Leak in Money-Launder Suit Touching Trump Project Draws Fine
- Kazakh bank chairman’s deposition posted on file-sharing site
- Fine could reach $280,000; defense ruled ‘not credible’
Mukhtar Ablyazov, center, as he leaves the Fleury-Merogis jail after being released in Fleury-Merogis, near Paris, on Dec. 9, 2016.
Photographer: Martin Bureau/AFP via Getty Images
A former mayor of Kazakhstan’s largest city and his son may be on the hook for more than $280,000 for violating a confidentiality order in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit over embezzlement and money laundering that also allegedly involved purchases of condominiums at the luxury Trump Soho tower.
The fine is the latest development in a yearslong legal battle on three continents between Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and its former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, whom the bank accuses of stealing $4 billion. BTA said Ablyazov enlisted the help of his son-in-law, Ilyas Khrapunov, and Ilyas’s father Viktor, the former mayor of Almaty, Kazakhstan, to launder the money and hide the assets.