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Spain's Robert Mueller takes on the Russian mob (USA related)
Spain's Robert Mueller takes on the Russian mob
MADRID — Dawn’s first rays were streaming through the palm trees in Spain’s laid-back jet-setter paradise Marbella when the crashing of waves was drowned out by the whomp-whomp of hovering police helicopters and the wail of sirens. Roadblocks went up and streets were shut down all morning as more than 100 officers of the Guardia Civil, the Spanish military police, raced across the port city — storming villas, ritzy eateries, yachts, a golf course, the soccer stadium, a bank, even raiding a water-bottling plant deep in the dusty hills.
By lunchtime on that Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017, the police had confiscated 23 luxury autos and hundreds of thousands of euros. They also arrested 11 Russians, including the beloved owner of the local soccer team, Alexander Grinberg, charging him with, among other things, membership in a criminal group — specifically Russia’s most powerful mafia, Solntsevskaya Brotherhood, the world’s richest, said to pull in some $9 billion a year.
A Spanish police report obtained by Yahoo News Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff said the group was involved in “criminal activities including drugs, counterfeiting, extortion, car theft, human trafficking, fraud, fake ids, contract killing, and trafficking in jewels, art, and antiques. This was done on an international scale. Not just in Russia. Solntsevskaya has also demonstrated active cooperation with other international criminal organizations, like Mexican mafias, Colombian drug cartels, Italian criminal organizations (particularly with the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta and the Neapolitan Camorra), the Japanese yakuza, and Chinese triads, among others.”
But the “big fish” of that day’s catch was former Russian hotelier Arnold Tamm, aka Spivakovsky, alleged to be a trusted aide to the notorious Semion Mogilevich — a Ukraine-born economist known as “the Brainy Don” whose photo long resided on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. He was described as a “Global Con Artist and Ruthless Criminal,” accused of bilking U.S. investors out of $150 million in a stock fraud. But above all, Mogilevich is a mastermind of cleaning up dirty money — using financial transactions that make the cash generated from criminal enterprises appear legitimate, and park it in accessible and safe investments in Western countries such as Spain or the United States, valued precisely for their adherence to legal norms.
More: https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/spains-robert-mueller-takes-russian-mob-202248019.html?__twitter_impression=true
MADRID — Dawn’s first rays were streaming through the palm trees in Spain’s laid-back jet-setter paradise Marbella when the crashing of waves was drowned out by the whomp-whomp of hovering police helicopters and the wail of sirens. Roadblocks went up and streets were shut down all morning as more than 100 officers of the Guardia Civil, the Spanish military police, raced across the port city — storming villas, ritzy eateries, yachts, a golf course, the soccer stadium, a bank, even raiding a water-bottling plant deep in the dusty hills.
By lunchtime on that Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017, the police had confiscated 23 luxury autos and hundreds of thousands of euros. They also arrested 11 Russians, including the beloved owner of the local soccer team, Alexander Grinberg, charging him with, among other things, membership in a criminal group — specifically Russia’s most powerful mafia, Solntsevskaya Brotherhood, the world’s richest, said to pull in some $9 billion a year.
A Spanish police report obtained by Yahoo News Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff said the group was involved in “criminal activities including drugs, counterfeiting, extortion, car theft, human trafficking, fraud, fake ids, contract killing, and trafficking in jewels, art, and antiques. This was done on an international scale. Not just in Russia. Solntsevskaya has also demonstrated active cooperation with other international criminal organizations, like Mexican mafias, Colombian drug cartels, Italian criminal organizations (particularly with the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta and the Neapolitan Camorra), the Japanese yakuza, and Chinese triads, among others.”
But the “big fish” of that day’s catch was former Russian hotelier Arnold Tamm, aka Spivakovsky, alleged to be a trusted aide to the notorious Semion Mogilevich — a Ukraine-born economist known as “the Brainy Don” whose photo long resided on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. He was described as a “Global Con Artist and Ruthless Criminal,” accused of bilking U.S. investors out of $150 million in a stock fraud. But above all, Mogilevich is a mastermind of cleaning up dirty money — using financial transactions that make the cash generated from criminal enterprises appear legitimate, and park it in accessible and safe investments in Western countries such as Spain or the United States, valued precisely for their adherence to legal norms.
More: https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/spains-robert-mueller-takes-russian-mob-202248019.html?__twitter_impression=true
Keep reading for mentions of Robert Mueller, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Alexander Torshin, (who has been described by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., as “the conservatives’ favorite Russian.”), Alexander Litvinenko, Oleg Deripaska, & Dmytro Firtash.
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
I'm so glad you asked. 
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210115416
https://vimeo.com/243335623
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