The Russians are not coming — they are already here. Fortunately, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is on the case and hot on their trails. Some of the men closest to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin have real estate in Donald Trump’s home city, New York. Yet, Mueller has them figured out, and are they ever sorry.
The Russian aluminum billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, not only hangs out with Putin, he is tight with Russian mob leaders. Some of his worst crimes were racketeering, murder, money-laundering, and bribery.
Now, the U.S. government has frozen the billionaire’s assets in the U.S., including huge mansions. One is in Manhattan, NY, and the other one in Washington, D.C.
Treasury officials report that any time the U.S. government freezes someone’s assets, their associates had better look out. Any person doing business with the sanctioned person or sanctioned companies could end up being sanctioned, too.
The FBI attempted to flip Deripaska, because the agency wanted to find out more about Russian organized crime and information on how Russia supported Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to The New York Times. Apparently, Deripaska worked to free an FBI agent who had been snagged in Iran.
It got worse for Deripaska. The feds have come down hard on the magnate in Europe, too. It seems, the U.S. officials have offered him a hard deal. Either the billionaire quit interfering in the EU or face other sanctions like the ones in the United States.
It appears that the president’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort worked for the aluminum magnate. Notice that Mueller charged Manafort with money-laundering, among other crimes and has turned states evidence.
Deripaska’s Manhattan mansion is located at 11 East 64th Street, which is an extremely high-rent district. He paid $42.5 million for it in 2008, according to property records.
The mansion is actually a double-wide townhouse five-stories tall. Alec Wildenstein, an international art dealer, and his wife Jocelyn Wildenstein owned the mansion before Deripaska bought it. Wildenstein had his art gallery just down the street. Blavatnik also bought it, turning it into the priciest townhouse in Manhattan.
The Wildensteins had a relationship reminiscent of the movie War of the Roses. It seems that the art dealer threatened his wife at the point of a gun.
Coincidentally, or not, the Ukrainian oligarch Len Blavatnik just happens to own a mansion in the same neighborhood. It sold for $90 million this year.
Even though Deripaska’s U.S. assets were frozen by the government, he made a sweet deal with them. His business partner, another oligarch named Roman Abramovich’s children and ex-wife will be able to remain living in the mansion.
The woman, Dasha Zhukova, does indeed live in the mansion, real estate records show. Apparently, she is an “editor and patron of the arts,” according to The New York Post. Abramovich and she must still get along, because he just transferred $92Â million in real estate to her.
Zhukova has friends in high places stateside, too, first daughter Ivanka Trump. She, Abramovich, and Trump, plus her husband Jared Kushner travel the world together. Their travels have taken them to Aspen, Croatia, and Russia.
At the moment, Zhukova is dating Stavros Niarchos. He is a Greek shipping heir. Abramovich is tidying up the close circle of friends by dating Deripaska’s wife, Polina Deripaska. The Deripaskas are separated.
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
