DOJ Abruptly Settles Russian Money Laundering Case – Nothing to See Here

July 13, 2017 By: El Jefe Category: Congress, Russians, Trump

In May, two days before trial, Jeff Session’s DOJ abruptly settled a $230 million Russian money laundering case for a measly $6 million.  The case, United States v. Prevezon Holdings Ltd, alleged that Russians were using New York real estate to launder Russian money into the US.  To add just a little intrigue, the Russian attorney who discovered the fraud, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian prison under mysterious circumstances.  Even more important, though, was that one of the attorneys representing Prevezon in the case was none other than Natalia Veselnitskaya…that’s right, that Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with DJT Jr last summer promising dirt on Hillary.

But that’s not all.  The US attorney in New York who was going after Prevezon?  Correct. Preet Bharara, who Trump summarily fired earlier this year.  In describing the case before he was fired, Bharara said,

In 2007, a Russian criminal organization engaged in an elaborate tax refund fraud scheme resulting in a fraudulently-obtained tax refund of approximately $230 million  from the Russian treasury….

Members of the criminal organization, and associates of those members, have also engaged in a broad pattern of money laundering in order to conceal the proceeds of the fraud scheme. In a complex series of transfers through shell corporations, the $230 million from the Russian treasury was laundered into numerous accounts in Russia and other countries ….

PREVEZON HOLDINGS laundered these fraud proceeds into its real estate holdings, including investment in multiple units of high-end commercial space and luxury apartments in Manhattan, and created multiple other corporations, also subject to the forfeiture action, to hold these properties.

Why was Bharara fired?  We’ll never really know, but he was hot after Trump’s Russia connections and other cases involving him and his companies.

This case received little attention in May when the settlement happened, but in the wake of the firestorm around DJT Jr’s emails and meeting with Veselnitskaya last summer, Democrats in Congress are beginning to connect the dots and have now demanded disclosure from Jeff Sessions about this case and its connections to both Trump and DJT Jr.  Are all of these Trump/Russia intersections simply coinkidink?  I think not, but it will take persistence of the press and honest prosecutors to uncover it, for sure.

Drip, drip, drip.