Mogilevich, the FBI, and Money Laundering Through Real Estate

• 12:00Russian émigré financial wizards couldn't speak English properly but found their way into boiler room pump-and-dump schemes, targeting unsophisticated investors.
• 12:43Mobsters used these operations to defraud elderly people and others with penny stock scams, knowing the stocks were worthless.
• 13:07The FBI eventually became aware of Russian organized crime, though historically the bureau has been slow to recognize threats—Hoover himself denied organized crime existed for 30 years.
• 13:49The pump-and-dump schemes were allegedly run by Semyon Mogilevich, known as the Fat Man or the Brainy Don, a figure straight out of central casting.
• 14:21Russian organized crime differs from other mafias because it has substantial state backing, making it almost a mafia state with government actors embedded in criminal enterprises.
• 14:56Mogilevich and Putin are very close, and the Russian mob maintains a symbiotic relationship with the state dating back to KGB involvement.
• 15:40When KGB and GRU agents lost their jobs after the Soviet collapse, many ended up in organized crime or were rehired by the government—a revolving door like Goldman Sachs and the U.S. government.
• 16:09Russian oligarchs and state insiders need to launder obscene sums of money out of the country, and real estate is the best vehicle for parking it.
• 16:22Money launderers also use shell companies with massive paper losses to obscure the source and destination of illicit funds.
• 16:38The FBI considers Mogilevich the boss of bosses, with analysts saying he has the capability to affect the world economy.

Semyon MogilevichRussian mobDonald TrumpVladimir PutinFelix SaterGoldman SachsFBITrump administration