Donald Trump and organized crime (nonfiction)

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Businessman and television personality Donald Trump has been linked to organized crime.

Allegations and evidence

Mother Jones

When Trump ran for president in 2016, I was one of the few reporters who examined his shady record of organized crime connections—particularly his history of making false or contradictory statements about these relations. As I noted then, “when asked about his links to the mob, Trump has repeatedly made false comments and has contradicted himself—to such a degree it seems he has flat-out lied about these relationships, even when he was under oath.” I detailed several of these instances—which have even greater relevance now that Trump is the lead defendant in a RICO case.

"Fear City" (Netflix)

  • Netflix's Fear City Hints at Trump's Mob Connections. The Real Story Goes Even Deeper. @ Esquire - For years, the president did business in industries with strong mafia ties. - As Fear City points out, doing business in broad swaths of New York's economy when Trump was a young man meant doing business with the mob. But Trump's main industries—development, casinos, and luxury real estate—were particularly infested with organized crime. And what makes him notable is that he sometimes appeared to do more business with the mafia than was strictly necessary. According to biographer Wayne Barrett (nonfiction), "he went out of his way not to avoid" contacts with the mafia, "but to increase them."

Why FBI Can’t Tell All on Trump, Russia

Taj Mahal

The Trump Taj Mahal casino broke anti-money laundering rules 106 times in its first year and a half of operation in the early 1990s

The casino repeatedly failed to properly report gamblers who cashed out $10,000 or more in a single day

Need to Impeach

The web of Donald Trump’s connections to organized crime is alarming and goes back decades. From Russian mobsters and convicted drug traffickers to multimillion-dollar money laundering schemes and bank fraud, his history of criminal associates puts him — and the country — at risk.

https://www.needtoimpeach.com/corruption/category/organized-crime/organized-crime/

Trump’s résumé is rife with mob connections

Trump’s résumé is rife with mob connections
By David Von Drehle @ Washington Post
August 10, 2018

In 1988, Vincent “the Fish” Cafaro of the Genovese crime family testified before a U.S. Senate committee concerning the Mafia’s control of building projects in New York. Construction unions and concrete contractors were deeply dirty, Cafaro confirmed, and four of the city’s five crime families worked cooperatively to keep it that way.

This would not have been news to Trump, whose early political mentor and personal lawyer was Roy Cohn, consigliere to such dons as Fat Tony Salerno and Carmine Galante. After Cohn guided the brash young developer through the gutters of city politics to win permits for Trump Plaza and Trump Tower, it happened that Trump elected to build primarily with concrete rather than steel. He bought the mud at inflated prices from S&A Concrete, co-owned by Cohn’s client Salerno and Paul Castellano, boss of the Gambino family.

Coincidence? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Trump moved next into the New Jersey casino business, which was every bit as clean as it sounds. State officials merely shrugged when Trump bought a piece of land from associates of Philadelphia mob boss “Little Nicky” Scarfo for roughly $500,000 more than it was worth. However, this and other ties persuaded police in Australia to block Trump’s bid to build a casino in Sydney in 1987, citing Trump’s “Mafia connections.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/are-trumps-mob-connections-a-coincidence-fuhgeddaboudit/2018/08/10/24b62e2c-9cad-11e8-843b-36e177f3081c_story.html

The New Republic

Russian mob money helped build Trump business empire (July 17, 2017)

A stunning report in The New Republic alleges that, whether Donald Trump knew it or not, for decades he made a large portion of his personal fortune from Russian mobsters & oligarchs.

https://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/report-russian-mob-money-helped-build-trump-business-empire-1002228291948

Trump's Russian Laundromat

See Trump's Russian Laundromat (nonfiction)

How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money, run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate developer into the White House.

https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate

  • Post @ Twitter (7 April 2024)

Just What Were Donald Trump's Ties to the Mob?

Just What Were Donald Trump's Ties to the Mob?

I've spent years investigating, and here's what's known.

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON May 22, 2016

Trump hired mobbed-up firms to erect Trump Tower and his Trump Plaza apartment building in Manhattan, including buying ostensibly overpriced concrete from a company controlled by mafia chieftains Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano. That story eventually came out in a federal investigation, which also concluded that in a construction industry saturated with mob influence, the Trump Plaza apartment building most likely benefited from connections to racketeering. Trump also failed to disclose that he was under investigation by a grand jury directed by the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, who wanted to learn how Trump obtained an option to buy the Penn Central railroad yards on the West Side of Manhattan.

Why did Trump get his casino license anyway? Why didn’t investigators look any harder? And how deep did his connections to criminals really go?

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910

Vice Guide: A Brief History of Donald Trump and the Mafia

The VICE Guide To The 2016 Election

A Brief History of Donald Trump and the Mafia

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ppx7b9/a-brief-history-of-donald-trump-and-the-mafia

  • Post @ Twitter (2 January 2024)

Felix Sater

2019 Kazakh bank lawsuit

FORMER TRUMP ASSOCIATE FELIX SATER ACCUSED OF LAUNDERING MILLIONS THROUGH REAL ESTATE PROJECTS LINKED TO PRESIDENT BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 3/26/19 AT 3:25 PM EDT

[A] new lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York by a bank from the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan alleges that Sater helped launder millions of dollars stolen from the bank and funnel them into real estate projects, some of which may have been linked to President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit centers on BTA Bank's decade-long battle to recuperate billions of dollars allegedly stolen by its former chairman, the fugitive Mukhtar Ablyazov. The Kazakh bank claims that Ablyazov stole over $4 billion dollars before fleeing to Russia and later Europe, and it has pursued numerous lawsuits against him in a wide range of jurisdictions.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-felix-sater-tower-1375485

Wikipedia

Felix Henry Sater /ˈseɪtər/ (born Felix Mikhailovich Sheferovsky; March 2, 1966) is a Russian-American mobster, convicted felon, real estate developer and former managing director of Bayrock Group LLC, a real estate conglomerate based out of New York City. Sater left Bayrock Group LLC in 2008 and has not been involved with the company for over a decade. He has subsequently been an advisor to many corporations, including The Trump Organization, Rixos Hotels and Resorts, Sembol Construction, Potok (formerly the Mirax Group), and TxOil.

In 1998, Sater pleaded guilty to his involvement in a $40 million stock fraud scheme orchestrated by the Russian Mafia, and became an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and federal prosecutors, assisting with organized crime investigations. In 2017, Sater agreed to cooperate with investigators into international money laundering schemes.

During the 2015-16 American presidential campaign, Sater worked with Michael Cohen, former attorney for The Trump Organization, to broker a deal to build a Trump Tower Moscow, asserting to Cohen that he could boost Trump's election prospects through his Russian contacts. On June 21, 2019, Sater was issued a subpoena by the House Intelligence Committee after he refused a request to testify voluntarily. On July 9, 2019, Sater appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, but repeatedly withheld testimony and documents concerning the details of a false joint defense agreement and thus remains under subpoena.

Judge I. Leo Glasser confirmed that Sater helped the U.S. government track down Osama bin Laden as he provided the telephone number of Osama bin Laden.

Sammy Gravano

Fiction cross-reference

Nonfiction cross-reference

External links

Social media

  • Post @ Twitter (1 September 2023) - Trump’s résumé is rife with mob connections
  • Post @ Twitter (24 August 2023) - New Republic article - Laundromat
  • Post @ Twitter (21 June 2023)
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