Trump and the Elephant-Hide Wall Coverings

Trump’s administration has recently proposed lifting a ban on the import of elephants killed as sport trophies. Suddenly, endangered species have become a major political issue. As of this writing, Trump had issued a policy reversal by Tweet. The full effect of Trump’s tweet is not yet clear. There seems to be confusion about whether the things Trump does on Twitter are “really happening” or not.

Trump’s sudden concern for elephants is inconsistent with his documented history of cruelty to animals. As elephants faced extinction in 1989, Trump was using their hides to coat the walls and floors of rooms in his properties. Trump’s sons have controversially engaged in the sport-hunting of endangered African species, including elephants. One of Trump’s Russian business associates once pled guilty to smuggling endangered animal carcasses into the United States. The prosecutor who approved the plea deal is now a member of Trump’s Cabinet.

Cruelty to Animals

Trump is scheduled to pardon a Thanksgiving turkey later this week, which may be his first documented act of mercy towards an animal. In over a year of full-time research, I haven’t yet found an instance of Trump showing kindness or empathy toward an animal (the kind treatment of people has been pretty rare also).  I have come across deeply troubling anecdotes, though.

Walls and Ceilings Covered In Elephant Hide

I first discovered allegations of Trump using elephant-hide wall coverings in a letter to the editor of the Miami Herald from June of 1989. The reader had written in to express indignation at a television news segment that had casually featured “elephant hides used as wall-coverings” in the lobby of Trump Tower. I’m still working to verify that claim and find the original source.

Confirmation of Trump’s use of elephant-hides for interior decor can be found in a 1989 Miami Herald article about visitors regaled by a trip to Trump’s yacht.  The article noted that “even the richest of millionaires was impressed by the elephant-skin ceiling in the movie theater” aboard the yacht. At the time Trump was cladding his walls with their hides, the population of African elephants was plunging dramatically. To stem the mass slaughter of elephants, the United States banned the import of elephant parts in 1990.

Slaughtering Endangered Animals for Sport

While I have not yet “strongly verified” claims of Trump coating his walls in elephant hides, I soon found more recent (and widely known) photographs of Trump’s sons killing various endangered African animals (elephants included) for sport. (GothamistMarch 13, 2012)

Exposure of the photographs prompted Trump to publicly defend his sons, noting they’re hunters and donate the meat of the animals they kill to  “the local tribes.”

It’s unclear to me where this tribe of African villagers subsisting off the donated kills of wealthy safari hunters lives.  If you spend too long listening to Trump, even the most outlandish things begin to seem plausible, so please take a few moments to wrap your head around the staggering implausibility of the Trumps’ official defense of their conduct. Slaughtering cheetahs for sport would be a convoluted approach to the policy problem of rural hunger in Africa. Nearly any child between the ages of 7 and 10 could explain quite clearly why hunting big-game cats for meat is wrong. 

Doing Business with a Smuggler of Endangered Animal Carcasses

Craziest of all, however, is that the international trade of endangered animal parts actually ties in directly with Trump’s Russian business associates. Trump once had a business partner named Tamir Sapir (who passed away in 2014). The relationship between Trump and Sapir goes back a long way and is pretty complicated. But to keep it simple, let’s point out that Sapir was a key partner in Trump Soho, a big Trump-branded development in New York City that is controversial. Two of Trump’s children were nearly indicted for their role in the building’s development and their business partners have been credibly accused of money laundering.

During all of the other sketchiness and fraud going on at Trump SoHo, Tamir Sapir was caught with a yacht full of endangered animal carcasses. Officials reportedly discovered “barstools upholstered with python … skins, seven carved elephant tusks, … a zebra-skin-lined children’s bed, and a cigar box wrapped in elephant hide.” The billionaire pled guilty in 2009 and was punished with a fine of $150,000. The prosecutor in Sapir’s case, Alex Acosta, is now Trump’s Secretary of Labor.

That NYC cab driver turned billionaire has pleaded guilty to charges that he violated the Endangered Species Act by attempting to import 29 rare dead animals into the US aboard his yacht. You may recall Tamir Sapir as the Georgian man who rose from immigrant hack to Russian oil and real estate tycoon, ultimately buying the city’s most expensive townhouse across from the Metropolitan Museum for $40 million in 2006. But Florida Customs officers who peered inside his yacht in 2007 know him better as a dealer in dead endangered wildlife.

According to the Post, Fish and Wildlife Service investigators confiscated the following items: Barstools upholstered with python and anaconda skins, seven carved elephant tusks, hides of jaguars, tigers and zebras, a fully stuffed and mounted lion, a cigarette holder made from python skin, a zebra-skin-lined children’s bed, and a cigar box wrapped in elephant hide. Speaking to reporters, US District Attorney Alex Acosta said, “Personally, I think these items are rather creepy items. And I would not want them in my house, but some people like them and are willing to buy them. The reason laws exist is because there is a market.”

(Gothamist, May 15, 2009)

Summary

So, to recap what we know so far:

(1) Trump doesn’t have a good track record on caring for animals.

(2) Trump has a past history of importing endangered animal parts.

(3) Trump’s sons have gone to Africa to kill endangered animals for sport.

(4) One of Trump’s business partners admitted to illegally importing endangered animal parts.

(5) Trump’s Administration has proposed loosening restrictions on the import of endangered animal parts.

 

Weird Money In, Weird Money Out

Trump received a suspiciously generous mortgage from Hong Kong investors in July of 1994 that saved his troubled Riverside South development from bank foreclosure. The exact same month, Trump’s brother Robert used companies that Donald partially owns, to invest millions of dollars in a family of overseas companies that would be defunct within three years. Was Trump paying overseas investors to lend him money?

Trump lived off one-time cash infusions

One of the strangest observations about Donald Trump’s cash flow comes from a 1995 analysis by New Jersey casino regulators.  The report noted that all Trump’s significant sources of cash flow “appear to be one-time occurrences and do not represent continuing sources of funds.” The report also noted that Trump’s cash flow problems were likely to grow in the future, because the end of a 1990 agreement with his lenders meant “debt service on the replacement debt must now be serviced with cash.” Despite finding Trump’s cash flow had underperformed projections, his major potential income streams were heavily leveraged, and his projected cash requirements were likely to only grow, regulators opined that he would be solvent enough to continue operating his casinos because he had “demonstrated an ability to adjust cash-flow requirements when necessary.”

Right there, in a nutshell, is the problem of Donald Trump’s finances. They don’t make sense. He’ll spend millions of dollars on enterprises that lose money, but somehow there’s always cash around when he needs it.

That explains why a growing number of observers have reached the conclusion that Trump is engaged in some kind of money laundering operation. It would appear that Trump controls some level of assets held entirely “off the books.” When he needs cash in America, he pays a foreign intermediary to loan it to him.

Trump bailed out by generous Hong Kong lenders

The starkest example of this can be seen in 1994. During this period, Donald Trump was still laboring under an Operating Agreement he had reached with his banks after bankrupting several companies he controlled and defaulting on billions of dollars in loans. Trump had maintained control over Riverside South, a large parcel of undeveloped rail yards that Trump and his father had been trying to develop since the early 70s. The property, which yielded no income, was also heavily mortgaged.

By summer 1994 it looked like Trump would be forced to default on the loans and surrender the property to his bankers. Suddenly, a mysterious group of Hong Kong investors swooped in to buy up Trump’s distressed $210 million mortgage at a steep discount of only $90 million. The new investors gave Trump generous terms, allowing him to keep 30% equity, operational control, and an open line of credit to finance development.

They seemed to come out of nowhere — a powerful group of Hong Kong billionaires who appeared in June to revive Donald J. Trump’s troubled Riverside South project with millions in cash and a promise to finance the multibillion-dollar development. […] The $2.5 billion project had been languishing until the arrival of the Hong Kong investors, who purchased Mr. Trump’s $250 million debt on the land for $90 million and made a commitment to finance the construction of Riverside South. (New York Times, August 29, 1994)

Trump’s Brother Sent Millions Abroad, No Return

Why would RAGEPATH think that this $90 million from Hong Kong was actually Trump’s money? Well our suspicions start with a publicly-traded company called Management Technologies that spent $12.8 million to buy four companies called “Winter Partners” based in New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong from someone in Zurich.

 On July 14, 1994, the  Company acquired Winter Partners Limited, Winter  Partners,  Inc,  (subsequently renamed MTi Abraxsys Systems, Inc), Winter Partners Pte Limited (subsequently  renamed   MTi   Abraxsys   Systems   Pte Limited),   and    Winter    Partners    (HK)   Limited (subsequently  renamed   MTi   Abraxsys   Systems  (HK) Limited)  from  Winter   Partners  Holding   AG.    The companies, hereafter referred  to as  the WP companies, formed the international  banking software  division of Winter Partners, a Zurich, Switzerland based company. The Company  paid  a  total  of  $12,800  for  the WP companies. The Company financed the acquisition through a combination  of cash  from its  own  resources, short   term borrowings and proceeds from new share issuances. (Management Technologies, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1995)
 Management Technologies was in turn closely tied to Donald Trump’s brother, Robert. According to the company’s public filings, the company had several insider transactions with Robert Trump, including hiring financial consultants designated by Robert Trump in July of 1994.
 Item 12.  Certain Relationships and Related Transactions [...] Robert S. Trump, Gerald Franz, Midland & Associates [...] the Company also agreed to place the sum of $100,000 in an escrow account with  its counsel for the specific purpose of repayment  of the $50,000 loan  made by Mr.  Franz and  for  payment by  the  Company under  a  joint marketing agreement with Financial Performance Corp., a software company of which  both Messrs. Franz  and Trump are  affiliates. The  funds  in  the  escrow  account  have  been   disbursed  as determined by Mr.  Franz, in  his sole  discretion, including  a $40,222.15 payment made to Mr. Franz. [...]  As a consequence  of a  transaction with  Midland Associates,  a general partnership in which Mr. Trump is a partner, in  July of 1994, the Company entered into a financial  consulting agreement with Mr. Gerald Franz to perform financial  consulting services, and agreed to pay Mr. Franz or his designee a fee in  the sum of $60,000. (Management Technologies, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1995)
In the exact same month, another company called Midland Associates filed four UCC statements indicating that loans had been extended to each of the Winter Partner companies purchased by Management Technologies.  Each of those UCC statements, signed by Robert Trump, indicated that the loans were secured against all future accounts receivable earned by the companies. The size of the loans is not disclosed in the UCC financing statements (one, two, three, four).

We know from Donald Trump’s 2015 Financial Disclosure that he was a 25% owner of Midland Associates at the outset of his presidential campaign. The remainder of the company was owned by Trump’s family members.

We also know from Trump’s 2015 Financial Disclosure that he had been a partner in Midland Associates continuously from 1968. This would mean that Donald Trump owned at least 1/4 of the money that was pumped into Winter Partners through Midland Associates.

After the transaction, Winter Partners went on to lose slightly more than $13 million and was closed down as a total loss by Management Technologies in 1997, following its insolvency and liquidation.
 Winter Partners was acquired in July of 1994 in an acquisition transaction that included Abraxsys, Inc., Abraxsys Pte and Abraxsys HK. The Company paid a total of $12,800,000, and incurred certain additional costs of approximately $325,000.  [...] In the years ended April 30, 1995, 1996 and 1997, Winter Partners incurred losses of $5,038,147, $6,070,311 and $1,954,026, respectively. No dividend was paid to Management Technologies, Inc. in conjunction with the liquidation of Winter Partners.  Accordingly, at April 30, 1997, the Company's apportioned investment in, and advances to,  Winter Partners are valued at zero. (Management Technologies, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1997)

So what’s the deal here? Is this a staggeringly stupid investment by Donald Trump’s brother, who purchased several foreign-controlled companies with one company, then loaned them an undisclosed sum secured against all their future earnings with another company, only to lose his entire investment?

Or is it a simple payment to someone overseas that may have financed the loan Donald Trump received in the exact same month these payments were made?

We admit it’s possible that these transactions were completely unrelated. We think there is enough evidence that these transactions were interrelated that the burden of skepticism should lie with those arguing they are not.  We’d welcome evidence that proves our conclusion wrong.