Trump building in Panama tied to Russian mafia..

[HipChick]

Investors and customers of the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama City carried deep ties to organized crime and drug trafficking, according to an NBC News and Reuters joint investigation.

A Brazillian real estate salesman who partnered with the Trumps to attract condo buyers for the tower told NBC that the Trumps and others connected to the project were unaware that he was attracting shady investors to the project, but that they never asked any questions.“I had some customers with questionable backgrounds,” said Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, who spoke to NBC on camera but under disguise from an undisclosed European city.

“Nobody ever asked me. Banks never asked. Developer didn’t ask and (the) Trump Organization didn’t ask. Nobody ask, ‘Who are the customers, where did the money come from?’ No, nobody ask.”
The Reuters and NBC News investigation said it found no indication that the Trump family or the Trump organization engaged in any illegal activity, or know of the backgrounds of people who did have links to organized crime.

In a statement in response to the investigation, the Trump Organization distanced itself from the Panama project.

“The Trump Organization was not the owner, developer or seller of the Trump Ocean Club Panama project,” the statement said. “Because of its limited role, the company was not responsible for the financing of the project and had no involvement in the sale of units or the retention of any real estate brokers.”Still, legal experts contacted by Reuters for the story said Trump should have asked those questions.

Because Panama is “perceived to be highly corrupt,” said Arthur Middlemiss, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and a former head of JPMorgan’s global anti-corruption program, those who do business there should perform due diligence on others involved in their ventures.

If they fail to do so, he told Reuters, they risk being liable under U.S. law of being found having turned a blind eye to wrongdoing.The Trump Organization does not own the hotel, but rather licenses the Trump name to the project in order to boost sales.Ventura, according to the report, had a "challenge" with Ivanka Trump over whether he could sell 100 of the units in the building. If he succeeded, Ivanka Trump would name him the lead sales rep for the project.“The agreement was, I had a week to sell 100 units,” Ventura said. “I said, ‘I’m going to do better, I’m going to sell without telling (the buyers) the price.”

Ventura ended up selling the units, and eventually ended up appearing alongside Ivanka Trump in a video promoting the project. He was also photographed with President Trump himself.Several of those units were sold to David Murcia Guzmán, the founder of a large Colombian marketing company. Guzman now sits in a U.S. jail cell, awaiting extradition to Colombia after being convicted of laundering money for drug cartels.In fact, some of the units seemed to be sold several times. Once the project was completed, complaints began arising that Ventura double- or triple-sold units, and that several customers "ran into each other."

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/360852-trump-building-in-panama-tied-to-russian-mafia-international-crime

[Kirk Lover]

1. MUST SEE TV RICHARD ENGEL TONIGHT MSNBC

[spanone]

2. K&R...

Donnie Two Scoops is Dirty.

[HipChick]

4. Always has been...Jared too

[lsewpershad]

3. Jeeze

When will someone indict, put on trial and " lock up" this guy.

[malaise]

5. A crime family is running America

with ReTHUG Congressional complicity

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Here's more:

2015:

Trump demands $75 million from Panama condo owners.

Donald Trump is demanding as much as $75 million from hundreds of condo owners in Panama City's Trump Ocean Club, alleging that its directors wrongfully fired his company as administrator managing the luxury building that is the tallest in Central America.
Trump's claim alleged a criminal conspiracy to remove his management company from its unpaid position as building administrator for the luxury property in Panama City. As the AP reported last month, the owners' board of directors had accused Trump's managers of repeatedly exceeding budgets, paying themselves bonuses without permission and improperly passing costs from the building's Trump-controlled hotel.

Eric Trump, who controls the management company along with Ivanka Trump and his father, disputed the investor and owner claims in an AP interview.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-demands-75-million-from-panama-condo-owners/

So Trump, denying he has any connections with the hotel except the use of his name....now admits his company actually managed the condos, but at same time the management was an unpaid service.
That he wants money for, now...or then, in 2015.

and this: from THIS March.
Ricardo Martinelli, the ex-president of Panama facing extradition on corruption charges, helped him launch his first international property.

On July 6, 2011......
Trump stood at a podium, flanked by his two oldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric
celebrating the opening of his first international real-estate deal, the Ocean Club in Panama City, Panama.
Snip:

Martinelli is a fugitive from justice wanted on multiple corruption charges and investigations, ranging from allegedly helping to embezzle $45 million from a government school lunch program to insider trading to using public funds to spy on more than 150 political opponents, lawyers, doctors, and activists.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3067820/trumps-panama-problem