided being in the restaurant that night. By remarkable twist of fate Mogilevich flew in for the party but it appears his plane arrived late.’

In contrast to the FBI account, the Panorama correspondent interviewing retired FBI Agent Bob Levinson (yes, the same one who went missing and is believed to be in the hands of the Iranians) insist this was birthday party attended by major crime figures. They were in the restaurant owned by Mogilevich but he never showed. Not a word about an assassination plan nor how the Czech authorities learned about the event.

FBI Report section on Mogilevich Trafficking Stolen Art

This portion of the FBI report is bizarre. Besides being poorly written and badly edited, the alleged crimes being described occurred months after the summit of law enforcement officials in Moscow in November 1994. This portion of the FBI report starts with this description: In early 1995, the leaders of the Solntsevskaya Organization, Sergei Mikhailov and Viktor Averin, reached an agreement with Semien Mogilevich to invest large sums of money in a joint venture to acquire and operate a jewelry business in Moscow, Russia, and Budapest, Hungary.

Sounds like a done deal. But in the next paragraph you will read the following: "Gold jewelry products will be made in Moscow and shipped to Budapest where they will be fitted with precious stones. Stolen Russian antiques, such as Faberge eggs, will also be sent from Moscow to Budapest for "restoratiori." In actuality,·Semion Mogilevich will ship the antiques to London, United Kingdom, where they will be sold through Sotheby' s auction house."

This is what is known as "blue sky." Supposed plans. Any critical reader or editor would naturally ask why is a conditional description being allowed into a document that was published in August 1996. If these events actually took place in early 1995 as claimed then there should have been actual evidence that the plot was carried out. But the FBI does not provide any such information.

On page thirty six of this report the reader is treated to a severe case of FBI schizophrenia. An FBI source claims that: a high-level employee of Ritual funeral Services traveled to Budapest, Hungary, in July 1995, bringing a list of paintings, antiques, and Faberge eggs which were acquired in an art theft operation run by Semien Mogilevich and the Solntsevskaya Organization. But in the subsequent paragraph we are presented info from another FBI source: that the stolen art operation slowed down following the arrest of Vyacheslav Ivankov in June 1995. The source identified several specific works of art already in transit to be refurbished and sold at auction. (Note--Ivankov had no known relationship to Mogilevich and was extradited from the United States to Russia, where Ivankov was put on trial). So, was art trafficking project in full swing or slowing down? And when did it actually get off the ground? What was actually sold? The FBI report offers zero insight into these questions.

The Extortion by Mogilevich Section of the FBI Report

The extortion section of this FBI report is a jumbled mess. The account regarding the kidnapping of Aleksander Konanykhine. Konanykhine, according to Wikipedia, "was the founder, co-owner, and President of the Russian Exchange Bank, which became the first institution to receive a currency-trading license from the Yeltsin government." The FBI report levels the following allegation: Semion Mogilevich was also tied to the Solntsevskaya Organization's efforts to extort Aleksander Konanykhine, a wealthy financier currently in hiding. Konanykhine reportedly escaped a recent extortion attempt by the Solntsevskaya Organization and Semien Mogilevich in Budapest, Hungary. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization service (INS) agents arrested Konanykhine and his wife in Washington, D.C., on June 27, 1996, on charges of violating the conditions of their visas. But no actual evidence of any role by Mogilevich is offered. To the contrary, circumstantial evidence points to the pressure coming from Russia's overseas intelligence organization. FBI agents testified in 1996 at Konanykhine's deportation trial that the Russian mafia had taken out a contract to murder the banker. Nothing was said in court on the record about any "extortion" attempt. Konanykhine and his wife were ultimately granted asylum in the United States.

The Murder Section

This section of the FBI report is appalling. It appears it was inserted as an after thought. The three paragraphs border on incoherent. It is alleged that Semien Mogilevich was tied to the murder of Oleg Shirokov, a businessman from Sverdlovsk, Russia. But the report does not even provide the date nor location of the murder. Moreover, asserting that Mogilevich is "tied" to the event is not accompanied by any explanation about the nature of such ties.

The succeeding two paragraphs of this section focus on someone unrelated to Mogilevich.

(to be continued)

There is a section Other Criminal Activities

The report continues with a litany of alleged crimes by Mogilevich, which includes the production and distribution of counterfeit liquor, money laundering, prostitution, visa fraud and drug trafficking. There is scarcity in substance and proofs to back up the claims of alleged criminal conduct. For example, in the section on drug trafficking it is claimed: Semion Mogilevich reportedly purchased a bankrupt Georgian airline recently to facilitate the smuggling of heroin from Southeast Asia. Among the airline's destinations is Prague, Czech Republic, according to the USIC. The information is sourced to the U.S. Intelligence Community. But we are not informed whether that is a human source or comes from a technical collection, such as sigint. Because this report was created ostensibly to inform other law enforcement entities, one would think that identifying the airline would be important. Think again. It would be nice to know how many planes and the type of aircraft that populated this bankrupt entity. Too bad. That would be an important data point for helping law enforcement officials target possible drug shipments.

Where this report really stands out in its oddness this blogger captures in his What About The Nukes? question. The FBI report began summarizing Mogilevich Organization activities "include weapons trafficking, nuclear materials trafficking, prostitution, drug trafficking, dealing in precious gems, and money laundering. The Mogilevich Organization operates across Central Europe, including Prague, Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria; and Moscow, Russia. Its activities also extend to the United States, Ukraine, United Kingdom, France, Slovakia, and Israel.

The report, if you recall, begins with a litany of alleged crimes that includes trafficking in nuclear material. That is certainly an eye catcher and, one would assume, merited a detailed presentation of the evidence of Mogilevich's activities in this arena. But nothing is presented to substantiate the allegation.

This felt like a big gaping hole in the FBI report when it would seemingly be the greatest threat.

Here is the link to the referenced 1999 BBC Panorama transcript where Bob Levinson makes the conflicting statement regarding the party/raid, the only known attempt documented I have found where authorities tried to get Mogilevich.
Source
Levinson had retired from the FBI in 1998, the previous year.

While Sater is interesting all by himself, I'll admit my interest in him was really piqued when articles began labeling him as tied to Mogilevich (though I can find no evidence of this in all my research and he denies it), is the fact the Bob Levinson story has always been of interest to me. I've felt sorry for his family and the story is quite haunting. As Bob Levinson states in the transcript, his big goal in his life was to take Mogilevich down. Instead, it is unclear what happened to him around eight years after this interview. He was last seen at Kish Island, Iran.

Wikipedia - Disappearance of Robert Levinson

On December 12, 2013, the Associated Press (AP) reported that their investigations revealed that Levinson indeed had been working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), contradicting the U.S.'s statement that he was not an employee of the government at the time of his capture, U.S. officials had publicly insisted that Levinson went to Iran as a private investigator working a cigarette smuggling case.[7] AP had first confirmed Levinson's CIA ties in 2010.[8][9][10] He was on an unauthorized intelligence-gathering mission about the Iranian regime for the U.S. government. When his case came to light inside the U.S. government, it produced a serious scandal.[10] Levinson's travel was planned by three CIA officials who did not follow the proper vetting process or seek the necessary approval for the mission from their supervisors. Kish Island in the Persian Gulf is a free-trade zone, meaning Americans do not need a visa to enter, a tourist destination and stronghold of international organized crime.[11] In 2008 the CIA forced the CIA officials to turn in early resignations and disciplined seven others after an internal investigation determined they were responsible for sending Levinson on the mission to Iran.

What Levinson wanted in that mission altogether remains is unclear. Levinson had retired from the FBI in 1998 and had become self-employed as a private investigator, his specialty was Russian organized crime gangs; even innterviewed numerous times for TV documentaries to discuss the topic. Both Levinson and the CIA analyst who hired him, Anne Jablonski, specialized in Russian organized crime and not Iranian issues.

This notion thrown out there often that Levinson was there on Iranian issues never rang quite true with me, understanding and noting Levinson's seeming obsession with Semion Mogilevich.

In December 2007, Christine and Dan traveled to Iran to attempt to learn more about Levinson's disappearance. They met with Iranian officials in Tehran and traveled to Robert's hotel on Kish, the Hotel Maryam.[20] Airport officials allowed Christine and Dan to view the flight manifests for all flights leaving Kish during the time Robert was due to leave, but his name did not appear on any of the lists provided. They were also able to view Robert's signature from the hotel check-out bill on March 9. Iranian officials promised to provide an investigative report to the family, but have yet to do so.[21] In July 2008 and subsequent interviews, Christine and Dan have said they wanted to travel to Iran again soon.

This resolution was passed May 2015 Link

States that it is U.S. policy that: (1) the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran should immediately release Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati, and Jason Rezaian, and cooperate with the U.S. government to locate and return Robert Levinson; and (2) the U.S. government should undertake every effort using every diplomatic tool at its disposal to secure their release.

Which is why it's bothered me the Iran nuclear deal and resulting choreographed prisoner swap never included Levinson in Jan 2016.

Politico

Obama, the senior official and other administration representatives weren’t telling the whole story on Jan. 17, 2016, in their highly choreographed rollout of the prisoner swap and simultaneous implementation of the six-party nuclear deal, according to a POLITICO investigation. In his Sunday morning address to the American people, Obama portrayed the seven men he freed as “civilians.” The senior official described them as businessmen convicted of or awaiting trial for mere “sanctions-related offenses, violations of the trade embargo.” In reality, some of them were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security. Three allegedly were part of an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics with applications in surface-to-air and cruise missiles like the kind Tehran test-fired recently, prompting a still-escalating exchange of threats with the Trump administration. Another was serving an eight-year sentence for conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware. As part of the deal, U.S. officials even dropped their demand for $10 million that a jury said the aerospace engineer illegally received from Tehran. And in a series of unpublicized court filings, the Justice Department dropped charges and international arrest warrants against 14 other men, all of them fugitives. The administration didn’t disclose their names or what they were accused of doing, noting only in an unattributed, 152-word statement about the swap that the U.S. “also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful.” Three of the fugitives allegedly sought to lease Boeing aircraft for an Iranian airline that authorities say had supported Hezbollah, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization. A fourth, Behrouz Dolatzadeh, was charged with conspiring to buy thousands of U.S.-made assault rifles and illegally import them into Iran.

Where this Levinson story took on a really bizarre twist was when Mogilevich himself acted as if he was going to assist with some kind of rescue effort for Levinson. As Newsweek reported, the irony here was strong.

Newsweek

The same offer came from an even more odious Russian figure with U.S. legal problems. Notorious mobster Semion Mogilevich, who occupies a spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in connection with an alleged massive stock swindle, telegraphed U.S. officials through intermediaries that he would finance a Levinson rescue effort. The involvement of Mogilevich, often dubbed “the most dangerous criminal in the world,” was hugely ironic: As an FBI agent and private investigator, Levinson had been tracking Mogilevich for years. “I don't know his motivation,” Kent says of Mogilevich, but “he backed out.“

What is another odd coincidence is not only do we have Newsweek reminding us of Mogilevich's attempts to intervene, but they mention none other than Oleg Deripaska, the Belarus-born businessman tied to Putin who Manafort worked for was involved at some time in trying to get Levinson back from his captors.

One such was Oleg Deripaska, the Russian aluminum tycoon who would be sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2018 for “a range of malign activity around the globe.” A decade earlier, hoping he might earn points toward solving his visa problems with the U.S., “Deripaska announced he was willing to fund a search [for Levinson] and pay any ransom needed to free Bob,” according to Meier's authoritative account. “Bureau officials were elated.” In the end, nothing came of it.

What is alarming is how Newsweek brushes off how nothing came of it but I already know due to my familiarity with the Levinson saga, it was the State Dept. at the last minute who cancelled it.

Award-winning investigative reporter John Solomon recaps all of this well in his article from last year for The Hill.Link

As I’ve written previously, based on numerous U.S. sources, he [Deripaska] cooperated with the Bureau from 2009 to 2011 and spent more than $25 million of his own money on an FBI-supervised operation to try to rescue retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who was captured in Iran while working as a CIA contractor. U.S. officials and Levinson’s family told me that Deripaska’s efforts came close to securing Levinson’s freedom before the State Department scuttled a deal. The former agent has never been heard from again. The 2015 meeting between Ohr, the FBI and Deripaska is captured cryptically in some of Ohr’s handwritten notes, recently turned over to Congress.

Solomon reports further down (this is all pre-Mueller report conclusion)

Deripaska — like the many foreign business figures to whom U.S. intelligence has turned for help over the decades — is not without controversy or need. The State Department tried to keep him from getting a U.S. visa between 2006 and 2009 because they believed he had unspecified connections to criminal elements in Russia as he consolidated power in the aluminum industry. Deripaska has denied those allegations and claims FBI agents told him in 2009 that the State Department file blocking his entry to the country was merely a pretext. Whatever the case, it is irrefutable that after he began helping the FBI, Deripaska regained entry to the United States. And he visited numerous times between 2009 and 2017, visa entry records show. We now know that, on multiple occasions during those visits, the DOJ and FBI secretly collaborated with Deripaska in the hope of getting help, first regarding Levinson, then on Ohr’s matters, and finally on the Manafort case. U.S. officials told me they assumed Deripaska let Putin’s team know he was helping the U.S. government and that his motive for helping was to keep visiting America.

So from 2009-11 at the height of Obama's first term and during the "Russian reset", he's reportedly spending $25 million and "cooperating" with the FBI to try to rescue Levinson, and his visa problems he had during the end of the GW Bush administration from 2006-09 were resolved by the Clinton-Kerry State Dept. from 2009-17 until Trump is elected and he's then wrapped up in the Mueller investigation due to his connections and payments to Manafort/Gates and facing sanctions.

Solntsevskaya Bratva, linked to Semion by the FBI and in 2014 referred to in a Forbes article as the #1 organized crime organization in the world with estimated revenue at $8.5 Billion.

Fortune

Russian mafia groups sit on the other side of the organizational spectrum from Yakuza. Their structure, according to Frederico Varese, a professor of criminology at the University of Oxford and an expert on international organized crime, is highly decentralized. The group is composed of 10 separate quasi-autonomous “brigades” that operate more or less independently of each other. The group does pool its resources, however, and the money is overseen by a 12-person council that “meets regularly in different parts of the world, often disguising their meetings as festive occasions,” Varesi says. It’s estimated that the group claims upwards of 9,000 members, and that it’s bread and butter is the drug trade and human trafficking. Russian organized crime in general is heavily involved in the heroin trade that originates in Afghanistan: it’s estimated that Russia consumes about 12% of the world’s heroin, while it contains just 0.5% of the world’s population.

It would stand to reason Sater was investigating or an asset/informant digging into this organization and this is why the media links Sater-Mogilevich.

What isn't clear is how Mueller as FBI Director in his 2011 Iron Triangle speech singled out Semion Mogilevich as one of the two key focuses in long-term strategies for combating what he termed a "global threat" yet we have had eight years pass since this speech. His term ended. He was pulled in to investigate Trump campaign's ties to Russia election interference and given fairly large flexibility over two years to, then put out a report that provided a certain percentage of readers with many more questions than provided answers. Sater with his reported "Mogilevich ties" is going to be interviewed Friday (finally) now in a private session with the House because of quote-national security-end quote and referencing his work for the DIA. How much more odd can all this get? One could easily argue if Trump was somehow a mob kingpin or even had campaign staff who "colluded with Russia" and this "long-term strategy" of Mueller's to get Russia organized crime organizations set up somehow in a sting, then he missed the mark completely with ample opportunity. Or none of us can put together all of these pieces yet (which some of it could be disinformation) in order to see the full future picture yet and all of this had to play out in this way for some reason. I can't figure it out.

One last thing I'll add here before I hang my hat for the night.

It's a high probability Comey would have known Sater was an undercover asset due to his time at the SDNY office 2002-03, during well-established years Sater was working with handler(s) from this office and likely also EDNY.
Source

Comey was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from January 2002 to December 2003,

If Comey through all of his connections didn't know Sater (as being presented in the press as evidence of Trump-Russia ties) was an asset for intelligence agencies working for the US, I'd be surprised. Which is what makes his likely knowledge of Sater's work while also doing Trump real estate licensing deals and no known investigation ever being opened of criminal activity, the resulting 2016-and on news reports become much less credible with their claims of Trump being in cahoots with Russia. Trump would have already been on their radar (FBI) because of Sater and not permitted to win the Presidency. Like the Secret Service doesn't also vet potential presidential candidates for compromise by foreign countries?