Steve Witkoff - US envoy who briefed Putin on Trump - Tied to Russian Mob (Craig Unger) [View all]

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.