[Liz]

23 December 1999
Financial Times (UK)

Russian mafia link to US campaign funds
By Thomas Catán in New York

Russian émigrés living in the US and believed by authorities to have links with organised crime have made campaign contributions to leading US candidates and political parties in what appears to be an effort to win political influence.

Through family members and businesses, Semyon (Sam) Kislin - identified in a 1994 internal report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a member of a Russian crime syndicate - contributed $46,250 to the political campaign of New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican, in 1993 and 1997, election records show.

The commodities trader also donated $8,000 to New York senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, last year, and contributed to several other US political figures. The allegations against him were first publicised by the Center for Public Integrity, the Washington-based non-profit group, earlier this week. Mr Kislin has denied any links with organised crime.

It also emerged that Jacob Bogatin, an associate of Semyon Mogilevich, who is himself alleged by US and UK intelligence authorities to be the head of a Russian crime syndicate, made donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee between 1996 and 1998.

Mr Mogilevich has denied the allegations against him.

Election records show Mr Bogatin contributed at least $2,750 to the Republican campaign group - sometimes under the name of his company, YBM Magnex.

The Philadelphia-based magnet manufacturer, which was founded by Mr Bogatin with Mr Mogilevich, was raided and closed down by US authorities in May 1998. YBM Magnex pleaded guilty to securities fraud and was fined $3m in November 1999.

These and other developments have prompted US investigators to start looking closely at Russian assets and investments in the country, particularly in the New York area, according to people close to the investigations.

Though the political contributions traced so far are not large, they will fuel concerns that money from Russian organised crime could be finding its way into the political system.

"When I was in the Department of State, from time to time we would hear of people associated with organised crime reaching out to members of the [Capitol] Hill," said Jonathan Winer, who until recently served as deputy secretary of state. "The administration briefed Hill members on more than one occasion."

Mr Winer noted that those briefed by the State Department came from both main political parties, and on all occasions dropped contact with the figures under suspicion.

In recent years, two Russian businessmen identified by US authorities as having links to Russian organised crime have turned up at Democratic fundraising events, despite being denied entry visas. Both have appeared in photographs with President Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore.

Yesterday, the office of Senator Schumer said it had performed a background check on Mr Kislin and found nothing on him. "If any of these allegations prove true, we will absolutely return the money," a spokesman said. Mr Giuliani's office could not be reached for comment.

[PhilDragoo]

Hearing on the Administration's "National Money Laundering Strategy for 2001"

Prepared Mr. Stuart Eizenstat
Partner
Covington and Burling
10:00 a.m., Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - Dirksen 538

The unhappy experience of the Bank of New York highlights the vulnerability of our financial institutions. The Bank was involved in an alleged money laundering scheme in which more than $7 billion was transmitted from Russia into the Bank through various offshore secrecy jurisdictions. At least one relatively senior official of the Bank was suborned, and she suborned others. We do not know to this day how much of the money came from the accounts of the Russian "Mafiya," how much represented assets stolen in the course of the privatization of state industries — undermining the hopes of Russian reformers — and how much was money hidden to escape legitimate taxation, destroying the fiscal projections on which the reformers depended to lower taxes for ordinary citizens. We do know that the money came out of Russia through accounts in shell banks chartered in places such as the South Pacific island of Nauru. The Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Central Bank has estimated that, in 1998 alone, $70 billion was transferred from Russian banks to accounts in banks chartered in Nauru; not all of that money went to Bank of New York, of course, but none of it was ever intended to stay in Nauru.

~~~

Eizenstat laments the "unhappy experience" of BONY.

Seven billion here, seven billion there--seventy billion in 1998 alone.

Safra cooperated with the FBI; the chief inspector of Monaco Olivier Jude attended the ten-week FBI National Academy in spring of 1999; December 3 of that year Safra was dead with a plausible patsy to take the heat.

The FBI now finds some chicken feed leading to political figures to shut them the hell up.

While the big sleek rats (Clintons, Rubin, Summers, Harvard, et Russoformers) are never mentioned.

~~~

Remarks by Treasury Deputy Secretary Stuart E. Eizenstat before the Anti-Corruption Summit 2000

Washington
September 21, 2000

Second, we will push for a stronger role for the IMF, the World Bank and regional development banks in fighting financial abuse. Tomorrow, Secretary Summers will be leaving for Prague where he will urge the IMF, the World Bank, and the regional development banks to intensify their work in combating financial abuses of the global financial system. This new effort would not represent an expansion of the mandate of these Bretton Woods institutions; on the contrary we believe that the fight against international money laundering is consistent with and integral to the responsibilities of the IMF and the MDBs to protect the credibility and integrity of the international financial system. The IMF and the World Bank already engage in helping countries develop and reform their financial systems, to adopt good governance and to fight corruption. We are not asking the Fund or Bank to be policeman. But we believe both can play a greater role in fighting abuse and preserving the integrity of the international financial system in areas that are within the scope of their mandates.

We will be asking the Fund and Bank to institutionalize the fight against financial abuse through various avenues, including technical assistance, surveillance, financial sector assessments, and lending conditionality, where relevant and appropriate. The Bank and the Fund are uniquely well placed to perform analytic and diagnostic work on financial abuse issues. We also believe country programs and loan operations should incorporate appropriate conditions designed to help countries make real and measurable progress in combating money laundering. In Prague, Secretary Summers will also call on both the Fund and Bank to prepare a joint paper on their respective roles in combating financial abuse, for final consideration next Spring.

~~~

Safra was said to have aided the Russians by laundering $4.8 billion through his Republic Bank. Which he sold to HSBC, finalized the day of his death.

Eizenstat--during the Clinton Administration under Summers--is here assuring the assembly that, the horses having been stolen and unaccounted for, the barn will now be locked.

And now Eizenstat skips off to serve that impeccable institution Menatep.

~~~

May 12, 1999

Stuart Eizenstat, a senior State Department official who was a top adviser to President Jimmy Carter, was nominated by Clinton to replace Summers as deputy secretary.