The Daily Beast
Veselnitskaya’s Trump Tower Coverup Linked to Russia’s Secret Chemical Weapons Program
Yury Martyanov / Getty LONDON – A company recently sanctioned by the US for Alexei Navalny’s poisoning attack is connected to the money laundering network that tried to cover up Natalia Veselnitskaya at the infamous Trump Tower rally in 2016, according to financial data obtained by The Daily Beast. Now we know why Vladimir Putin was so desperate to downplay the international corruption investigations that began when Sergei Magnitsky discovered a $ 230 million fraud against the Russian people. For the first time, that dark money network can be linked to the murderous chemical weapons program of the notorious Russian intelligence services. After revealing the massive theft of state money, Magnitsky ended up dead in a Russian prison cell. Legislation in his name has been enacted around the world by governments trying to fight corruption, including the US Magnitsky Act. Despite the intervention of Veselnitskaya – a Russian lawyer sent to the US to convince the Trump campaign to reverse the law – continues to expose an international web of bank accounts linked to alleged misconduct. Dirty lobbying activities This month, Biden’s government said it was sanctioning a German chemical company called Riol-Chemie for its “activities in support of Russian weapons of mass destruction”. It was part of the government’s response to the attempted murder of Putin’s nemesis. Navalny. The anti-corruption activist narrowly survived a chemical weapons attack after a plane with him was diverted on a long flight home to Moscow and he was able to receive urgent medical care – first in a Siberian hospital and then in Germany, where he used to be. After waking up from a week-long coma, Navalny outwitted a member of the assassination team by posing as a senior FSB official and tricked his potential killer by explaining over the phone how the murder squad had the Novichok nerve President Trump shrugged off the attack, but the Biden team announced sanctions on March 2 against seven senior Russian officials and 14 other entities involved in chemical and biological weapons production. The government as the cog in the Russian mass destruction program was Riol-Chemie. Investigative files compiled by authorities in Lithuania – and reviewed by The Daily Beast – show that Riol-Chemie received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a company registered in the British Virgin Islands accused of laundering some of the stolen money discovered by Magnitsky. sources close to a separate investigation by the French authorities, financial records show that two New Zealand registered companies, which also received money from the $ 230 million fraud, transferred more than $ 1 million to Riol-Chemie . for commentary from The Daily Beast. Riol-Chemie’s formal designation as a sanctioned entity in the United States does not detail its role in the Russian weapons program, but purchase orders and invoices seen by The Daily Beast show that the company has received components from a Defunct American manufacturer called Aeroflex. Records show that Aeroflex, then based in New York, took orders in 2007 for radiation-hardened semiconductors and regulators. These components are often used to build missiles and satellites. The orders were to be sent to Riol-Chemie in Northern Germany. but data shows that the tightly controlled radiation chips were paid for by yet another entity accused of laundering the stolen Russian money. According to the paperwork, the bill went to Tolbrist Alliance Inc., an empty corporation listed in the Offshore Leaks Database by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as registered with a PO Box in the British Virgin Islands. by The Daily Beast, Lithuanian authorities found that Tolbrist Alliance Inc. received approximately $ 50 million from companies related to the fraud discovered by Magnitsky. Financial records show that Tolbrist spent at least $ 1.5 million on Aeroflex. arrested by the State Department for hundreds of violations of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) “consisting largely of unauthorized exports.” There is no indication that the company was breaking the law by supplying the rad chips to Riol-Chemie – the transactions took place years before the US government announced that the German company was a secret part of Putin’s illegal arms-smuggling operation. companies accused of laundering the $ 230 million and Riol-Chemie may point to a broader, calculated plan with far-reaching political implications. Money stolen from the Russian people – while authorities turned a blind eye – was apparently diverted to a black market weapons program. The person who led the distribution of the stolen money also played a top-secret role in Russian national security. “This clearly shows why Putin has gone wild with the Magnitsky investigation,” said Bill Browder, who led the anti-corruption campaign in the name of his former attorney, Sergei Magnitsky. “Every layer of this onion that is peeled, more and more dirty and dangerous information is emerging.” Previous reports also claimed that some of the stolen money fell into the hands of people associated with the Syrian chemical weapons program. Ex-Hill Staffer Linked to Veselnitskaya Dies Suddenly After Fall Near His Home The man tasked with shutting down the Magnitsky-inspired investigations that flourished around the world was Yury Chaika, one of Putin’s main fixers and until last year the prosecutor of Russia. President Obama signed the Magnitsky anti-corruption bill in 2012 and Chaika’s protégé, Veselnitskaya, was sent to file the case against the law during the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort in 2016 Putin himself brought up Trump himself at the Helsinki summit in 2018. The former president listened, nodded to a litany of distortions about electoral interference, Crimea and Browder at a joint press conference. legal team defending Prevezon, another company accused of laundering the stolen money, which was investigated by the Southern District of New York. The case was eventually settled out of court, and Prevezon paid $ 6 million. Veselnitskaya was charged with obstruction of justice for colluding with Chaika’s Moscow office over doctor’s evidence presented to the court. While speculation between Trump and Russia was at its height, Veselnitskaya always insisted that she was not in the Trump Tower trying to influence the election; she was there to take the case against the Magnitsky investigation. “To summarize, those weren’t the happiest days of my life,” Veselnitskaya told NBC News amid the backlash surrounding the Trump Tower rally. his cronies are doing everything they can to hinder the fraud investigations they are facing. But the US government’s approval of Riol-Chemie could be an important lesson to the Kremlin: Even dark money can be tracked. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories delivered to your inbox every day. Register now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside takes a deeper look at the stories that matter to you. Find out more.