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Steve Witkoff - US envoy who briefed Putin on Trump - Tied to Russian Mob (Craig Unger)
Who Is Steve Witkoff, and Why Is He in Charge of Negotiating Ukraine’s Future?by Craig Unger
WhoWhatWhy.org, November 26, 2025
Excerpt...
But at least one chapter of Witkoff’s life has not been explored by the mainstream media — namely his ties to the Russian Mafia. In 2013, The Real Deal, a trade publication that covers the real estate industry, reported that Witkoff submitted a recommendation for indicted Russian mobster Anatoly Golubchik several years earlier when Golubchik applied to live in a condominium building at 971 Madison Avenue.
The recommendation is of special interest because, according to indictments in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Golubchik played a key role in a high-stakes gambling ring based out of Trump Tower. According to Poker News, a trade publication for the gaming industry, the poker game was often attended by a glitzy clientele that included Hollywood actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon. (The story behind it was later made into a movie called Molly’s Game, starring Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba.)
The gambling ring was busted in April 2013, when “police burst into an apartment on the sixty-third floor of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, just three floors below Donald Trump’s penthouse.”
With its 24-karat-gold faucets, alabaster walls crafted by Portuguese artisans, and $350,000 bathroom floor made of amethyst imported from Tanzania, the apartment was one of the most ostentatious apartments in what was already one of the most ostentatious buildings in America.
Semion Mogilevich, FBI, wanted poster
More importantly, it was also populated by a number of colleagues of mobster Semion Mogilevich. A multibillionaire mafioso known as the Brainy Don, Mogilevich was one of the most powerful figures in the Russian Mafia and a one-time denizen of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. He ran drug trafficking and prostitution rings on an international scale; in one characteristic deal, he bought a bankrupt airline to ship heroin from Southeast Asia into Europe. He used a jewelry business in Moscow and Budapest as a front for art that Russian gangsters stole from museums, churches, and synagogues all over Europe. He has also been accused of selling some $20 million in stolen weapons, including ground-to-air missiles and armored troop carriers, to Iran. “He uses this wealth and power to not only further his criminal enterprises,” the FBI says, “but to influence governments and their economies.”
Snip...
Now that Witkoff has come up with a “peace plan” that gives Putin everything he wants, his ties to the Russian Mafia are of particular interest because, in Russia, the Mafia has long been a de facto state actor serving the FSB, the state security service that is the successor to the feared KGB.
Continues...
https://whowhatwhy.org/international/who-is-steve-witkoff-and-why-is-he-in-charge-of-negotiating-ukraines-future/
The pros likely have this all on tape for Putin, ready for public release as needed for blackmail, etc etc etc.
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Trump’s ties to the Russian mafia go back 3 decades
Journalist Craig Unger talks Russia, Trump, and “one of the greatest intelligence operations in history.”
by Sean Illing
Vox, Januar 12, 2019
On November 9, 2016, just a few minutes after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, a man named Vyacheslav Nikonov approached a microphone in the Russian State Duma (their equivalent of the US House of Representatives) and made a very unusual statement.
“Dear friends, respected colleagues!” Nikonov said. “Three minutes ago, Hillary Clinton admitted her defeat in US presidential elections, and a second ago Trump started his speech as an elected president of the United States of America, and I congratulate you on this.”
Nikonov is a leader in the pro-Putin United Russia Party and, incidentally, the grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov — after whom the “Molotov cocktail” was named. His announcement that day was a clear signal that Trump’s victory was, in fact, a victory for Putin’s Russia.
Longtime journalist Craig Unger opens his new book, House of Trump, House of Putin, with this anecdote. The book is an impressive attempt to gather up all the evidence we have of Trump’s numerous connections to the Russian mafia and government and lay it all out in a clear, comprehensive narrative.
The book claims to unpack an “untold story,” but it’s not entirely clear how much of it is new. One of the hardest things to accept about the Trump-Russia saga is how transparent it is. So much of the evidence is hiding in plain sight, and somehow that has made it harder to accept.
Snipski...
Craig Unger: Yes, absolutely. But let’s go back in time, because I think all of this began as a money-laundering operation with the Russian mafia. It’s well known that Trump likes doing business with gangsters, in part because they pay top dollar and loan money when traditional banks won’t, so it was a win-win for both sides.
The key point I want to get across in the book is that the Russian mafia is different than the American mafia, and I think a lot of Americans don’t understand this. In Russia, the mafia is essentially a state actor. When I interviewed Gen. Oleg Kalugin, who is a former head of counterintelligence in the KGB and had been Vladimir Putin’s boss at one point, I asked him about the mafia. He said, “Oh, it’s part of the KGB. It’s part of the Russian government.”
And that’s essential to the whole premise of the book. Trump was working with the Russian mafia for more than 30 years. He was profiting from them. They rescued him. They bailed him out. They took him from being $4 billion in debt to becoming a multibillionaire again, and they fueled his political ambitions, starting more than 30 years ago. This means Trump was in bed with the Kremlin as well, whether he knew it or not.
Continueski...
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/9/12/17764132/trump-fbi-russia-new-york-times-craig-unger
The back story:
The Strange Ties between Semion Mogilevich and Vladimir Putin
by Roman Kupchinsky
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume: 6 Issue: 57; March 25, 2009
Excerpt...
The questions surrounding the Putin-Mogilevich relationship – if indeed there is one – are not simply theoretical; the answers touch on the nature of power in the Kremlin; how it functions and which players serve its purposes. Part of the answer can be found in the Kuchma-Derkach dialogue held in Kuchma’s office on February 8, 2000. According to a recording of the conversation made by a member of Kuchma’s security detail, Mykola Melnychenko:
Kuchma: "Have you found Mogilevich?"
Derkach: "I found him."
Kuchma: "So, are you two working now?"
Derkach: "We’re working. We have another meeting tomorrow. He arrives incognito.
Later in the discussion Derkach revealed a few details about Mogilevich.
Derkach: "He’s on good terms with Putin. He and Putin have been in contact since Putin was still in Leningrad."
Kuchma: "I hope we won’t have any problems because of this."
Derkach: "They have their own affairs" (The transcript appears in the forthcoming book by J.V. Koshiw, The Politics of Kuchma – the Melnychenko Recordings August 1999 to September 2000).
A second key to the puzzle lies in the alleged relationship between Firtash and Mogilevich in the Eural Trans Gas and RosUkrEnergo, companies involved in the strategically important transit of natural gas from Central Asia to Ukraine which worked closely with Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas company apparently controlled by Putin.
Continuesnoshitski...
https://jamestown.org/program/the-strange-ties-between-semion-mogilevich-and-vladimir-putin/
I also have a problem with how Corporate McPravda (ABCNNBCBSFakeNoiseNutworks) has managed to miss even mentioning Craig Unger for the last 10 years on tee vee.
Last edited Fri Dec 19, 2025, 12:46 PM - Edit history (1)
