A headline like the one I just wrote, in any normal world, would be the equivalent of the proverbial “October surprise” raised to the atomic bomb level. It would finish off any candidate. I fully expect it to be lost in the bandwidth of incendiary Donald Trump news that we now accept as reality, just as radioactive rain is the new normal after a nuclear war.
Here’s the latest bombastic scoop. The Miami Herald is reporting that a Russian-American businessman, based in Miami, Anton Postolnikov, is the owner of a Caribbean bank that caters to the porn industry and also reportedly loaned $8 million to Trump’s media company.
Postolnikov, who owns a few residences on exclusive Fisher Island in Miami, is the nephew of a former high-ranking Russian government official who at one time was a staffer for Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to media reports. The insider trading allegations surfaced in court documents filed last month in a New York securities fraud case brought last year against three South Florida men: Michael Shvartsman, 52, of Sunny Isles Beach; Gerald Shvartsman, 46, of Aventura; and Bruce Garelick, 54, of Fort Lauderdale.
They are accused of making about $23 million from insider trades on the Trump Media merger with a Miami-based company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., and sharing non-public information with friends and business associates about the impending deal so they could profit, according to an indictment.
Digital World is Trump’s SPAC. Remember I told you back in the day, “Donald Trump has a SPAC and its name is DWAC?” A SPAC is a Special Purpose Acquisition Company and is known as a “blank check.” “A SPAC might be best described as money looking for a promising private company to invest in,” says Google. A SPAC enables a company to go public, via merger. This merger is what Trump and Devin Nunes have been trying to accomplish for some time now and it keeps falling through. Here’s what’s going on with Donald Trump’s SPAC and DWAC.
Michael Shvartsman’s attorney, Tai Park, wrote in a court filing that federal prosecutors have told Shvartsman that they intend to charge him with money laundering for his efforts to hide his profits from his insider trades in Digital World Acqusition. Shvartsman’s investment firm, Rocket One Capital, made $18.2 million in profits from the trades, according to the federal indictment. His brother, Gerald Shvartsman, who owns a furniture store, made $4.6 million, and Garelick, who worked for Rocket One Capital, made about $50,000. […]
Garelick formerly served on the board of Digital World Aquisition, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that announced in October 2021 that it intended to merge with Trump Media. SPAC mergers are an alternative avenue for companies seeking to become publicly traded on stock market exchanges. They have grown in popularity in recent years because they typically require less regulatory scrutiny than a traditional initial public offering, though the extensive government investigations into alleged insider trading in this case illustrates part of the reason why the intended Trump Media-Digital World merger is still awaiting approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission more than two years after it was first announced.
Last year, Digital World Acquisition admitted in a settlement with the SEC that it had fraudulently misled investors about its plans to merge with Trump Media. The company agreed to pay $18 million if the merger winds up going through.
Let this sink in. The people that Trump is doing business with admitted that they had fraudulently misled investors — but Trump’s still going forward towards the GOP nomination. I hope Nikki Haley plays this up. She might as well. Her post-2024 political future depends on how hard she gives Trump a run for the money.
“This is pretty unprecedented in terms of how long it has dragged on,” said Jay Ritter, a business professor at the University of Florida who has extensively researched the launch of public companies.
And if you listen to Devin Nunes, this is a good thing. Devin is probably wondering whether he should jump in one of his wine barrels and pull the lid over it, at this point. And you know what I’m going to say next now, right? All together now, class: IT GETS WORSE!
The alleged insider trades aren’t the only financial connection between Postolnikov and the Trump company. Dominica-based Paxum Bank, which public records show is controlled by Postolnikov, was reportedly the conduit of $8 million in loans to Trump Media, according to the Washington Post. The money came from a mysterious entity called the ES Family Trust, which listed a Paxum Bank employee named Angel Pacheco as the trustee, according to the Post. The connection between Postolnikov and the loans was also previously reported by the Guardian.
Trump Media has filed suit against the Washington Post for defamation. The company acknowledged last year to the SEC that it owes at least $2 million to the ES Family Trust.
Postolnikov is reportedly the nephew of Aleksander Smirnov, the former deputy minister of justice in Russia who worked in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s executive office for five years. Companies tied to Postolnikov and his wife, Olga, have owned property in Miami for decades. One company tied to the couple bought a Fisher Island condo in 1995, while a different company controlled by the couple bought two properties — for a combined $13 million — in 2021, the same year in which Postolnikov is alleged to have made $22.8 million from his sale of Digital World stock. Collectively, the Fisher Island properties are worth more than $23 million.
If you’re Russian and you know Trump, you do okay financially, that much is evident. Vladimir Putin didn’t get to be the richest man in the world by winning Powerball. He’s doing just what his predecessor Nikita Khrushchev said would happen, Russia is “taking us over without firing a shot.” “We shall defeat you from within,” Khrushchev said, back in 1956. They found the perfect vessel in Trump. And they took their time and played the long game. And if Trump wins in 2024, start studying Russian, you’re going to need it, as America becomes a Russian colony.
Paxum Bank, the conduit for the loans to Trump Media, previously made a name for itself by processing payments for pornography websites. A Paxum executive said in a 2021 interview that the company is “proud and happy to be considered the #1 trusted payment service for the adult industry!”
Postolnikov is also the chief executive and holds the controlling interest of the British financial technology company Dek-Co, which operates the payment company Paydek. Last year, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority banned the company from taking on new customers without the approval of the financial regulatory agency.
The standard bearer for the party of family values is in business with the premier financiers of pornography. What that you say? Reagan isn’t just spinning in his grave, he’s liable to come out of it and grab Trump by the throat? Wouldn’t that be lovely.
I can’t wait to hear how this is minimized or overlooked altogether by the mainstream media. It’s not only true that Everything Trump Touches Dies but he seems incapable of doing business with anybody normal or in a normal fashion. If it’s not straight out of a Mario Puzo novel, Trump can’t seem to get involved with it. Only if there’s corruption involved, do all his instincts kick in, like one of those pointer dogs, when they sense pray.
Donald Trump is one of the biggest crooks in America. And the GOP wants to put him on top of their ticket. Again. For the third time. I need to check my blood pressure. This is beyond dazzling. But as I said, look for it to appear as the second or third item in the evening news broadcast, if it’s covered at all.
And make no mistake: Trump’s not the only one in bed with Russia. I wonder just how many of the congresscritters in the House are on Putin’s payroll as well. As Kevin McCarthy said, when it was suspected that Dana Rohrabacher was, “I’m only certain about two people, Rohrabacher and Trump.” And who do you suspect, Kevin? That would be good to know.
“IT GETS WORSE!”
As it ALWAYS does with this crowd.
Remember: The ‘Best People’.
In the dictionary, under the word ‘sellout’ is ‘The Republican Party’
I thought the SEC and the DOJ were both investigating Trump’s SPAC.
fascist Putin supporters for sure
I’ve racked my head trying to understand this deal and some of the stories that have been written about it. The best I can make out is DWAC raised over half a billion dollars in subscriptions to take trump Media public. Somehow tM cleared the regulatory hurdle without the actual merger taking place. tM raised around $170 million in its IPO, but since then the shares have plummeted in value from an initial price of $100 to something like $15 today. The skimpy reporting I’ve seen reveals it has almost no revenue and is running off its cash account. Is something very rotten in Denmark, or am I completely out to lunch?