June 29, 2018: Brits, Russians, Members of Trump Administration Hide Loot Offshore

 

6/29/18: Aaron Banks, a person you’ve never heard of, may turn out to be an important link in the Mueller investigation. 

To understand why, think Russians, lots of Russians. Think lots of gold, lots of diamonds, and the Isle of Man. 

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin parks money in offshore tax havens.

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No smoking gun has been found – but as is true with most characters in the Trump campaign – there are plenty of spent shell casings lying about.

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Banks is not your typical “person of interest” in the Mueller probe. He never worked to get Donald J. Trump elected. He’s not even American. Nevertheless, if you want a template for what the Russians were up to during the 2016 campaign, you have it with Banks. By the time Britons voted to leave the European Union that summer, he was already a well-known financier. Banks was a leading backer of the Brexit strategy, a position favored by Putin and his Forty Thieves. In that cause, Banks spent eight million pounds out of his own pocket. That’s $12 million American. 

You might have imagined that here was a patriot who envisioned a better day for his country. If only the United Kingdom would chart a different course in matters of trade and border policies! 

Emails leaked from one of Mr. Banks’s accounts paint a darker picture. Behind the scenes, agents of the Russian government were cozying up to the Brexit-loving tycoon. We know Mueller and his investigators are pouring through Banks’s emails, looking for clues. No smoking gun has been found – but as is true with most characters in the Trump campaign – there are plenty of spent shell casings lying about.

 

Earlier this month, The New York Times noted, Banks was called in front of Parliament for questioning. British lawmakers, knowing Russia had wished to see their country leave the European Union and weaken the Western alliance, wanted to ask Banks about ties to Putin and his pals. 

Like every last member of Team Trump to end up being investigated, Banks’s memory proved fuzzy. He admitted he had “two lunches and a cup of tea” with the Russian ambassador, Alexander V. Yakovenko, during the run-up to the Brexit vote (June 23, 2016). Oh, Banks added as an afterthought, the ambassador did inquire. Would he be interested in investing in a deal involving half-a-dozen Russian gold mines? 

Why, no, Banks says he told Yakovenko. He did not wish to bother. 

 

Diamond mine or gold mine? 

Now that his emails have surfaced, it becomes clear there was much that Mr. Banks “forgot” to mention during testimony. He wasn’t offered just one chance to invest. He was offered three. The second involved Alrosa, a state-controlled Russian diamond mine. The third involved a rich Russian, described to Banks in an email from an investment adviser as “a mini oligarch,” and a gold mine in Guinea, Africa. British reporters began sniffing about. Friday, reporters from The New York Times joined the truffle hunt. Banks said in an interview with the Times that he did recall being offered those deals. But wasn’t it mean, he grumbled, this “wholesale theft” of his emails. 

Why, who would stoop so low as to steal a man’s emails! 

 

“Why would the Russians do this for Banks?” 

On this side of the Atlantic, where Republicans control Congress, lawmakers were not exactly working overtime to pursue these sorts of leads. Across the pond, Damian Collins, chairman of the parliamentary committee looking into Russian interference in the Brexit vote, sounded quite suspicious after perusing Banks’s email trail. “The question is,” Collins wondered, “Why would the Russians do this for Banks? What it looks like is that Russia decided he was someone they wanted to do business with and they wanted to see prosper and succeed – and Banks, alongside that, wanted to hide the extent of his contacts with the Russians.” 

In the face of freshly uncovered email evidence, Banks found himself in a bit of a biscuits and jam. He was forced to admit that there had been a fourth meeting with the ambassador. Banks was quick to say that his testimony previously, about “two lunches and a cup of tea” was “relatively accurate.” 

If that sounds to you like Trump and his campaign staff describing meetings with Russians, it should. 

It turns out Banks and his media adviser, Andrew Wigmore, had another friendly meeting with a Russian diplomat named Alexander Udod. 

That would be five.

 

Udod was recently listed as one of 23 suspected Russian spies and expelled from Great Britain in the wake of the attempted poisoning of Putin critic and former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal. That poisoning on British soil left Skripal and Skripal’s daughter in critical condition. 

For Banks, the meeting with Udod was good. This led to his first meeting with the Russian ambassador, which led to a meeting with a Russian businessman, who offered Banks a chance to invest in Russian gold mines. “I am very bullish on gold so keen to have a look,” Banks later emailed the businessman. He was interested enough to contact a banker familiar with Russian gold and diamond mines to say he was pondering a role in what he called “the gold play.” 

“I intend to pop in and see the ambassador as well,” Banks said in an email. He copied that email to Udod.

 

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has multiple offshore accounts.

 

Greed before God and Country. 

Banks swears on his bank book that he never engaged in any deal. But he failed to mention in testimony that he had been offered a second investment opportunity by the same Russian tycoon, Siman Povarenkin. Povarenkin told Banks that the Russians were about to sell a 10 percent stake in Alrosa, a giant diamond mining operation. Would Banks prefer to invest in diamonds? In an email on January 16, 2016, another investment adviser working for Banks wrote to Povarenkin to assure him that his client had “not forgotten about your Alrosa project.” 

So: diamonds it was. (See: 11/29-30/18 and 12/17-21/18.) 

You might think Banks’s memory would have been jogged a bit in September 2017 when an Alrosa mine in Russia turned up a 27.85 carat pink diamond estimated to be worth roughly $10 million. 

But no. 

In interviews this week, Banks first said he knew nothing about the Alrosa project. Then email evidence forced him to admit he had heard about it. He insisted he did not pursue it. Then it turned out his business partner and friend James Mellon, also a major backer of the Brexit strategy, did get in on the deal. 

In case you’ve forgotten, some of the most serious allegations in the Steele dossier involve lucrative deals in Russian gas and oil offered to leading figures in the Trump campaign. 

Greed before God and Country.

 

Mellon, The New York Times reported, is “a prominent investor based in the Isle of Man,” and “a partner with Mr. Banks in a financial institution on the island. Mr. Mellon has made hundreds of millions of dollars investing in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, often alongside businessmen close to President Vladimir M. Putin.” 

The Times continued: 

Three weeks after the 2016 Brexit vote, the Russian government sold the Alrosa stake in a private offering to a restricted group of investors [emphasis added]. The shares were sold at a discount to the market price at a time when the value of both the stock and diamonds were rising.

 

Mr. Mellon’s fund management company, Charlemagne Capital, was among a restricted number of investors who were allowed to participate.

 

A third Russian investment deal surfaced in April 2016, two months before the Brexit vote. Yet another investment banker (with connections in Russia) emailed Banks. Would he like to invest in a gold mine in Guinea, with a Russian businessman who “shares your passion for the yellow metal?” 

Banks first told reporters he had no memory of this discussion. I mean, who would remember talking about a gold mine in Africa and a Russian oligarch who owned it? 

Oops. 

Banks had to call reporters back and admit there had been a meeting on May 10, 2016, that possibly involved a discussion about that mine. 

 

Banks and Russian ambassador discussed Trump campaign. 

In August 2016, Banks met with the Russian ambassador for lunch again. Banks’s emails reveal that the two discussed the Trump campaign. They met again on November 12, after Trump won. This time discussion turned to Jeff Sessions and the role he might play in the Trump cabinet. 

In the end, Banks professed complete innocence, telling The New York Times, “The idea that things were dangled as some sort of carrots for me to be involved with the Russians is very far-fetched. I wonder what the Russians wanted from me?” 

I think I can answer that, but first, I’d like to answer the question Banks didn’t pose. What did Banks want? 

Banks wanted what all these shady crooks want – great wealth – more money than any human being needs. Banks was driven by greed. Think guys like Banks and those Russian oligarchs pillaging their homeland and members of the Trump campaign wouldn’t be happy to cheat their own people? Think again.

 

Consider, the Isle of Man, where Banks and Mellon do business. It’s a notorious tax haven where the superrich from around the globe gather, financially speaking, to avoid paying taxes. Meanwhile, ordinary taxi drivers, truckers and teachers, the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker all cough up their hard-earned dough.  

Those with accounts on the Isle of Man, where the tax rate is virtually zero, normally enjoy total secrecy. Hackers broke into bank records in in 2015 and revealed all kinds of sleazy operations. Those with hidden accounts on the Isle included John Whittaker, a Briton, sitting atop a fortune estimated to be 2.3 billion pounds, or $3.4 billion American. Trevor Baines, a man who amassed a fortune of 130 million pounds, and then went to jail for money laundering, also banked on the Isle of Man. Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit charge, had an account on the island. At the same time, he was campaigning against leaders of the European Union who he insisted were dodging their share of taxes. 

How greedy are these people? How low are they willing to go to sell out their homelands? In another recent leak of secret tax records, involving a Panamanian law firm and multiple offshore tax shelters, several interesting names popped up. First among thieves, you might say, were Wilbur Ross, President Trump’s Secretary of Commerce and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. That meant you had Secretary Mnuchin weaseling out of paying taxes to the Treasury Department he runs. Gary Cohn, Trump’s former chief economic adviser, set up 22 separate companies in Bermuda, another tax haven. Trump’s former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, also set up fake companies on the island. Ben Carson, head of Housing and Urban Department, sheltered part of his wealth in Bermuda. 

Who else appears to be evading their taxes? Tom Barrack, the billionaire businessman who organized the Trump inauguration ceremonies, favors the Cayman Islands. That’s one of the most famous tax havens. Jay Clayton, Trump’s SEC chairman, also has a stash of cash in the Caymans. 

 

20,000 corporations – 1 address. 

How absurd is this system? How greedy are these folks? And why might we suspect a guy like Trump – whose tax returns are eternally hidden? More than 100,000 corporations claim their headquarters are located in the Cayman Islands. This means they avoid paying taxes they would owe the United States and other governments round the world. That includes 20,000 corporations with addresses in the same five-story office tower, the Ugland House. 

If you are still wondering how far these people will go to pile up more and more wealth, consider the population of the Cayman Islands, where all these corporations claim they’ve located headquarters. As a public service, we can provide you with that number. It would be 62,347. 

Or to put it simply, every man, woman, and baby in diapers on the islands must be running 1½ corporations.

The Cayman Islands: Home to more corporations than people.