NYC real estate hunh?
Hunter Biden-linked real estate firm got at least $100M from Russian oligarch: sources
By Miranda Devine and Emily Crane Published Oct. 17, 2022 Updated Oct. 17, 2022, 10:27 p.m. ET
Excerpt
This isn’t the first time President Biden’s 52-year-old son has been linked to Baturina, whose late husband Yuri Luzhkov was mayor of Russia’s capital for more than 18 years before being dismissed by then-President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010.
Baturina, who has an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion, had wired $3.5 million in 2014 to a bank account held by Rosemont Seneca Thornton — a consortium formed between Hunter’s investment company, Rosemont Seneca, and the Boston-based Thornton Group.
Like Rosemont Realty, Rosemont Seneca Thornton is an offshoot of Rosemont Capital Partners, a private equity firm co-founded by Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry and son of the late Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz.
The 2014 transfer was later scrutinized in a 2020 report commissioned by Senate Republicans probing Hunter’s ties to Ukraine after Baturina’s transfers were flagged in suspicious activity reports filed by banks to the US Treasury Department.
Hunter’s lawyer, George Mesires, denied Biden’s son profited from that transaction, telling CNN at the time: “Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a co-founder of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false.”
The GOP report — overseen by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — described Baturina’s involvement with Hunter as “a financial relationship” but did not touch on why the wire transfer was made.
The question of who pocketed the $3.5 million has never been determined.
Less than two months after the wire transfer, Hunter and his then-business partner Devon Archer met with Baturina in April 2014 at the Villa d’Este — a well-known haunt of Russian oligarchs overlooking Lake Como, Italy.
According to emails uncovered from Hunter’s infamous laptop, Baturina’s name also popped up that same month regarding a possible real estate deal in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, as well as a Latin American cocoa venture.
Baturina is one of the few Russian oligarchs who have notably escaped sanctions since Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, a fact that caught the attention of GOP lawmakers earlier this year.
“If the United States is avoiding sanctioning certain Russian oligarchs because of concerns they may attempt to influence American policy by exploiting Hunter Biden’s connection with his father – the President of the United States – the American people deserve to know it,” a group of 19 House Republicans wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in April.
The emails detailing Baturina’s $40 million real estate investments came from a leak obtained by the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery, an anti-corruption group focusing on the former Soviet republic.
The messages were exchanged between Archer and Kenes Rakishev — a Kazakhstani businessman who was photographed with Hunter and Joe Biden at the Cafe Milano dinner.
More:
https://nypost.com/2022/10/17/hunter-bidens-real-estate-firm-received-over-100m-from-russian-oligarch/