- Joined
- Apr 18, 2013
- Messages
- 94,313
- Reaction score
- 82,702
- Location
- Barsoom
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
Paradise Papers: Leaks Show Wilbur Ross Hid Ties to Putin Cronies
Ross has business relationships with sanctioned Russian individuals/companies that he hid from Commerce Dept ethics officials and the US Senate. Ross also served (2015) as Vice-Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus which is notorious for international money laundering. Cyprus banking is where former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Russian oligarch/Putin crony Oleg Deripaska reportedly laundered millions of illicit dollars from Ukraine.
by RICHARD ENGEL and AGGELOS PETROPOULOS
NOV 5 2017
Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary in the Trump administration, shares business interests with Vladimir Putin’s immediate family, and he failed to clearly disclose those interests when he was being confirmed for his cabinet position. Ross — a billionaire industrialist — retains an interest in a shipping company, Navigator Holdings, that was partially owned by his former investment company. One of Navigator’s most important business relationships is with a Russian energy firm controlled, in turn, by Putin’s son-in-law and other members of the Russian president’s inner circle. Some of the details of Ross’s continuing financial holdings — much of which were not disclosed during his confirmation process — are revealed in a trove of more than 7 million internal documents of Appleby, a Bermuda-based law firm, that was leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The documents consist of emails, presentations and other electronic data. These were then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists — a global network that won the Pulitzer Prize this year for its work on the Panama Papers — and its international media partners. NBC News was given access to some of the leaked documents, which the ICIJ calls the “Paradise Papers.”
In his letter to the ethics official of the Commerce Department, Ross created two lists: those entities and interests he planned to get rid of and those he intended to keep. The second list consisted of nine entities, four of which were Cayman Islands companies represented and managed by the Appleby law firm, which specializes in creating complex offshore holdings for wealthy clients and businesses. The Wilbur Ross Group is one of the firm’s biggest clients, according to the leaked documents, connected to more than 60 offshore holdings. n his letter to the ethics official of the Commerce Department, Ross created two lists: those entities and interests he planned to get rid of and those he intended to keep. The second list consisted of nine entities, four of which were Cayman Islands companies represented and managed by the Appleby law firm, which specializes in creating complex offshore holdings for wealthy clients and businesses. The Wilbur Ross Group is one of the firm’s biggest clients, according to the leaked documents, connected to more than 60 offshore holdings.
Ross has business relationships with sanctioned Russian individuals/companies that he hid from Commerce Dept ethics officials and the US Senate. Ross also served (2015) as Vice-Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus which is notorious for international money laundering. Cyprus banking is where former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Russian oligarch/Putin crony Oleg Deripaska reportedly laundered millions of illicit dollars from Ukraine.
