Trump Business Contacts with Organized Crime Go Back Years

Semion Mogilevich. Source: New Republic

The Trump family ties to organized crime go back at least to Fred Trump, father of Donald. The FBI file on Fred Trump was released in October 2016.

According to Politico, he most recent memo in the file is from 1991. While the memo is highly redacted, there is a check mark next to a line identifying the source of information as OCIS, which stands for the FBI’s Mob  Organized Crime Information System. Notes on the document state that it came from a confidential source.

The Politico article can be found here. https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/10/fbi-releases-thin-file-on-fred-trump-229361

The FBI documents can be found here. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000157-a595-ded9-a977-fdddb1a30001

Donald Trump has had multiple dealings with organized crime throughout his real estate career.

According to David Cay Johnston, who has done extensive research and reporting on Donald Trump’s financial dealings, two of Donald Trump’s buildings in New York City, Trump Tower and the Trump Plaza apartment building, were built with help from the mob. Trump built the structures with overpriced concrete purchased from two mob chieftains: “Fat Tony” Salerno, who served as underboss and front boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, who became head of the Gambino crime family. (Castellano was known as “The Howard Hughes of the Mob” and “Big Paulie.”)

More information about Trump’s mob connections in New York, and his rushed permit for a casino in Atlantic City, can be found here. 
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910

Trump’s connections to organized crime in the United States prevented him from being awarded a permit to build casinos in Australia. Authorities in Queensland stated that allowing a Trump project would be “‘dangerous’ on account of ‘Trump Mafia connections,’” according to a Newsweek article from August 2017.

The Newsweek article can be found here. http://www.newsweek.com/trumps-alleged-mafia-connections-sydney-casino-651352

In addition to the Gambino and Genovese connections described above, Trump was in business in the mid-1980s with John Staluppi and John Rosatti, members of the Columbo crime family, to build Trump-branded limousines. Staluppi also operated Dillinger Charter Service, a company that provided helicopters to the Trump Organization. Staluppi and Rosatti also bought custom-built megayachts and then sold them after a couple of years for a profit (considered unusual in the yacht business, since new yachts are generally more valuable than used ones.)

The ties to the Columbo family are described here.
http://www.citypaper.com/news/mobtownbeat/bcp-062817-mobs-trumprussia-20170627-story.html

Trump has multiple connections with the Russian mob in the U.S. as well. A Dutch television program, which aired in May, explored the connections that may prove problematic for the Trump administration, and for the national security of the United States.

The program can be seen here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I

A brief synopsis of the program appeared in Salon magazine.
https://www.salon.com/2017/05/21/watch-dutch-film-the-dubious-friends-of-donald-trump-connecting-the-dots-on-trumps-ties-with-the-russian-mob/

The New Republic summarized what is known about Trump’s connections to Russian organized crime in an article published in July 2017. The article can be found here. https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate