Number 24. You need chromium to make stainless steel. Its a useful, necessary thing in modern life. Mining and processing it, though, tend to be very, very toxic enterprises. If you like chrome, you probably would not be siked to have your home Orchids School near a chromium filter. Onethird of all the chromium in the world apparently comes from here, from this former soviet facility in western kazakhstan close to the russian border. Mark champion did a report on how toxic and dire the conditions are at that facility, but he also got these simple sad story of the finances of that place, and how the finances of that place that produces a third of the chromium in the world ended up connected to the president of the United States. When the sounion broke up, one thing that happened at plants, people were given shares at the place they worked at. They were going to be employee owners. Mark champion reports how the regular workers, those regular employe employees, people working in toxic conditions to supply the world with comb yhromium were f one by one to give up the shares to sell the shares they have been given and to sell for basically nothing and the entity on the other end of that forced transaction, the entity to which they were forced to sell their shares for less than pennies on the dollar was like a random Noname Company registered in the British Virgin islands . When you look at the pictures of this bleak land locked Central Asian toxic site producing chromium for the world, British Virgin islands . Really . Nothing against them but International Companies will often head quarter themselves there in name only as a scheme to avoid taxes and stay ano, maam mou anonymous. The people were basically robbed of equity. They used to be employee owners. They used to have shares. They work in dire toxic conditions and efforts have been made through the Banking System to obscure who really owns that place, who is reaping the rewards now that the people that work there arent. Well, bloomberg reports that the controlling interest in that plant is held by this guy, whose name is rafeek but his brother had a Company Called bay rock. There were two principles in bay rock, one is the brother of the guy with the chromium plant and the other one is felix sater who at one point worked for the Trump Organization as a Senior Advisor to donald trump, felix sater at the one pursuing a project when trump said he had no deals and ties to russia during the campaign he signed a letter of intent to pursue trump tower moscow arranged by satyr. Satyrs company, he was one of the principles in bay rock and another was the guy who was the brother of the chromium plant, right . Bay rock was head quartered in trump tower. Bay rock is also the company that developed the trump soho, hotel and condo complex. They alleged at least 10 million of the money behind bay rock came straight out of that chromium plant in kazakhstan. Around the time the gains were being smuggled out of the plat through offshore companies, bay rock was bragging publicly about being substantially funded by another medals fortune from kazakhstan from that same country, most of the metal wealth in the country is controlled by a trio of three billionaires, thats what happens when you let the entire medal wealth of a large nation be controlled by three guys. Those three formed a Holding Company that tried to go kind of legit a decade ago in 2007, they tried to list themselves on a Stock Exchange. They tried to go public in london in 2007. Turns out to be a terrible move. When you become a public company, that triggers reporting requirements. You have to be able to account for your actions as a company and finances. They did get themselves listed in the Stock Exchange in london for a time but it created a huge scandal on the london Stock Exchange and immediately triggered an inquiry by the fraud office. In a few years, they yanked the company off and forced to become a private company again against the will. Here is is how the Financial Times reported. Scandal hit the Resources Corporation is due to leave the stock market on monday. The mining group put together but three from assets assembled is being taken private by founders after an investigation by the Serious Fraud office. One top 20 shareholder says with the benefit of height sight, the Corporate Governance should have set off alarm bells. The investor said quote, the rnc should have never been listed in the first place and should have been left well alone. Another top 30 investor in the company says quote, this is not good for shareholders for the city of london or anyone. It more than anythingdangers of companies. These guys were so corrupt they embarrassed the stock market. One of the guys who ran that apparently repulsively corrupt company, one of these three guys that controls the metals, the guy famous for the 300foot long yacht, very nice, bay rock bragged in its corporate documents he was a major investor in bay rock, a strategy investor and again, what that company was able to do is come up with the money for trumps soho. So kazakhstan. Next time you see something chrome plated, take a deep breath, cough it out and think of the trump soho. Kazakhstan story number two is bta bank, largest bank in that big country. Its only got 18 Million People but the size of western europe. The largest land locked country in the world. Its like the ninth largest country in the world overall, its a quarter the size of the United States. Its gigantic. Bta bank was the biggest bank in kazakhstan. The chairman disappeared and fled the country and what they found after he was gone, that about half of the loan book for that entire bank, half the loan book appears to have been loans that the chairman made to himself. He would invent little companies or create companies all over the place and give them incredibly generous loans. He wasbanks money to himself, billions of dollars and disappeared with the money. Needless to say, he was not planning on paying back the loans. He turned up in the u. K. Which he found to his liking. He lived in a 15,000 square foot home and had 100acre country estate. The only problem living in london is british courts convict convicted him of the problems with the bank. He fled the u. K. And went instead to france which he also liked very much. He had a very nice villa in france that was lovely until it turned out the people working around the villa he thought were gardeners were actually French Police officers in disguise who had turned up and dressed up as gardeners to surprise him and arrest him. So they got that guy. But it has now been a long saga of many years of trying to find all his money, trying to trace the billions of dollars that he was convicted of misappropria misappropriati misappropriating. Bloomberg news reported in december on Court Filings that allege some of that money, some of that kazakhstan money can also be traced to trumps soho. Three trump soho condos bought in a multi million cash purchase bought through Shell Companies but traced to the family of that guy who misappropriated those billions of dollars out of that giant bank. So kazakhstan story number one chrome, two, that guy needing to hide his money. Both of those stories and up with trump soho getting the loot, right . And playing a key plot point. Here is kazakhstan story number three. This is the only one we get pictures of the president. This one also is related to that bta bank, to the biggest bank in kazakhst kazakhstan, the one that got looted. Another place besides trump soho where it looks like the bta bank money went is here in the nation of georgia. Forms and Adam Davidson reported the story was about this sort of, i dont know, sort of sad sack town in georgia and by sad sack, i dont mean to be rude. Looks nice. On the coast, right . By sad sack, looks like this town was used for a stunt. Appears toe have laundered a lot of money and made a bunch of money for donald trump. Part of the reason people were able to follow the trial of this story is because trump himself turned up in georgia in this little town for an amazing publicity stunt. Mr. Trump was reportedly paid 1 million to show up and to lend his name to a new certain to be very luxurious donald trump tower in georgia. This little town seemed like an unlikely place for that development but miraculously, somebody found a ton of money, a ton of money to do this deal. Turns outwei basically all the money came from bta bank that could have cooked up the scheme. Trump showed up there in georgia to headacmake it seem like that true but never built it. Seems like they never intended to. The bank funded a ga zillibilli Different Companies to build this trump luxury hotel that would go up in this town. Nonof t none of the companies have raels state real estate experience and turned out these new entities created and lavishly funded by bta bank turned out to be controlled by the chairman of the bank or people close to him. That was his m. O. That stole the money, lend it. After you made those loans, they through away, even trump showed up and got the Million Dollar fee to tour around the nation of georgia and announce the location of grand new tower, there was no grand new tower. There were just loans that extracted money from the bank and put it apparently in the chairmans pocket. Thats what happened to the trump hotel. Thats the reason there isnt one despite what you heard about the grand planned opening. It appears to have been a scam. It appears to have been a way to embezzle money out of a bank and embezzle bank to launder it through companies and transactions that look legit and in 2012 donald trump got paid 1 million to go over there and make it look real. There is three stories about kazakhstan. Of all the countries in the world, random places, all these different kinds of associations with the president of the United States but they really do keep coming up. When the fusion gps transcript was released last week, the kazakhstan stuff was my favorite part, well, there are some contenders, it is among my favorite parts. Page 293, quote, question, what if any research did you conduct that gave you concerns about then candidate trump and any elicit activity. Answer, his relationship with organized crime figures, that was a concern. Question, what can you share with us about your findings. Answer, there were various allegations of fraudulent Business Practices or organized crime factors and associations of people accused of involvement with criminal activity. In the very first weekend that i started boning up on donald trump, i found various ref prances to him having connections to italian organized crime and russian organized crime figure named felix sater, s s sate sater. That caught my attention and something i focused on, all of that entered into my thinking when i saw donald trump was in business with felix sater and the trump soho project and controversial projects. We began to look where it was coming from and that raised a lot of questions. We saw indications some of the money came from kazakhstan. Question, there was an investigation about money from kazakhstan, yes, could you tell me about that and what you invested in and learned. Answer, there was litigation in new york involving attempts by the government of kazakhstan to recover money that had been allegedly stolen. Billions of dollars in a bank failure. The name of the bank was bta bank. Its been well established in various courts that the governments allegations are basically true, which is that large amounts of money were elicillicitly removed and laund into the United States apparently, allegedly. So there was a civil case, at least one civil case involving money launderers. Felix sater had connections with the people. There is media reports that the money went into the trump soho or company that built the trump soho, a Company Felix sater and donald trump were involved in together. All right. There is one last thing here and then there is the part of it thats insane thats going to make part of your day tomorrow at least partially insane. The one last thing to know about this kazakhstan stuff and trump, is what it might take to nail any of this stuff down. If say, someone were investigating him for potential criminal Money Laundering. If the president were going to be in trouble for any business dealings involving this sketchy money from ka szakhstan, how wod that be proven . There is one thing you need to know. The chairman fled the country and ran off to the u. K. After he left, who took control . Who took control of that bank and records and files and transactions . Who took control . Government of kazakhstan. Specifically the dictator of kazakhstan put his soninlaw in control of that bank which means if there is any problematic surviving evidence or participation in the big obvious Money Laundering schemes, if there is potential criminal liability for different dealings figures records of those transactions would be in the hands of, they would be in the office safe of the soninlaw of the dictator of kazakhstan. Guess who is coming to the white house tomorrow invited to meet President Trump. Really . Of all the dictators of the world, there is a lot of weird stuff going on in the news tonight. Wall street journal came out with a story saying Jared Kushner was warning u. S. Intelligence about his friendship with the exwife of the man who owns the wall street journal and the wall street journal story is the Intelligence Community warned Jared Kushner wendy dang is basically a chinese spy. The newspaper writes allegation of the exwife. What . That kind of day. Stuff like that has been happening today, today is the federal holiday honoring dr. Martin luther king junior. All president s acknowledged this day by honoring and participating in Public Service products. Do something. Our current president is actively embroiled in a controversy over what racist he used to describe africa and haiti several years ago. In the middle of that controversy he decided he would clear his name on mlk day by spending today golfing instead of doing any form of Public Service. Thats how he decided to celebrate the holiday. The president S White House chief strategist, this week fresh off a fight with the president and white house that resulted in him getting fired from his day job at breitbart dot coal after the controversy over remarks in a new book by Michael WolffMichael Wolff including his assertion its about Money Laundering and steve bannon will testify to the house intelligence committee. Wonder if hell be in a charitable frame of mind or not toward the president after the president publicly declared he lost his mind and then got him fired and defunded. And now we know that while steve, its all about Money Laundering bannon will be testifying, while that is hap n happening tomorrow at that moment, President Trump simultaneously will be hosting the dictator of kazakhstan in the oval office, has been spinning for the last decade. The dictator tomorrow, weird times, stay with us. In august 2017 americas bloodhound unit when it comes to Financial Crimes at the department of treasury, they put Real Estate Professionals across the country on notice. Warning the Real Estate Industry about Money Laundering risks associated with certain real estate transactions, those involving Luxury Property particularly when conducted with cash and no financing. They could be an attractive avenue while asking identities. There is a reason why investigators have the same thing, follow the money, follow the money. The next guest, buzz feed reporters spent months going through the paperwork behind i kid you not, every single sale of a trump branded condo in the United States back to the 1980s. Thousands of real estate deals. Thats a lot of paper. This means they have done not just a comprehensive but possibly a complete analysis of the degree to which the president s business has been built specifically on the kind of secretive transactions that the top Financial Crime unit warns are big red flags for Money Laundering. Joining us now is thomas frank, mr. Frank, really appreciate your time. Thanks for being with us. Great to be here with you, thank you. First, i want to congratulate you on the effort. There is a reason an analysis like this has never been done before. Why did you approach it this way given how labor intensive this must have been . Let me correct something. I didnt look at any piece of paper. It was all online. It was actually i shouldnt say it wasnt that hard. It was incredibly difficult. There was a way to do it because one of the great things about property records is they are all online in places look new yoike city and miami. I was aware that there is concern about possible Money Laundering