Sarah Kendzior is right

It's an international crime syndicate running the world.

A charity run by Prince Charles received donations from an offshore company that was used to funnel vast amounts of cash from Russia in a scheme that is under investigation by prosecutors, the Guardian can reveal.

Money flowing through the network included cash that can be linked to some of the most notorious frauds committed during Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

In all, it is estimated that $4.6bn (£3.5bn) was sent to Europe and the US from a Russian-operated network of 70 offshore companies with accounts in Lithuania.

The details have emerged from 1.3m banking transactions obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Lithuanian website 15min.lt.

[...]

There is no suggestion that end recipients of funds were aware of the original source of the money, which arrived via a disguised route. However, the documents indicate that criminal and legitimate money may have been mixed together, making it impossible to trace the original source, before passing through screen companies into the global banking system.

“This is the pipe through which the proceeds of kleptocracy flow from Russia to the west,” said the anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder.

[...]

The leak focuses on Troika Dialog, a leading Russian investment bank now merged with the country’s biggest high street bank. Emails reveal how certain managers at Troika kept money flowing through the pipeline for more than eight years, starting in 2004.

  The Guardian

In case you missed it, here's Gaslit Nation discussing how Brexit was connected to the Russians who are implicated in Trump's 2016 win.

The cash was then used legally to pay for private jets, custom-built yachts, luxury properties, holidays, football tickets and fees at top English private schools.

[...]

[M]oney went towards the rescue of Dumfries House, a stately home in Ayrshire with a priceless collection of Chippendale furniture. In 2007, the mansion and its collection were set to be auctioned off to private buyers. Charles came to the rescue, raising £45m at breakneck speed to save the property for the nation.

But the venture left his foundation in debt, and in his efforts to plug the hole, the heir to the throne went on a fundraising drive. Vardanyan raised a further £1.5m, from a group of Russian businessmen, and the prince thanked them with a black-tie dinner in 2014.

[...]

Two more cases suggest criminal funds flowed through the network: Companies named in the prosecution of a fuel price fixing scam at Moscow’s state-owned Sheremetyevo airport appear to have paid $37m into the Troika network.

A further $17m in transfers connects Troika-managed companies to a Moscow resident accused of laundering 50bn roubles using schemes that helped businesses evade tax and send money abroad.

A key component of the scheme using Troika companies was a Lithuanian bank, Ukio, which was shut down by regulators in February 2013 after being declared insolvent.

The bank is under investigation by Lithuanian prosecutors tasked with investigating the laundering of the Magnitsky money.

[...]

Documents show money moved in and out of the bank in deals made by apparently fictitious businesses, tax haven-registered entities with no offices, no staff, and no presence online or in the world of commerce.

[...]

There appear to have been a number of others unwittingly caught up in the network. Troika-linked entities were used to pay for expenses that open a window into the world of the super-rich.

This will go quiet, right along with the Panama Papers.

But, here's some more info if you're interested:  What is the "Troika Laundromat"?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another dark day in the dark ages of Trump

President Donald Trump just bragged that Vladimir Putin has offered to send Russian government investigators to look into Russian government meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

That is not a joke.

It’s the “interesting idea” Trump mentioned during the press conference after Monday’s closed-door meeting between the two leaders. An idea he said Putin proposed to address Russian involvement in America’s last election and its potential interference in future ones (including the 2018 midterm elections).

[...]

In other words, this is Putin’s “interesting idea” to address exhaustively documented allegations that employees of the Russian government tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign by hacking into, and publishing, private emails from one major party in the campaign:

- Have Russian government officials ask other Russian government officials if the Russian government told them to commit a crime.

- Let US officials watch Russian officials ask other Russian officials if the Russian government told them to commit a crime.

- Send Russian officials into the US to investigate allegations against domestic critics of Vladimir Putin.

  Vox

Also, he wanted a quid pro quo:  Give him access to Bill Browder.  The guy whose Russian lawyer was jailed and assassinated in Russia - Sergei Magnitsky.  Remember Magnitsky?  Remember Junior's Trump Tower meeting?

And this is Trump's public response:

"What he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer."

It's an incredible offer, okay. As Charlie Pierce says, Jesus take the wheel.

UPDATE:



Indeed, we've had our dark moments.  But I can't say any surpass this.

Why Trump fired Preet Bharara

A major money-laundering case set to go to trial last week in New York was suddenly settled three days earlier, with both the US government and the defendant, the Russian firm Prevezon Holdings, claiming victory.

[...]

"It was a surprise," said John Dillard, a spokesman for Prevezon's attorneys. "We were getting ready for opening statements and fully expected to try the case. In fact, we were looking forward to it."

"We reluctantly agreed to accept the government's offer when it became clear that the fine proposed was no more than we would have spent fully litigating the case, and that no admission of guilt, forfeiture or continued seizure of any assets was required," Dillard added. "Essentially, the offer was too good to refuse."

The investigation into whether Prevezon, a real-estate company incorporated in Cyprus, laundered millions of dollars into New York City real estate garnered high-profile attention given its ties to a $230 million Russian tax-fraud scheme and Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose suspicious death aroused international media attention.

Magnitsky uncovered the scheme in 2008 on behalf of one of his clients at the time, the investment advisory firm Hermitage Capital. He was later thrown in jail and died in custody.

[...]

The US government had been investigating the $230 million scheme that Magnitsky uncovered — and what happened to the proceeds — for nearly four years.

[...]

The trail ultimately led to Manhattan, where Preet Bharara, then the US attorney there, accused Prevezon in September 2013 of receiving "at least $1,965,444 in proceeds from the $230 million fraud scheme" in early 2008 via wire transfers from at least two suspected shell companies through the Southern District of New York.

[...]

he Russian government declined to provide the US government with evidence of Russian money flows that would strengthen the case against Prevezon. Nikolai Gorokhov, a lawyer representing Magnitsky's family, was able to photograph documents contained in a Russian case file targeting two people involved in the $230 million scheme that traced the money to Russia.

Gorokhov mysteriously fell from a window in Moscow just over a month before he was due to testify in the Prevezon case.

[...]

Louise Shelley, an illicit-finance expert who was set to testify in support of the US government, told CNN the day after the case was settled that she was concerned about the possibility that "political pressure" had been applied to the US attorney's office.

  Business Insider

Trump did fire the prosecutor and replaced him with someone more compliant.

A spokesman for the US Attorney's office said the settlement saved taxpayers the expense of a trial, and reiterated that the settlement was for "many multiples more" than the amount of proceeds of the Russian tax fraud alleged to have been laundered through real-estate purchases in New York. He characterized it as a "very good outcome" for the government.

If you think of Trump as the government.

"I would have liked to see the case come to a public trial so that sun could shine on the evidence and details of the alleged wrongdoing," said John Cassara, a former intelligence officer who served in the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

[...]

"According to estimates approximately $5 trillion is laundered globally every year. In comparison, what is $5.9 million?" Cassara said. "We probably recover about 1% of the money laundered globally. We have to keep things in perspective. Our efforts to combat international money laundering are failing, and this case did nothing to turn the tide."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.