Abuja – April 2, 2024 – Viewpoint Housing News.
The US authorities are attempting to seize a $7 million property from a luxury Manhattan tower bearing the Donald Trump brand. According to the prosecution, the property was purchased illegally by one of the daughters of Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso.
The Daily Beast was able to obtain a forfeiture complaint filed on Friday in Manhattan federal court. The complaint states that the action “concerns the misappropriation, theft, or embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Congolese treasury, some of which was used for the purchase of a luxury apartment in the Southern District of New York for the use of President Nguesso’s daughter.
“According to the complaint, the reason the US is attempting to reclaim the property is “because the funds used to acquire it are traceable to violations of specified unlawful activities and U.S. law.”
Since 1979, Sassou-Nguesso, a kleptocrat who has been characterised as stunningly corrupt, has ruled the Congo nearly indefinitely.
The apartment’s previous listing describes it as a corner unit that ‘captures the essence of the most sought-after Columbus Circle neighbourhood’ and has ‘floor to ceiling windows, 10′ ceilings, a gracious entrance gallery, living/dining room, windowed eat-in kitchen with washer/dryer, two bedrooms with spectacular views and luxurious baths ensuite, plus a powder room, capacious closets and a separate bar, ideal for entertaining.”
On Monday, a Trump Organisation spokeswoman, Kimberly Benza, told The Daily Beast, “If this sale did occur, it would be by a 3rd party unit owner unrelated to our Organisation.”
The ties between Congolese first-daughter Claudia Lemboumba Sassou-Nguesso and the Trump International condo were first brought to light in 2019 by anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, which at the time publicly called upon the Justice Department to begin the process of seizing the two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bathroom unit. Sassou-Nguesso in 2014 paid a little over $4,000 a square-foot for the residence—a significant premium over the building’s median square-foot price of $2,521.
The apartment was procured via a byzantine array of shell companies and intermediaries who routed funds stolen from Congo’s public coffers through entities in Portugal, Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands, and Brazil, the forfeiture complaint states. The money finally ended up in the U.S., where Sassou-Nguesso and her enablers hired law firm K&L Gates to purchase apartment 32G “for the benefit of Sassou-Nguesso, using a portion of the laundered funds and embezzlement proceeds,” according to the complaint.
The complaint says Sassou-Nguesso was aware she could be rejected by Trump International as “a politically-exposed person,” and considered listing her cousin as the unit’s beneficial owner to avoid trouble.
However, Trump International officials told Sassou-Nguesso’s team that “it was ‘not a problem’ and that the information was ‘only for the condominium building,’” the complaint goes on. On June 24, 2014, a Portuguese businessman representing Sassou-Nguesso in the deal wired a $710,000 deposit to the condo’s seller, sending the $6,525,000 balance a month later, according to the complaint.
“In sum, the money used to purchase the Defendant Asset was a portion of the approximately USD 19.5 million of Congolese state funds embezzled through… sham contracts… and these embezzled funds were used to purchase the Defendant Asset for Sassou Nguesso’s apparent personal enrichment,” the complaint states.
After the Global Witness report was released in 2019, the Trump Organization said that monthly common charges paid by condo owners did not go directly to Trump himself “for profit.”
According to the forfeiture complaint, Sassou-Nguesso paid some $250,000 in common charges between 2018 and 2022. It says they were paid “out of bank accounts in Luxembourg, Portugal, and the United Arab Emirates” in the name of another Portuguese national fronting for Sassou-Nguesso.
Although the apartment has apparently remained unoccupied since it was purchased, prosecutors say they have reviewed emails from Sassou-Nguesso about interior design work to be conducted at the property, transferring, via her worldwide network, more than $400,000 to a Portuguese firm to carry out the job.
The apartment, according to the forfeiture complaint, “is traceable to… a conspiracy to launder the proceeds of specified unlawful activities.”
“The Court, for the reasons set forth herein, adjudge and decree that the Defendant Asset be forfeited to the United States of America and disposed of in accordance with existing laws, together with costs, and for such other relief as this Court deems proper and just,” the complaint states.
Trump’s properties, as The New York Times once said, “have a long history of serving as home to people with checkered pasts.”
