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Trump Org did shady deal for hotel in Baku with corrupt family with ties to Iran Revolutionary Guard
Kevin M. Kruse RetweetedAs Trump assassinates Soleimani and attacks Iran, a reminder that the Trump Org did a shady deal for a hotel in Baku with a massively corrupt family with ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which Soleimani headed.
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Trump Org did shady deal for hotel in Baku with corrupt family with ties to Iran Revolutionary Guard (Original Post)
mahatmakanejeeves
Jan 2020
OP
This article reads more like a money laundering operation than a legitimate project.
Firestorm49
Jan 2020
#1
"Ivanka Trump was the most senior Trump Organization official on the Baku project"
dalton99a
Jan 2020
#2
Firestorm49
(4,037 posts)1. This article reads more like a money laundering operation than a legitimate project.
But, what else is new.
dalton99a
(81,599 posts)2. "Ivanka Trump was the most senior Trump Organization official on the Baku project"
Ivanka Trump was the most senior Trump Organization official on the Baku project. In October, 2014, she visited the city to tour the site and offer advice. An executive at Mace, the London-based construction firm that oversaw the towers conversion to a hotel, met with Ivanka in Baku and New York. He told me, She had very strong feelings, not just about the design but about the back of the hotellandscaping, everything. The Azerbaijani lawyer said, Ivanka personally approved everything. A subcontractor noted that Ivankas team was particular about wood panelling: it chose an expensive Macassar ebony, from Indonesia, for the ceiling of the lobby. The ballroom doors were to be made of book-matched panels of walnut. On her Web site, Ivanka posted a photograph of herself wearing a hard hat inside the half-completed hotel. A caption reads, Ivanka has overseen the development of Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku since its inception, and she recently returned from a trip to the fascinating city in Azerbaijan to check in on the projects progress. (Ivanka Trump declined requests to discuss the Baku project.)
Jan deRoos, the Cornell professor, developed branded-hotel properties before entering academia. He told me that the degree of the Trump Organizations involvement in the Baku property was atypical. Thats very, very intense, he said.
Alan Garten told me that the Trump Organization had commissioned a risk assessment for the Baku deal, but declined to name the company that had performed it. The Washington Post article on the Baku project reported that, according to Garten, the Trump Organization had undertaken extensive due diligence before making the hotel deal and had not discovered any red flags.
But the Mammadov family, in addition to its reputation for corruption, has a troubling connection that any proper risk assessment should have unearthed: for years, it has been financially entangled with an Iranian family tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideologically driven military force. In 2008, the year that the tower was announced, Ziya Mammadov, in his role as Transportation Minister, awarded a series of multimillion-dollar contracts to Azarpassillo, an Iranian construction company. Keyumars Darvishi, its chairman, fought in the Iran-Iraq War. After the war, he became the head of Raman, an Iranian construction firm that is controlled by the Revolutionary Guard. The U.S. government has regularly accused the Guard of criminal activity, including drug trafficking, sponsoring terrorism abroad, and money laundering. Reuters recently reported that the Trump Administration was poised to officially condemn the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Jan deRoos, the Cornell professor, developed branded-hotel properties before entering academia. He told me that the degree of the Trump Organizations involvement in the Baku property was atypical. Thats very, very intense, he said.
Alan Garten told me that the Trump Organization had commissioned a risk assessment for the Baku deal, but declined to name the company that had performed it. The Washington Post article on the Baku project reported that, according to Garten, the Trump Organization had undertaken extensive due diligence before making the hotel deal and had not discovered any red flags.
But the Mammadov family, in addition to its reputation for corruption, has a troubling connection that any proper risk assessment should have unearthed: for years, it has been financially entangled with an Iranian family tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideologically driven military force. In 2008, the year that the tower was announced, Ziya Mammadov, in his role as Transportation Minister, awarded a series of multimillion-dollar contracts to Azarpassillo, an Iranian construction company. Keyumars Darvishi, its chairman, fought in the Iran-Iraq War. After the war, he became the head of Raman, an Iranian construction firm that is controlled by the Revolutionary Guard. The U.S. government has regularly accused the Guard of criminal activity, including drug trafficking, sponsoring terrorism abroad, and money laundering. Reuters recently reported that the Trump Administration was poised to officially condemn the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)3. Recommended. More sordidity from the emoluments-crushing crime family!
The ECCF! (kinda like the BFEE ).