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Eurasia
March 29, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
New lawsuit from Kazakh BTA Bank alleges Trump Soho developer Sater planned to invest stolen money into Moscow tower
bne IntelliNews
Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank has filed a new lawsuit alleging that Trump Soho developer Felix Sater planned to invest stolen money into the Trump Organization’s skyscraper project in Moscow, which is said to have been examined by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation into Russian election interference in the 2016 US elections.
News of the lawsuit broke as Sater prepared to testify before Congress on March 27 on Trump Organization activities. It was expected that dur- ing his testimony he would likely be questioned about his work on attempting to help bring about Donald Trump's longstanding ambition to build a skyscraper in Moscow. The lawsuit is the latest development in an ongoing dispute involving Ka- zakh fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, wanted in Kazakhstan on charges of embezzling $4bn from BTA Bank, his son-in-law Ilyas Khrapunov and Khrapunov’s father Viktor Khrapunov, Ablyazov’s close associate, who supposedly stole $300mn from the city of Almaty.
The bank accuses Ablyazov and his partners
of using real estate projects in Europe and the US, including units at the Trump Soho in New York, to launder $440mn when authorities were probing the alleged thefts. It also accuses Ilyas Khrapunov of allegedly hiding talks on real estate dealings in the US using hundreds of accounts for encrypted emails while facing the money laundering charges.
Sater’s lawyer, Robert Wolf, retaliated against Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank the day after the bank sued Sater for supposedly taking part in
a money laundering scheme connected to Kazakh fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, Bloomberg reported on March 27. Wolf described the case as a “cheap and desperate” attempt to get back at a $10mn arbitration demand.
In the new lawsuit, BTA alleges Sater helped Ablya- zov and Khrapunov launder about $40mn via a num- ber of US business transactions starting from 2011.
"Sater helped Ablyazov, Khrapunov, and others launder tens of millions of dollars in those stolen funds into the United States," a filing said.
"Sater not only met with Ilyas Khrapunov in Trump Tower to discuss laundering the Stolen Funds, but he also personally arranged meetings between Ilyas and Donald J. Trump Jr. to discuss possible investments," it added.
The lawsuit also repeated allegations that Sater previously worked with Khrapunov to move money into US real estate, including three condominium units at Trump Soho.
Previous reports have also revealed Sater had been working with BTA Bank in a lawsuit against the Khrapunov family, until it was revealed to the court that Sater, a key witness, owned the consulting firm hired by the bank to help them with the litigation.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Kazakh- stan’s BTA Bank paid Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to help recover the money allegedly stolen by Ablyazov.
Read the full story here