Origins of the Russian Mob and Its State Ties

• 7:19Trump sat at a conference table with a mobster while the man counted out $200,000 in cash to make a deal.
• 8:02Tim argues mobsters were drawn to Trump Tower because of the bling factor—a gold building and a golden man attracted people who liked gold chains.
• 8:31Trump would have to be naive not to know real estate is used for money laundering and not to question where suddenly wealthy Soviet émigrés get the money to buy apartments.
• 8:51Felix Sater, born in Russia with a Ukrainian father, emigrated to Brooklyn and stabbed someone in the face with a margarita glass in 1991 before becoming a federal informant.
• 9:36The so-called Russian mob is actually mobsters from all former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe, many of whom were already in Soviet jails under the communist system.
• 10:04Soviet officials tolerated organized crime because people in power needed mobsters to move their own ill-gotten money and handle protection disputes.
• 10:37When the Soviet Union collapsed, the floodgates opened and these mobsters emigrated, particularly to the United States, many having been released from jails by the Soviet government under pressure.
• 11:17These Soviet mobsters weren't going to Yale or getting hired by Goldman Sachs; instead they fell into criminal circles and began working with the Italian mob, La Cosa Nostra.

Donald TrumpFelix SaterRoy CohnRussian mobJackson-Vanik Amendment