October 30 2017
Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his protégé Rick Gates, the first in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sweeping investigation, primarily involve laundering money earned in Ukraine without paying taxes or registering as a foreign lobbyist. A main conduit for moving these funds from offshore companies to the United States were a series of real estate transactions that The Intercept identified in February.
The indictment, unsealed this morning, found that Manafort laundered “more than $18 million” through offshore accounts, money earned while working for corrupt former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort and Gates concealed this overseas work in Ukraine and used the offshore accounts to “purchase multi-million dollar properties in the United States,” according to the indictment. 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.”
