USSR to Russia to Trump
Remember, in 1992 the Soviet Union had just collapsed and many billionaires were created almost overnight by looting the resources of the defunct communist empire. The lines between shrewd business dealings and organized crime were difficult to draw, including in Little Odessa.
“Look, back in the day it was impossible not to be connected to criminals,” Leonid Nor, vice president of the Odessan diaspora office in Brighton Beach, told The Daily Beast earlier this month.
In at least one instance, Kislin helped newly minted billionaires from the defunct USSR find useful places to put their money. Not in commodities but in luxury apartments.
Real estate was a favorite safe haven for fugitive Russian monies since they could convert mountains of cash into opulent residential addresses with few reporting requirements.
Nobody understood that better than Donald Trump, who had been cultivating Russian and other ex-Soviet clients from the beginning. But in 1998 he was struggling to survive. His casino and resort operations in Atlantic City were in deep trouble, and to recover he had to launch an enormous construction project—what would be at the time the world’s tallest all-residential building: Trump World Tower opposite the United Nations in New York. It was a huge gamble. Trump was under a mountain of debt to German banks. But the apartments were especially attractive to oligarchs who had just seen the ruble collapse and were rushing to get even more of their money out of Russia.
That’s where Kislin stepped in. As Bloomberg Businessweek reported, he offered his former Soviet compatriots personal mortgages, which presumably allowed them the time to move their money and, if they chose actually to be in New York, to live in over-the-top Trumpian luxury.
“We understand who Kislin is. He is considered to be a thief from New York, very well connected to organized crime,” Daria Kaleniuk, one of Ukraine’s most articulate corruption fighters, told The Daily Beast.