Following The Money To Panama

Aside from prosecution on obstruction of justice and Federal election and cyber security law violations, the corrupt world of neo-fascist con man Donald "Rump" Trump will almost certainly be discovered to be floating on a sea of laundered Russian oligarch / government money. Hence, Rump's slavish fealty to Russian thug Vladimir "Vlad the Invader" Putin. After all, everyone recalls the statement of greasy son Donald Trump, Jr. in 2008 when he told a group of Moscow investors that Russians "make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets."

Now there are reports that the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel in Panama City, Panama, the pet project of Ivanka "Complicit" Trump, was in business with a fraudster, who laundered Russian mafia money and was the leading broker for advance sales at the club complex. The man, Alexandre Nogueira, sounds like quite "businessman" in the Trump mold:

"...He did business with a Colombian who was later convicted of money laundering and is now in detention in the United States; a Russian investor in the Trump project who was jailed in Israel in the 1990s for kidnap and threats to kill; and a Ukrainian investor who was arrested for alleged people-smuggling while working with Nogueira and later convicted by a Kiev court.

Three years after getting involved in the Trump Ocean Club, Nogueira was arrested by Panamanian authorities on charges of fraud and forgery, unrelated to the Trump project. Released on $1.4 million bail, he later fled the country."

Panama has become a favorite locale for hiding dirty money, tax fraud and avoiding financial sanctions. The infamous Panama Papers scandal revealed the offshore shell companies and financial doings that have implicated celebrities and heads of state in illegal or unethical matters. With that history, anyone that cared about business ethics and steering clear of suspect characters and their money should have noticed the unusual flood of money into the Rump Ocean Club. Apparently, not "Complicit." Legal experts are suspicious:

"Arthur Middlemiss, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and a former head of JPMorgan’s global anti-corruption program, said that since Panama was 'perceived to be highly corrupt,”'anyone engaged in business there should conduct due diligence on others involved in their ventures. If they did not, he said, there was a potential risk in U.S. law of being liable for turning a blind eye to wrongdoing." (emphasis added)

The Rump crime family couldn't be bothered to check up on the seedy characters buying their Ocean Club properties. It's a lot like the way they conduct business in New York City, etc. Show us the money, no questions asked. The only problem for them is now they have a Special Counsel asking the questions.