Hmmm...
In January Deutsche Bank was fined "$630m for failing to prevent $10 billion of Russian money laundering and exposing the UK financial system to the risk of financial crime." This involved Deutsche Bank offices in New York, Moscow, and... Cyprus. Involved in this scheme were close relatives and longtime friends of Putin.
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ined-630m-over-russia-money-laundering-claims
When the Deutsche Bank CEO during this scandal, Josef Ackermann, was forced out, he landed as the new chairman of the Bank of Cyprus. Among the major investors in the Bank of Cyprus are "Viktor Vekselberg, a longtime ally of the Russian president, and Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, the former vice-chairman of Bank of Cyprus who is also a former KGB agent with a close relationship to Putin.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/27/commerce-nominee-wilbur-ross-bank-of-cyprus-putin
It should be noted that Cyprus is considered the Cayman Islands of Russian oligarchs.
Another of the major shareholders in the bank is Dmitry Rybolovlev, aka "The King of Fertilizer," one of the richest men in Russia and known world wide for having maybe the most expensive divorce in modern history. During the divorce he was accused by his wife of "secreting and transferring assets in order to avoid his obligations." Basically, he bought a bunch of stuff - real estate, mostly, but in ways that his wife couldn't claim them in the divorce. One of these properties was the most expensive condos in New York, an $88m 10 room apartment overlooking Central Park, which he bought under his daughters name, who was a college student at the time.
But another property he bought, a mansion in Florida, "The House of Friendship," from our President Donald Trump in 2008. This mansion was built in 2001 by a crazy billionaire, who went bankrupt in 2004. Trump bought it at auction for $40 million in 2006. It sat empty for two years, rotting. Nobody wanted it, it wasn't desirable, etc. In 2008, Rybolovlev, during his divorce, needing somewhere to park his money so his wife couldn't get access to it, bought this mansion from Trump for $100 million. In cash. That's two and a half times what Trump bought it for, with no improvements to the structure. Reporters suggest Rybolovlev has never set foot on the property since the sale. Also, both he and Trump have both claimed, many times, that they never met, and only worked through intermediaries. This was the largest price paid for a single American house, ever, during the financial meltdown, and they never met, once, to discuss the details.
So..How did they meet? Why did the "King of Fertilizer" basically give Trump $60 million? Who were the intermediaries? Remember the Bank of Cyprus, where Rybolovlev is a major shareholder? The vice-chairman of this bank, who otherwise has almost no background in international finance, is none other than longtime friend of Donald Trump AND our new Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross. So Trump makes almost $60 million, for doing almost nothing, by selling to a Russian shareholder of a bank run by friends of Putin's and stuffed with the ill-gotten fortunes of Russian oligarchs, where his longtime friend happens to be a vice-chairman. And that vice-chairman is now our Commerce Secretary. Oh, also, Deutsche Bank, the one that just paid a $630 million fine for laundering Russian money, is somehow, the largest creditor to the Trump organization. When Trump got this $60 million windfall from an Russian investor he never met, he was struggling to pay back $40 million in loans to... Deutsche bank. Hmmm...Nice timing!
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