Donald Trump’s top aid and campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has a proven CV of working for pro-Putin oligarchs. However, Manafort’s business deal with Russian magnate Oleg Deripaska has apparently turned sour according to a lawsuit filed in the Cayman Islands.
Deripaska is one of the richest Russian oligarchs and built his fortune in the aluminum business. He is a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Mr. Derispaska was for years banned from entering the U.S. because of his alleged anti–democratic connections and ties to organized crime. He and Manafort met while Manafort was working on the presidential campaign of now ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, another Putin ally.
According to the court filing, Manafort and his two partners, Rick Davis and Rick Gates, set up a fund in 2007, in which Deripaska invested $100 million. The plan was to acquire small companies in the Ukraine region and then merge them into bigger national companies. But it didn’t work out that way. According to Bloomberg, Manafort’s fund only acquired one company, cable and Internet provider Black Sea Cable. When Deripaska requested an audit of the fund, he received no response from Manafort or his partners. Their last communication was in 2011.
“It appears that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have simply disappeared,” Deripaska’s lawyers wrote in a petition to the Cayman Islands court.
The case is still pending. But Manafort’s close ties to Russian oligarchs and controversial deals are still raising eyebrows.
Deripaska is not the only oligarch with a shady reputation with whom Manafort has partnered. Dmitrii Firtash, who has made his fortune in deals with Russia’s Gazprom and is now wanted by the U.S. on bribery charges, is just another of Manafort’s business connections.
