Sater Eyed Trump Moscow Tower to Launder Cash, BTA Bank Says

By Erik Larson

March 25, 2019, 2:44 PM EDT Updated on March 25, 2019, 4:39 PM EDT

BTA’s lawsuit comes as Sater is set to testify before Congress

Sater accused in complaint of helping to launder $40 million

This week, New York developer Felix Sater is set to testify before Congress about his role in Donald Trump’s attempt to build a tower in Moscow. A lawsuit filed Monday may provide new fodder for his inquisitors, with its claim that Sater, a longtime associate of Trump’s, sought to use money stolen from a bank in Kazakhstan to help develop the building.

The suit by BTA Bank JSC alleges that Sater and the wealthy Kazakh businessman Ilyas Khrapunov explored financing the tower deal in 2012 with some of the $4 billion stolen a decade ago by Khrapunov’s father-in-law, ex-BTA Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov. While the Moscow plan fizzled, other transactions tied to Sater helped launder the purloined cash, the bank says.

“Sater helped Ablyazov, Khrapunov and others launder tens of millions of dollars in those stolen funds into the United States,” according to the complaint filed Monday in Manhattan federal court. “Sater also tried to help them stash some of the stolen money overseas, including in real estate in Moscow.”

Sater, 53, is scheduled to appear before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. A central focus of his testimony is expected to be Trump’s longtime effort to build a Moscow tower. The president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, has previously said Trump sought to build in Moscow through the entire 2016 presidential campaign.

The complaint doesn’t say how far the financing talks got or how much money would have been spent on the Moscow tower, which was never built. Nor does BTA say how it learned about the talks. Trump isn’t accused of knowing of Sater’s alleged scheme.

Still, Congress is likely to explore some of the allegations raised by BTA. The Almaty-based bank came up in Cohen’s Congressional testimony last month. In 2012, Sater was a senior adviser to Trump, maintained an office in Trump Tower in Manhattan, and had the real-estate mogul’s name emblazoned on his business cards.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/sater-eyed-trump-moscow-tower-to-launder-money-kazakh-bank-says