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Federal investigators examined Trump Media for possible money laundering, sources say
Exclusive: New York prosecutors expanded criminal inquiry of company last year and examined acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties

Hugo Lowell in New York
Wed 15 Mar 2023 06.00 GMT

Federal prosecutors in New York involved in the criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s social media company last year started examining whether it violated money laundering statutes in connection with the acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The company – Trump Media, which owns Trump’s Truth Social platform – initially came under criminal investigation over its preparations for a potential merger with a blank check company called Digital World (DWAC) that was also the subject of an earlier investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Towards the end of last year, federal prosecutors started examining two loans totaling $8m wired to Trump Media, through the Caribbean, from two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the sources said.

The expanded nature of the criminal investigation, which has not been previously reported, threatens to delay the completion of the merger between Trump Media and DWAC, which would provide the company and Truth Social with up to $1.3bn in capital, in addition to a stock market listing.

Even if Trump Media and its officers face no criminal exposure for the transactions, the optics of borrowing money from potentially unsavory sources through opaque conduits could cloud Trump’s image as he seeks to recapture the White House in 2024.

The extent of the exposure for Trump Media and its officers for money laundering remains unclear. The statutes broadly require prosecutors to show that defendants knew the money was the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity and the transaction was designed to conceal its source.

But money laundering prosecutions are typically based on circumstantial evidence and can be based on materials that show that the money in question was unlikely to have legitimate origins, legal experts said.

The first $2m payment to Trump Media came in December 2021 when the company was on the brink of collapse after the planned merger with DWAC – that would have unlocked millions for the company – was delayed when the SEC opened an inquiry into whether the arrangement broke regulatory rules.

Trump Media needed a bridge loan to keep the company afloat. But it struggled to get financing until DWAC’s chief executive Patrick Orlando sourced a $2m loan wired from Paxum Bank registered in Dominica, according to the wire transfer receipt reviewed by the Guardian.

The wire transfer identified Paxum Bank as the beneficial owner, although the promissory note identified an entity called ES Family Trust as the lender. Two months later, an unexpected second $6m payment arrived in Trump Media’s account from ES Family Trust, the transfer receipt showed.

In both instances, Orlando declined to provide details about the true identity of the lenders or the origin of the money to Trump Media executives, Trump Media’s since-ousted co-founder turned whistleblower Will Wilkerson recounted in an interview.

Though the two payments to Trump Media ostensibly came from two separate entities – first Paxum Bank and second ES Family Trust – the trustee of ES Family Trust, a person called Angel Pacheco, appears to have simultaneously been a director of Paxum Bank.

The Russian connection, as being examined by prosecutors in the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York, centers on a part-owner of Paxum Bank – an individual named Anton Postolnikov, who appears to be a relation of Putin ally Aleksandr Smirnov.

Smirnov, who heads the Russia-controlled maritime company Rosmorport, worked in the Central Office of the Russian government until 2017. Before that, Smirnov was the first deputy minister of justice of Russia until 2014, and for most of Putin’s first two terms as president, Smirnov served in the executive office of the president.

A spokesman for the justice department, the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York and outside counsel for Trump Media declined to comment about the investigation. Rosmorport and Paxum Bank did not respond to requests for comment.

Concern inside Trump Media

The obscure origins of the $8m loans caused alarm at Trump Media and, in the spring of 2022, Trump Media’s then chief financial officer Phillip Juhan weighed returning the money, according to Wilkerson.

But the money was never returned, Wilkerson said, in part because losing $8m out of the roughly $12m cash that Trump Media had in its accounts at that time would have placed significant stress on its financial situation.

Prosecutors appear to have also taken a special interest in the payments because the off-shore Paxum Bank has a history of providing banking services for the pornography and sex worker industries, which makes it higher risk of engaging in money laundering and other illicit financing.

There appears to have been some awareness at Trump Media that the first $2m was to come through because Trump’s eldest son Don Jr, who joined the board with Trump ally Kash Patel and former Republican turned Trump Media chief executive Devin Nunes, had confirmed to the company’s lawyers to proceed with the transaction.

“Just want to keep you in the loop – no guaranty that these will get signed and funded, but we remain hopeful,” John Haley, outside counsel for Trump Media said in a 24 December 2021 email seen by the Guardian, to which Don Jr replied: “Thanks john much appreciated. d.”

Since Orlando, who arranged the $8m financing, is an SEC-licensed broker-dealer, he would be subject to SEC rules governing anti-money laundering and “Know Your Customer” requirements that mandate due diligence of investors to combat the proliferation of illicit money.

As a private company arranging private loans, the obligations for Trump Media to vet the financing under the SEC rules are less clear. But the securities regulations are separate to the US criminal money laundering statutes, which apply universally.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... laundering

orlylicious wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:54 pm It is so lucky JPC held on to that DWAC stock! At Reddit, they're buying more DWAC.

[Twitter post about money laundering at Trump Media deleted]

johnpcapitalist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 12:31 am then Trump could be indicted in yet another jurisdiction for yet another crime, and he gets to sit back as America ties itself in knots trying to figure out what to do with a president who is not only a mob boss but a traitor, risking tearing the country apart if he gets indicted. That's got to bring a smile to his face.

johnpcapitalist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 12:31 am
I have all the expected ones like Enron, but I also have some less well known but equally memorable ones, including Equity Funding Corporation, which was the first known case of someone using a computer to commit financial crime. The company was a life insurance company, and management had people write a program on a clunky old mainframe to generate false insurance policies that they then sold to reinsurers and got commission payments in return. They generated over 60,000 fake policies before it blew up in March, 1973.

bill_g wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:28 am Sometime down the road, as the indictments mount up, I expect we'll read a story about him being rushed to Walter Reed. After that we'll have a presidential funeral, some public sobbing, a brief period of mourning, and then silence as everyone exhales. We will not see any court cases. All of this will disappear. Poof. Magic. Never happened.

keith wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:09 am

johnpcapitalist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 12:31 am
I have all the expected ones like Enron, but I also have some less well known but equally memorable ones, including Equity Funding Corporation, which was the first known case of someone using a computer to commit financial crime. The company was a life insurance company, and management had people write a program on a clunky old mainframe to generate false insurance policies that they then sold to reinsurers and got commission payments in return. They generated over 60,000 fake policies before it blew up in March, 1973.

People were using computers to skim payroll rounding errors long before 1973. But of course, it wasn't companies that were doing it - it was employees that were doing it.

I expect we'll read a story about him being rushed to Walter Reed. After that we'll have a presidential funeral, some public sobbing,

Phoenix520 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 8:44 pm

I expect we'll read a story about him being rushed to Walter Reed. After that we'll have a presidential funeral, some public sobbing,

Or maybe he’ll start wandering aimlessly around MAL in a ratty old bathrobe and torn tightywhities, looking for a cheeseburger and Diet Coke, his rats’ nest of a hairdo undone and cascading down one side of his head, to coil limply on his shoulder. He’ll be calling out for Ivana. Or Ivanka.

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes says the investors in Truth “are being wiped out” by the SEC blocking them from going public: “We want to go public. We want to merge with a company. The shareholders that bought into that company are being wiped out.”

Kendra wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 2:15 pm https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/stat ... 1405974537

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes says the investors in Truth “are being wiped out” by the SEC blocking them from going public: “We want to go public. We want to merge with a company. The shareholders that bought into that company are being wiped out.”

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:00 pm

Kendra wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 2:15 pm https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/stat ... 1405974537

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes says the investors in Truth “are being wiped out” by the SEC blocking them from going public: “We want to go public. We want to merge with a company. The shareholders that bought into that company are being wiped out.”

Liar! Invstors in that vehicle get paid back if the merger does not go thru. Payout of course is on the nominal value, not some speculative market price.

much ado wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:02 pm

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:00 pm

Kendra wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 2:15 pm https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/stat ... 1405974537

Liar! Invstors in that vehicle get paid back if the merger does not go thru. Payout of course is on the nominal value, not some speculative market price.

(I was kind of hoping they'd get wiped out.)

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:22 pm

much ado wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:02 pm

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:00 pm

Liar! Invstors in that vehicle get paid back if the merger does not go thru. Payout of course is on the nominal value, not some speculative market price.

(I was kind of hoping they'd get wiped out.)

IIRC the nominal value of a share of the merger vehicle is $10. Many paid in the $200 - $300 price range. The wipeout will hurt.

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:00 pm

Kendra wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 2:15 pm https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/stat ... 1405974537

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes says the investors in Truth “are being wiped out” by the SEC blocking them from going public: “We want to go public. We want to merge with a company. The shareholders that bought into that company are being wiped out.”

Liar! Invstors in that vehicle get paid back if the merger does not go thru. Payout of course is on the nominal value, not some speculative market price.

Volkonski wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:50 pm So for what very good reason is the SEC blocking Truth Social from going public?

Volkonski wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 4:50 pm So for what very good reason is the SEC blocking Truth Social from going public?

Yet soon after the intended merger was announced, the SEC, Department of Justice, and a federal grand jury all launched investigations into the deal. The probes are largely concerned with the timing of the merger discussions, relative to when DWAC went public. Under federal law, companies can’t discuss such acquisitions prior to an initial public offering.

Amid all the investigations, DWAC can’t complete its intended acquisition of TMTG. The company has had to repeatedly extend its deadline for the merger, and has struggled to maintain shareholder support as the deal drags on. The shell corp has lost more than 84% of its total stock value over the past year, even despite a value bump following the announcement of Trump’s 3rd presidential run. Clearly, the company has been financially floundering. In September 2022, DWAC downgraded its official address from an office space to a Miami post office box.

Truth Social itself has also not been doing so hot. It briefly experienced a jump in users and downloads following the FBI raids on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August, however download numbers have since fallen back down to below 200,000 per month, according to Statista. That’s compared with more than 40 million estimated Twitter monthly active users in the United States.

He blew the whistle on Trump’s Truth Social. Now he works at Starbucks.
The former high-ranking executive of Trump’s media company says he’s shared 150,000 internal documents with federal investigators. Many of his new strip-mall coworkers have no idea who he is.
By Drew Harwell April 29, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

SOMEWHERE IN NORTH CAROLINA — About six months ago, Will Wilkerson was the executive vice president of operations for former president Donald Trump’s media business, a co-founder of Trump’s Truth Social website and a holder of stock options that might have one day made him a millionaire. Today, he is a certified barista trainer at a Starbucks inside a Harris Teeter grocery store, where he works 5:30 a.m. shifts in a green apron and slip-resistant shoes, making Frappuccinos for $16 an hour. “It’s an honest day’s work,” he says, sitting near the flower kiosk of the supermarket in a North Carolina suburb, which he asked not be named due to fears of harassment. “I love what I do.”

Wilkerson, 38, has become one of the biggest threats to the Trump company’s future: a federally protected whistleblower whose attorneys say has provided 150,000 emails, contracts and other internal documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission and investigators in Florida and New York. Wilkerson last year publicly accused Trump Media and Technology Group of violating securities laws, telling The Washington Post he could not stay silent while the company’s executives gave what he viewed as misleading information to investors, many of whom are small-time shareholders loyal to the Trump brand.

The company fired him shortly after, saying he had “concocted psychodramas” but not responding to the specifics of his claims. This month, the company’s chief executive, the former Republican congressman Devin Nunes, sued Wilkerson for defamation in a Florida circuit court, claiming he had been subjected to “anxiety,” “insecurity,” “mental anguish” and “emotional distress” as a result of Wilkerson’s comments. Wilkerson’s whistleblowing case has gained little of the attention the other legal challenges facing the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee have gotten, including the criminal charges Trump faces related to hush money payments to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

But his testimony and trove of records have challenged the main engine of Trump’s post-presidential business ambitions, a venture that once commanded multibillion-dollar valuations with lofty promises to overtake the titans of American tech. The company’s attempt to merge with a financial outfit known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, has been frozen for months due to a pending SEC investigation that predates Wilkerson’s public comments and has blocked the company’s ability to unlock a critical source of cash. The SPAC, Digital World Acquisition, said in an SEC filing last month that it had replaced its chairman and chief executive, Patrick Orlando, and was facing “unprecedented headwinds.”

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