Looks Like The Russkis Regret Their Choice

[Pat Mustard]

More please.

NP, it's kind of amusing stuff.  The russian government has an issue.  Corruption, grift.  Attendant to that grift is a manner of securing it away from agencies of russian state that might be able to access or confiscate it.  Capital flight.  Real estate has become a popular tool for illegal capital flight from actors within the russian state and close to putin.  Publicly, the russian state has spoken out against this and even taken action to combat both capital and actual flight (ie..russian officials and/or oligarchs sending their kids -and- money to the US).  However, due to the level of corruption, and those we know or suspect to be involved....it seems that any action is more or less a means of throwing low level particpants and rivals under the bus as flak.  

It's easy to see why this happens.  If you can shelter ill-gotten gains in foreign real estate, that the real estate might end up showing a loss is written off as the price of the other, more important but silent service.  Laundering those gains.  It's a bonus when they make money, ofc...because the whole chunk goes to the cleaners when the transaction is made.  

When a heaping wad of russian money finds it's way into a high profile new york real estate developers hands...you can bet that a nice chunk of it is illicit, either from the pov of the russian state, or the us.  The Donald cut his teeth (or got stooged through it by smoother operators) on this sort of scam with his "casino" - more accurately a warehouse full of convenient money laundering devices(lol).  His wealth (and his legal status) are both implicated and endangered by this relationship.  That was -before- he was president.  Now that he is, in what is just about a gift from the gods of realpolitik...is that the russian state could, at any time it wanted to throw someone under the bus..implicate the president of the united states as being involved in their corruption and capital flight scandal.

In a sane america, that would be more propoganda than truth...but this is trumps america now..........

Russia's money is mostly tied up in London and Monaco at the moment. But apart from that your analysis is spot on.