Ever wonder how you launder money? Manafort indictment tells us:

[dixiegrrrrl]

Gates is on the indictment as well.

MANAFORT and GATES generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work.
In order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016,
MANAFORT and GATES laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts.

MANAFORT, without reporting the income to his tax preparer or the United States, spent millions of dollars on luxury goods and services for himself and his extended family through payments wired from offshore nominee accounts to United States vendors.

MANAFORT also used these offshore accounts to purchase multi-million dollar properties in the United States.
MANAFORT then borrowed millions of dollars in loans using these properties as collateral, thereby obtaining cash in the United States without reporting and paying taxes on the income.
In order to increase the amount of money he could access in the United States, MANAFORT defrauded the institutions that loaned money on these properties so that they would lend him more money at more favorable rates than he would otherwise be able to obtain.
MANAFORT laundered more than $18,000,000, which was used by him to buy property, goods, and services in the United States,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/10/30/the-paul-manafort-and-rick-gates-indictment-annotated/?utm_term=.48b434892326

that bit about buying property and then using it to get more money is what Trump did/does, by the way.

[Sherman A1]

1. I recall years ago

when I worked at a restaurant that we had one of our regulars that was a bit on the germaphobe peculiar side. They would actually wash their money both coin and paper in their washing machine in order to be sure that it was clean.

That is what I believe to be, truly laundered money.

[marylandblue]

2. Well that's good to know, but Putin seems to have enough lackeys

Know any other East European dictators who need help? I can't cook or clean, but I've broken a few kneecaps in my day.

[matt819]

3. What's the cost of laundering?

Scores of banks and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts.

And, as we see from the buffoon-in-chief, thousands of LLCs.

How much money do these operations siphon off in the end. In other words, if Manafort et al laundered $18 million, how much did he end up with? And was this factored in to the payments he received from his so-called clients. Is it worth the trouble and cost to launder what is probably a relatively small amount?

So, take the buffoon's Miami property, which he bought from something like $40 million and sold to a Russian oligarch for $95 million.

Who's doing the laundering? Is trump laundering the money for the oligarch and then get it back to him at some point? Is trump being paid for services rendered above and beyond the price of the house? And once the money gets from the first account to the second or third, is it possible to trace through the scores of banks and accounts?

[bettyellen]

4. Pretty much, overpaying for apartments is a simple way when the seller

Looks the other way in terms of where the cash is coming from. That makes the seller also launderer, I think. Any way you can hide a payment by breaking it into smaller looking amounts that won’t be reported as suspicious. Even passing stolen or ransom money at various places little by little is laundering it. Hiding what is traceable and illegally obtained.

The cost of it depends on how much, and how fast. Overseas banks will charge their top transaction fee- 15%, NY people who deal with large sums can go up to 35% to make it appear to be totally legal- so you don’t have to stash it off shore. Buying property in a different country is a favorite ploy becasue they’re typically large transactions and you have a wide price range of properties, and the value is fairly stable. I believe one of the projects Trump worked on in Khazkstan was just a phony shell of a building no one wanted. The building itself was secondary to using it as a conduit for payments to all sorts of people.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. That hotel in Baku now sits again not completed, no more building, it served its purpose.

One real key that it was a front was that that Trump Org. bought it when it was half built, and tore it down to its shell, undoing millions of dollars worth of previous work.
That only makes sense if you are using it as a smokescreen.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Cost of laundering...

If you have basically free money, millions of dollars worth, you set aside a certain % as the cost of doing business.
You decide your "profit" depending on how much of it would be taxable.
If you are coming in ahead of the taxable rate, you are profiting.

the shell companies are formed on paper only, usually in states or countries that charge just a few hundred for drafting and registering a company. Trump has hundreds of them, so does Manafort, so do the global oligarchs. The get away with it for a long time because tracking money thru 30 different shell companies is extremely difficult.

So the shell company "buys" or builds a hotel or a casino, whatever, with a check. The bank, for instance, agrees to a construction loan. Those type loans have a 5 year, or more, payback schedule.
the shell company hires workers to build, and since the russian mob took over in the 1990's, they get a cut for "allowing" the construction.
Ok, hotel, built. Condos in it are selling. Trump gets a % of the money by licensing his name, which used to be worth something until now.
He makes then makes a profit on it by heavily mortgaging it, and obviously some of the money, now clean, gets back to the money launderers.
But he never pays the mortgage back, just walks away when there is no more profit, or when he is sued for non-payment of the bills and loans.. which accounts for his many bankruptcies.
Business bankruptcies end up paying just pennies on all the bills that are owed, including the loans.
Which is why eventually all the big banks eventually refused to deal with him, and he started using Deutsch Bank, which has been charged more than once for ....money laundering.

For Trump, and Kushner, they live off the loan money. Every single time Kushner attempted to get more loans on his 666 building,
he SAID..out loud, where we could hear it on the news, that he was asking for millions, and that he planned to use part of any loan for living expenses. For some reason, he was refused the loans. gee..wonder why.

If you look at all of Trump's "failed" businesses, and there are dozens of them, you will find he got them off the ground by loans and/or investors. He's a salesman, pure and simple, and talks a good game, there are idiots with money to believe him.
And all those businesses fell by the wayside. But he kept the loan money.

BUT....when you pay taxes, as a person or a business, you get to deduct losses. Which is why Trump has bragged his bankruptcies have saved him millions in taxes.

I sold a house at a loss one year, and ended up paying pennies in taxes because of it. Multiply that times Trump and millions.
.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. btw, matt.....here is a list of 30 shell companies he owned with Gates:

Is starts on page 4 of this online pdf of the charges:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/world/manafort-and-gates-indictment/2252/

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. It's like Ozark.

For those of you who have Netflix.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. I am so waiting for Season 2 of that.

Who knew Bateman has such serious chops?