Halyna Hutchins - Snowbound sponsored by Billionaires Row

[MercurysBall2]

This article related to the Halyna Hutchins story..

A church, its shell companies and a plan to have rapper Flo Rida plug high-end bubbly https://web.archive.org/web/20200101222 ... 32789.html

December 20, 2019 08:00 AM


This screenshot is from the homepage of Archbishop Timothy Paul and his Christian Cathedral. His original name is Timothy Paul Baymon, his Massachusetts church purports to have 4.5 million followers worldwide. He is in documents from the leak of offshore services provider Formations House that was creating an offshore bank, trust and insurance company for him.

NEW YORK

The middleman was ecstatic. An American archbishop was not only looking to move some money offshore, he was looking to move all his finances abroad.

“He says he feels he can swing his council or synod to establishing his whole banking empire as he envisions it and he wants to set up also an insurance company, various offshore companies,” wrote Michael O’Mara in a Sept. 8. 2015, email to a London-based offshore services provider. “I am trying also to sell him some of the recent companies you sent me with bank accounts to act as his holding companies.”

It’s not every day that a church, enjoying tax-exempt status in the United States, is seen as a viable candidate to buy offshore shell companies with their own bank accounts, which can give the appearance of a longstanding business.

The COO of one of those church-affiliated offshore businesses at one time had reached out to none other than Flo Rida, the Miami-born rap artist, trying to swing a deal to have him invest in a brand of high-end champagne called Billionaires Row. Flo Rida’s lawyer said no and the plan fizzled. But more on that in a bit.

The email about the archbishop’s offshore shell companies is part of a giant leak of more than a million documents from Formations House, a London-based financial services firm with clients across the globe, including some in the United States.

Other leaked documents show that Archbishop Timothy Paul, the senior pastor of the Christian Cathedral in Springfield, Mass., purchased an official-looking insurance company, a Swedish investment trust and even a faux bank — one in name only — in Gambia.


In interviews, he acknowledged spending tens of thousands of church dollars on offshore companies — but says he never used the shell companies.

Emails show O’Mara, who works out of an English seaside hotel room on behalf of Mediterranean Corporate Services, tried to sell the archbishop on religious-sounding names for his offshore entities — names like Alliance Parish Banking Ltd. or Alliance Congregational Bank & Trust Co.

But the archbishop settled on Dominion Global Investment Capital Trust, serving as its president and taking the name, he said, from the book of Genesis.

Dominion Global had a COO, William Benson, a brash New Yorker with a love of the limelight and a trail of unhappy business associates. They describe Benson as a frequent name-dropper, who boasted of his relationship with an archbishop, with Flo Rida and with the socialite Paris Hilton.

Dominion Global wasn’t a bank of the conventional sort, with checking accounts, tellers and the like. Nor did it grant commercial loans to real-estate developers.

When McClatchy and the Miami Herald called to check its operational hours, the call was put through to a man with a thick New York accent who said it wasn’t “that kind of bank.” Anyways, he said, the bank itself is in London.

When a reporter visited the bank’s listed address in lower Manhattan, in a swank high-rise glass tower at 17 State Street, Suite 4000, on the Hudson River, that suite wasn’t an actual bank either.

The guard there pulled out clipped-together paperwork listing hundreds of companies that together share the suite’s office space under a flat monthly fee.

Two young women answer the phones, the guard offered, but there isn’t anyone else there. It was a virtual office, a fancy address that gives the aura of a real brick-and-mortar company.

Piercing the veil

The archbishop’s offshore business was among the intriguing narratives found in 10 years worth of Formations House records obtained by the anti-secrecy group Distributed Denial of Secrets and shared with investigative journalists, including those at McClatchy and the Miami Herald..

Journalists collaborated for months and on Dec. 4 began publishing under the #29Leaks hashtag, a reference to Formation House’s tony address at 29 Harley Street in London. Reporters found Iranian oil companies dodging sanctions, a Miami resident busted in a DEA sting and a plan for industrial scale cannabis farming in Cameroon.

Formations House chief Charlotte Pawar said in emailed responses to questions that the leaked records were stolen and that she was subjected to extortion but did not provide evidence of that.

The leak, combined with the recent Panama Papers and Paradise Papers leaks, gives added momentum to legislation now in the U.S. Senate that would end anonymity by requiring greater disclosure of the true ownership of shell companies in the United States.

“99.99 percent of Americans don’t own offshore companies but the few that do try to tell you how legitimate it is,” said Edward H. Davis Jr., an asset-recovery lawyer with Sequor Law in Miami. “The reality is the entire offshore system is designed to avoid detection of the existence and movement of wealth.”

The Formations House leak adds a new wrinkle to the global debate, in part because it was based in London, not Panama or the faraway Seychelles, another haven for companies seeking tax avoidance. And it went beyond offering shell companies, but also faux banks that mimicked financial institutions but weren’t regulated or required to have a minimum amount of cash on hand.

These bank-named shells can issue loans, mortgages to their members and even credit cards as if they were a normal bank, according to promotional materials.

The Formations House documents provide insight into how these financial instruments are used. One email referenced a giant global gemstone wholesaler “sitting on a huge pile”, who sought three “banks” for internal operations, insisting on the humorous names Tightwad International Bank Ltd., Tightwad Bank International Co. Ltd. and Tightwad Global Bank Ltd.

Shell Companies for God

Archbishop Paul is not an archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, the common associations with that rank of clergy. Paul said that 20 years ago he adopted the name of St. Paul when he was consecrated as an archbishop.

He leads a freestanding Christian denomination that voted him archbishop and patriarch of the International Holy Communion of Churches, which he said involves roughly 700 churches that together count 4.6 million followers. Like the Russian or Greek orthodox churches, he said, the denomination follows the original interpretations of the early apostles.

“We brought orthodoxy to African Americans,” he explained.

Until recently, Paul was also president of Epiphany Development Corp., which converted a historic Springfield building into a Holiday Inn Express.

Paul, 53, insisted there was nothing untoward about his church having offshore companies.

“We wanted to fund missions and do things,” he said, noting he hoped to expand the reach of his church. “They sell offshore banks, so we thought this was a legitimate means to have an offshore bank for our ministries that we were going to be project-funding for.”

The interest in going offshore began with an email solicitation, he said, and eventually the representative from Mediterranean Corporate Services came across the Atlantic to see him.

Paul said he has foreign outreach in Gambia, India, Kenya and Zambia. His church website makes no mention of this. Asked about specific projects, he offered that the Swedish investment trust was established for that purpose but has yet to invest in projects.

“That would be for the real-estate projects we’re going to do,” he said, suggesting they were raising capital to build a foreign supermarket. “It’s almost like a real-estate trust.”

The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, a #29Leaks partner, reported that Russian middlemen and Swedish offshore services providers had discovered and exploited a loophole in Sweden’s banking laws that gave the appearance that bank-named trusts were regulated when in fact those belonging to non-Swedes are not.

Swedish documents shared with McClatchy and the Miami Herald show Paul signing the trust registration on Feb. 20, 2017. He said he used another consultant called Global Money Consultants to create that company.

Paul also purchased a “bank” in Gambia, the smallest country on the African mainland but one with a large corruption problem, for years run by dictator Yahya Jammeh.

Formations House chief Charlotte Pawar’s late father, Nadeem Khan, had convinced Jammeh to create an enterprise zone, which allowed the London firm to fashion a line of business registering offshore companies there.

In an email to #29Leaks partners, O’Mara said he’d created more than 150 such banks in the Gambian offshore zone since 2013 for “wealthy families who want to handle their own finances.” The church doesn’t fit that description but O’Mara declined to discuss Paul’s offshore entities. Even though the Gambian enterprise zone was never fully authorized by the legislature there, banks sold for about $33,000 apiece today’s exchange rates, a price Paul didn’t dispute.

Archbishop Paul created Global Dominion, but insisted the related “bank,” Dominion Bank & Trust Company Ltd., was never used.

“We haven’t even operated from the Mediterranean Gambian license,” he said. “We paid a lot of money for it, but it was not something we used.”

He later established Dominion Bank and Trust Company in the tax haven of the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean between Mozambique and Madagascar. It too hasn’t been used, he said.

Paul purchased from Formations House a pre-existing shell company called Global Mortgages Ltd. British corporate registration documents show Paul as the main shareholder in 2017 but in 2018 and 2019 the company was threatened with dissolution.

Global Mortgages Ltd. was going to be used as a vehicle to purchase real estate in Africa, he said, but the shell company was abandoned.

“It was an idea that was kicked around” but never got off the ground, Paul said.

Also registered under Paul’s name in Gambia was Dominion International Insurance Company. The idea, he said, was to create a captive insurer ⁠— an insurance company controlled by the insured.

For larger companies, these are used to reduce costs by self-insuring a project while enjoying some tax breaks.

But the IRS last year warned taxpayers about so-called micro-captive structures, popular with wealth planners and offshore services providers that “lack many of the attributes of genuine insurance.”

Paul said his insurance company, referenced in the Swedish trust documents that he signed, was also never put into function.

“Since we didn’t use the bank, we didn’t need that,” he said.

Paul’s public profile isn’t — or wasn’t — completely accurate. In a LinkedIn page, he claims to have a Ph.D in education from American University. The school has no record of that.

“My Ph.D is in street-ology,” he quipped when asked about the degree.


Why was it on his LinkedIn profile? Someone else did the page for him, he said, “when you become the patriarch, things like that happen.”

The LinkedIn references to a Ph.D in education and American University were subsequently removed.

On his relationship with William Benson, Paul said he tapped Benson for his expertise and insight, well after the efforts had begun to expand church operations abroad. They were introduced through a friend working on a project involving Liberia, he said.

Bold claims

Benson, 34, runs Billionaires Row, a champagne company that touts the high life. A seemingly strange bedfellow for an archbishop, Benson marketed a playboy image, boasted of his friendship with Hilton and associates say he claimed to have worked for Goldman Sachs. The investment bank has no record of Benson having worked there.

“We don’t have any involvement. I want to make that very clear. We don’t engage in any of those secular or non-humanitarian projects,” Paul said during a first interview together with Benson.

Speaking of Benson, Paul added, “His primary role with the trust was to offer his expertise and help us obtain the necessary funding.”

Funding that apparently did not happen, for use in offshore vehicles that were never actually used.

In a subsequent interview without Benson, Paul acknowledged that he was aware of complaints against Benson.

“We found that he didn’t work for Goldman Sachs. We found [that] he did not have the knowledge that he professed,” Paul said, adding that “we were the cleanest vehicle for him to attach himself.”

Enter Flo Rida

Flo Rida attorney Reginald Mathis confirmed that in November 2014 Benson and his Billionaires Row offered a deal. An ex-business associate familiar with the deal said it involved Flo Rida mentioning the imported champagne in a song and doing a promotional tour.

“Things just never seemed to check out,” said Mathis, adding that, “he tried to put something together in 2015 with the Super Bowl, which never materialized. Flo advised that he was given product at some point, but he hasn’t had contact with Benson in years.”

In an interview, Benson denied ever having extended a contract offer to Flo Rida or any other celebrity.

“We don’t need any artist to do a song. We have many celebrities that promote the brand for free,” he said, adding that no celebrity “has invested a dime in the company.”

The archbishop said he’d never heard of Flo Rida, whose real name is Tramar Lacel Dillard. The pitch to Flo Rida came before Benson got involved with Dominion. Paul said that he was unaware of Benson’s actions or his alleged outside sales pitches on behalf of Dominion to would-be investors.

But on July 17, the website www.bankdominion.com issued a warning that Benson had no authority to “represent or bind” Dominion Bank and Trust, Ltd.

“William Benson does not have authority to enter into contracts that bind the Dominion Bank and Trust, Ltd or create obligations on the part of the Dominion Bank and Trust, Ltd. without final approval of our compliance department,” read a notice on the home page. That page today is password protected.

Benson said in the interview that it was he who ended ties with Paul after first getting offered the job of CEO of Dominion Bank.

“I saw things that I didn’t want to be part of, so I stepped back,” he said, noting he broke with the archbishop last April or May. He declined to discuss what he saw that was worrisome and added he worked with Paul just for eight months and after the offshore entities were created. He also denied saying he worked at Goldman Sachs, noting he had worked at a division that was purchased by the giant bank.

Several people claim Benson ripped them off.

“He took $15,000 from me promising he could provide a lot of funding,” said Joseph Clarke, a real-estate investor and entrepreneur in Louisville, Kentucky, who hoped to develop a beachfront project in Honduras and mostly got a website and press release out of the effort.

That money, which he said disappeared in 2014, was part of a wrongful death settlement after the death of his son, Clarke said.

“It really left a bad taste in my mouth,” he said, adding, “I really wanted to see him fry.”

Benson denied anything improper, saying that “I sent him an invoice and he paid it. I don’t work for free.”

Jeremiah Patterson was stationed at Patrick Air Force Base near Cocoa Beach, Florida, when he was approached by Benson in 2013, who offered to invest in his prototype touch-screen technology.

“He made it sound like he was a big tycoon,” said Patterson, noting that “he did mention offshore accounting and how he was looking to be part of an international banking corporation.”

Patterson gave him a stake in the company, Taptl, in exchange for marketing and fundraising, and gave him a corporate American Express card. Soon afterward, Benson ran up the bills, he said, failing to even pay the card’s initiation fee.

“I didn’t end up losing as much money as some other folks but it did set my business back by a year and a half,” said Patterson, now stationed in Georgia. “Keep in mind, I am a psychological specialist for the Air Force. I put him through the ringers and he had me convinced. That’s not an easy thing to do.”

Benson denied running up credit card bills and provided an October 2014 Ohio court injunction against Patterson that prevented further disparagement. Patterson said his start-up couldn’t afford to appeal.

A South Florida man who fell out with Benson shared a 15-page application for a corporate account with Bank Dominion and an unsigned letter of credit from Dominion Global, with its London address, promising $1.5 million with a lending rate of 4 percent.

The man recalled briefly being introduced by phone to the archbishop in the middle of 2018, something Paul steadfastly denied.

“He hopped on one call, said ‘hi’ for a moment,’ he said. “When they said archbishop, I assumed they meant the Catholic Church.”

Emails viewed by McClatchy and the Herald show a New York FBI agent was made aware last summer of several complaints about Benson. An FBI spokesman in New York City declined comment.

Told about that, Benson provided what he said was a video of a recently videotaped conversation with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley at the United Nations, and said it showed he was not under a legal cloud.

[MercurysBall2]

#29LEAKS: INSIDE A LONDON COMPANY MILL https://www.occrp.org/en/29leaks/

What do a Swedish Hells Angels boss, an Iranian state oil company, the Italian mob, and a fake Gambian bank have in common? The answer: A company services firm called Formations House, hidden behind the doors of one of London’s most exclusive addresses.

For years, the handsome Edwardian terrace at 29 Harley Street was a front for a vast back-office operation run out of Pakistan that claims to have churned out some 400,000 companies for clients around the globe.

A cache of the family-run company’s internal records obtained by the anti-secrecy group Distributed Denial of Secrets, and shared with OCCRP and other media outlets, provides unprecedented insight into Formations House’s global reach, and the criminal activities of some of its clients around the world.

The resulting project — dubbed #29Leaks, referencing the company’s former address — provides insight into London’s company services industry, which UK law enforcement officials admit is regularly exploited by criminals. The stories also identify regulatory loopholes and failings that leave the global financial system vulnerable to fraud, money laundering, and corruption.

Even as firms registered by Formations House got involved in high-profile scams around the world, UK authorities failed to take action. The leaked records span a ten-year period, from 2008 to 2018, during which time the founder of Formations House was investigated by British police for serious financial crimes and the UK’s top anti-money laundering regulator warned the company that it could face prosecution for its failure to comply with regulations.

But Formations House is still doing business today. Meanwhile, authorities have done nothing to disrupt the broader British company formation industry — in which negligent companies churn out thousands more, and sell them to just about anyone.

In one case, the leaked documents show, a Formations House client ran a car-trafficking ring that cost Slovenian and Croatian taxpayers millions. In another, a fraudster banned from doing business in his native India skipped out on a construction deal in Serbia before buying a fake Gambian bank from Formations House.

The documents also reveal the company’s plans to set up next-generation, privately-run offshore zones in poor countries with weak institutions. A big selling point? They would be beyond the reach of domestic and international authorities.

Through one of its spin-off companies, Formations House sold North Macedonia’s government on an offshore zone that critics feared would become a “haven for dirty money.”

In Gambia, the company’s late founder, Nadeem Khan, penned a deal with a corrupt African dictator. Formations House went on to set up its own shadow corporate registration system and illicitly license hundreds of companies in Gambia, without the knowledge or approval of local authorities. Some of them have allegedly been used in multi-million-dollar fraud schemes.

The company also sent money to Cameroon while trying to launch a cannabis plantation in a specially-licenced trade zone inside a rainforest, but local workers said they have yet to be paid.

[MercurysBall2]

#29LEAKS :

https://twitter.com/MichaelWestBiz/stat ... 0820665344 >

Australian Defence contracts pass from Russian with money-laundering links to shady US military contractor Dyncorp https://www.michaelwest.com.au/australi ... r-dyncorp/

Why is the Australian Defence Force striking deals with a Russian military contractor whose associations stretch from Cyprus to the Seychelles? The ADF and Defence Minister Melissa Price have batted away questions about Australian taxpayers’ money being laundered through tax havens. Earlier this month, Michael West Media revealed the story of Operation Slippery which arose from the global data leak #29Leaks. Kim Prince digs deeper into the money trail as the call for answers grows louder.

Dyncorp International is a US military contractor which has been embroiled in controversies around the world, is controlled by a private equity firm and provides a range of military services including supplying mercenary forces.

It established DynCorp Australia in 2004 and public contract data shows that its pickings from the Department of Defence were slim for nearly eight years. A turning point came in 2011 when the local agent for a Russian aviation company, Vertical-T, failed under curious circumstances.

DynCorp took over the agency agreement and began working more closely with the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Since 2014, the firm has reaped at least $380 million from Australian government contracts.

These facts alone are unremarkable. However, a recent data leak from UK shell company factory, Formations House, has laid bare the details of payments made under the agency agreement. The leak, dubbed #29 Leaks, raises the spectre of money-laundering, and poses serious questions about how the ADF spends taxpayer money.

Dyncorp’s predecessor, Vertical-T, is run by a Russian aviation magnate, Vladimir Skurikhin. From late 2010 it was represented in this country by a newly incorporated agent, Vertical Australia. It won a contract with the ADF almost immediately and began providing heavy-lift helicopter services for the war in Afghanistan. Central to the services was a Mi-26T, the largest and most powerful helicopter ever produced.

Vertical Australia was responsible for collecting payments from the ADF. Less than 12 months into the arrangement however, it found itself at the centre of a dispute between Vertical-T and Wellman Limited. Wellman, based in Cyprus, is one of a number of companies involved in handling payments on behalf of Vertical-T. The Russian company and the Cypriot company both demanded that Vertical Australia remit them the cash directly.

Over a period of two months, Vertical Australia accumulated $2.3 million in payments from the ADF. Eventually, apparently keen to avoid being sued by another company associated with the Russian aircraft magnate Skurikhin, it parked the funds with the NSW Supreme Court and went out of business.

By the time the matter was heard by the Court, Vertical-T had appointed DynCorp Australia as its new local agent. Ultimately, documents show the court ruled in favour of Vertical-T and the accumulated funds were transferred to DynCorp, and from there to Vertical-T. That appeared to be the end of the matter.

THE LEAK

Deep in the Formations House data this publication has discovered bank transactions belonging to another company controlled by Skurikhin, this time a UK company. The transactions reached across more than a dozen countries including Russia, Bulgaria and Uganda, and showed the regular use of tax havens and financial secrecy jurisdictions such as Seychelles, the Marshall Islands and Panama.

Outward payments were made from the Skurikhin accounts to numerous shell companies, and to at least one well known money laundering outfit, Progate Solutions LP.

Amongst the leaked transactions were payments from DynCorp Australia to Vertical-T. They were unremarkable, with the exception of four that occurred between late 2012 and early 2013, for a total of US$1.1 million. At that time, money launderers were using sham court cases and prepaid legal fees to disguise the true source of funds. The four transactions raised suspicions with their description of “refund legal fees overpaid”.

Further research has revealed that the warring companies, the companies which effectively tore Vertical-T’s Australian agent in two, were both closely connected to Skurikhin. He established Vertical-T in Russia and remains its General Director. He was, and continues to be, joint owner of the Cyprus company, Wellman Limited. Naturally, this raises questions about the authenticity of the court case.

The prospect of Australian taxpayer funds being laundered through Australian courts is worrying in itself, particularly where contracts relate to the ADF, the largest component of the Federal Budget and one of the government’s most secretive departments. In this case, those concerns are compounded by the fact that two of the suspicious payments to Skurikhin are immediately followed by large payments from Skurikhin to an unidentifiable recipient.

The payments, totalling US$730,000, appear to have gone to a UK company, Layne Design LLP. Layne Design was owned by two companies in the Marshall Islands, where the real owners were hidden behind a veil of corporate secrecy. Apart from its initial registration, Layne Design did not meet a single one of its filing obligations with the UK companies register. It was eventually struck off.

In other words, it appears that Layne Design was set up for the sole purpose of receiving a small number of secret, once-off payments.

DYNCORP STONEWALLS

The circumstances which led DynCorp to establish an Australian subsidiary are not exactly clear. We put questions to a former DynCorp director but have not received a response. It is possible however that the ADF, DynCorp and Vertical-T came together for the first time as part of the International Force East Timor (INTERFET), which was commanded by then Major General Peter Cosgrove.

The port facilities in East Timor were unsuitable for landing some of the equipment which had been brought by ship from a number of countries. The ADF sought the assistance of the US who provided two Mi-26 helicopters under contract from DynCorp. The two helicopters flew to East Timor from Russia under their own power, a trip that took ten days.

There is no suggestion that Sir Peter Cosgrove was in any way involved in any wrongdoing.

NEW TRANSACTIONS

Since the initial revelations from michaelwest.com.au earlier this month, transactions for another Skurikhin-linked bank account have emerged from the leaked data. These relate to the year leading up to the dispute between Vertical-T and the Cyprus entity Wellman.

The transactions show a total of US$5.4 million arriving from Wellman and a second Cyprus-based ‘feeder’ company, Evertime Limited. We know from past court documents that the Wellman amounts almost certainly include payments from the ADF.

During the same period, US$5.3 million was paid out from the account. Some 25% went to a company that has been difficult to trace, another 33% was paid to Stranger Agency LLP, a known money laundering outfit, and a mere 36% was paid to Vertical-T.

Stranger Agency LLP is known to have moved at least 420 million Euros through the Baltic and into Europe. Progate Solutions LP, a Scottish limited partnership that also received funds from Skurikhin, moved US$194 million out of Russia in 2013-2014.

As reported earlier, there is a lot more to this story. A parliamentary inquiry into the tender process for fixed-wing air services in Afghanistan; the notorious history of controversy for contracts in the Middle East Area of Operations (MEAO); and the chequered history of DynCorp International.

Perhaps the greatest concern however is that the ADF continues to ignore questions on this topic, despite a number of efforts to glean a response. Questions were put to both the Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price and to the ADF. This is about #YourRightToKnow.

[MercurysBall2]

William Benson And Patrick Ductant Ring In 2022 As Leaders Of The Spirit Industry
https://marketsherald.com/william-benso ... -industry/

William Benson and Patrick Ductant, best known as the leaders of Billionaires Row, are the iconic duo behind the brand’s highly successful Rosé Champagne and Cognac XO.

While Benson is behind the inception of Billionaires Row, the brand would not have been the same without his partner, Ductant. These two Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have pushed Billionaires Row to flourish as a globally recognized brand in 2021.

Black-owned, international and luxurious, Billionaires Row develops and designs products for the affluent and elite. ...

In 2019 William Benson received a Strategic Leadership & Business Development Award by the Young, Gifted & Black Entrepreneurial Awards Program https://www.ygbawards.com/copy-of-2019? ... m-jsba97fe

Linkedin profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/sir-william ... -77847459/

CHAMPAGNE BILLIONAIRES ROWCHAMPAGNE BILLIONAIRES ROW
Mar 2009 - Present · 13 yrs 1 mo Mar 2009 - Present · 13 yrs 1 mo
Épernay, Champagne-Ardenne, France

NY Senate https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/re ... /2019/j642

Honoring William Benson upon the occasion of his designation as recipient of the Strategic Leadership & Business Development Award

SPONSORED BY :
Kevin S. Parker
(D, WF) 21ST SENATE DISTRICT

Kevin Parker (New York politician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Par ... olitician)

.. Parker is known for his angry outbursts, some of which have been violent. In 2010, he was convicted by a jury of two counts of criminal mischief for attacking a New York Post photographer, damaging the photographer's camera and car door, and breaking the photographer's finger.

[MercurysBall2]

Patrick Ductant, Billionaires Row President.. the company that co-sponsored the Snowbound Masquerade Ball..

Patrick Ductant attends an event hosted by Artist Narine Arakelian celebrating Art Basel and the announcement of her NFT on Yacht Miss Direction on December 5, 2021 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Romain Maurice/Getty Images for Jane Owen PR)

Narine Arakelian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narine_Arakelian

Narine Arakelian (born 13 May 1979) is an Armenian[1]interdisciplinary feminist artist;[2] she works with Performance art,[3] Installation art,[4] Painting, Sculpture, Video art and Environmental art[5] combining Fine Arts and Digital Technologies by using the custom designed Artificial Intelligence (A.I.).[6][7] The artist creates artworks based on social, cultural and political issues focusing predominantly on social justice and gender identity.[8]

Narine Arakelian is a member of the Russian Union of Artists

Patron: Aidan Salakhova

Aidan Salahova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aidan_Salahova

Aidan Salakhova (Azerbaijani: Aydan Tair qızı Salahova, born March 25, 1964) is an Azeri and Russian artist, gallerist and public person. In 1992 she founded the Aidan Gallery in Moscow. Salakhova's works can be found in many private and state collections including the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, Francois Pinault Foundation, Teutloff Museum and the Boghossian Foundation; in private collections of I. Khalilov, Matan Uziel family collection, P-K. Broshe, T. Novikov, V. Nekrasov, V. Bondarenko and others. At the 2011 Venice Biennale, Salakhova's name hit the headlines when her work was politically censored..

Incident at the 54th Venice Biennale
In June 2011, Salakhova was representing the Azerbaijan Pavilion among other national artists at the 54th Venice Biennale. Two of her artworks previously approved by the ministry of culture were ordered to be covered and eventually removed from the exhibition a day before the opening, "because of government sensitives towards the nation's status as a secular Muslim country".[5] The officials said the works had been damaged during transportation.[6] Commenting on the conflict the pavilion curator Beral Madra stated that the concept of the removed sculptures had been misinterpreted by the government, and added that in over 25 years of curating she "ever experienced this kind of conflict". In an article entitled "Vagina Art Veiled at Azerbaijan's Venice Biennale Pavilion, Causing Some to Cry Censorship", Kate Deimling stated that "Black Stone," a "sculpture depicting the black stone in Mecca venerated by Muslims within a vagina-like marble frame, were both covered up

AIDAN SALAKHOVA - Gazelli Art House https://gazelliarthouse.com/artists/aid ... biography/

Posts re Gazelli Art House

39 Dover Street - Gazelli Art House https://searchvoat.co/v/pizzagatewhatever/2902983

Gazelli Art House was founded in 2003 in Baku, Azerbaijan where it held exhibitions with Azeri artists...Having hosted conceptually interlinked off-site exhibitions across London, founder and director of Gazelli Art House, Mila Askarova, opened a permanent space on Dover Street, London in March 2012.

Azerbaijani skincare company Gazelli has plans to launch a three-treatment room spa location in London in Q3 this year. This ‘Gazelli House’ project represents one of many luxury skincare-branded spa openings this year, including the upcoming House of Elemis; the recently launched Caudalie day spa in the US; and the Parisian Charme d’Orient spa boutique.

The Gazelli House London is a three-storey townhouse facility and will feature three treatment-rooms on the ground floor – fitted with treatment beds by Gharieni – for clients to learn from skin specialists based on the teachings of Dr Zarifa Hamzayeva, co-founder of Gazelli. The other co-founder of the business is Jamila Askarova, Hamzayeva’s first daughter...

Azerbaijan is a trafficking hotspot. Podesta Group were hired lobbyists...

[MercurysBall2]

Aidan Salakhova and Valentine Yudashkin attend GAGOSIAN GALLERY "for what you are about to receive" - PRIVATE DINNER at Red October Chocolate Factory on September 17, 2008 in Moscow, Russia.

Valentin Yudashkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Yudashkin

a Russian fashion designer...Yudashkin came to prominence during the 1980s, dressing Raisa Gorbacheva..In 2010, he redesigned Russia's military uniforms, creating 85 designs to dress all branches of the Russian armed services

Larry Gagosian and Sam Orlofsky attend GAGOSIAN GALLERY "for what you are about to receive" - PRIVATE DINNER at Red October Chocolate Factory on September 17, 2008 in Moscow, Russia. https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/la ... =2048x2048

Larry Gagosian posts https://searchvoat.co/search.php?t=+Lar ... um=on&b=on incl.

Larry Gagosian - Koons, Clintons, Sex Slaves, Abramovich, and how the "art" network launders money and trafficks children https://searchvoat.co/v/pizzagate/1762945

SEX TRAFFICKING FOR ART BOOM. Larry Gagosian indicted on human trafficking charges. For Buying sex slaves from Russia
https://unknownjournal.wordpress.com/20 ... -indicted/

"New York art dealer Larry Gagosian will be indicted next month in Moscow on multiple charges of buying sex slaves from a well known Russian collector. The charges of human trafficking span a decade. Gagosian could face life in prison, although experts in the Russian judicial system express doubt he will be convicted. The Russian judicial system is notorious for its corruption including alleged pay offs to drop previous charges brought against the collector who will be indicted along with Gagosian.It’s reminiscent of stories about 1980s New York art dealer Andrew Crispo."

..Update: Gagosian’s Co-Conspirator 05/04/2010 tags: human trafficking, Larry Gagosian, Roman Abramovich

Roman Abramovich is the Russian oligarch and serious art collector named in connection with human trafficking charges brought against New York art dealer Larry Gagosian. Abramovich is accused of both selling countless sex slaves to Gagosian, as well as exchanging slaves for pieces from Gagosian’s private art collection.

..In May 2008 Abramovich emerged as a major buyer in the international art auction market. He purchased Francis Bacon’s Triptych for US $86.3 million (a record price for a post-war work of art) and Lucian Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping for US$33.6 million (a record price for a work by a living artist).

Chris Hutchins, a biographer of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, claims that the relationship between the former Russian president and Abramovich is like that between a father and a favorite son.

Jean Pigozzi attends GAGOSIAN GALLERY "for what you are about to receive" - PRIVATE DINNER at Red October Chocolate Factory on September 17, 2008 in Moscow, Russia. https://www.gettyimages.at/detail/nachr ... /620675442

[MercurysBall2]

Larry Gagosian and Dasha Zhukova attend GAGOSIAN GALLERY "for what you are about to receive" - PRIVATE DINNER at Red October Chocolate Factory on September 17, 2008 in Moscow, Russia https://www.gettyimages.at/detail/nachr ... popup=true

[MercurysBall2]

Another co-sponsor of the Snowbound event was Orbis Asset Management viewtopic.php?f=50&p=22198#p22198

website: https://www.orbis-am.com/

https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/ ... fe402.html

3 Principals* and 1 Contact :

VLADIMIR EVSEEV - Member
VINCENT ORDONNEAU - Member
MAX SHISHLYANNIKOV - Member
Sarah Ackerman - Office Manager / Executive Assistant

Location: 456 Montgomery St Ste 1250, San Francisco, California, 94104-1245, US

Halyna Hutchins (2ndL), Anya Bay (R), Max Shishlyannikov (2ndR) and guest attend the Snowbound Movie Event celebrating the screening of 'Snowbound' at the 70th Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2017 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

Intriguingly I found Max Shishlyannikov in this blog:

How Russians Run The U.S. Child Welfare System: Real Estate, Political Campaigns & Child Support http://beverlytran.blogspot.com/2018/07 ... lfare.html

Eric Scharfenberger speaks to the Judicial Council of California on how his child was Legally Kidnapped and was forced to pay child support that he could not afford through the financial fraud schemes of Title IV-D.

Unfortunately, he failed to mention the other child welfare fraud schemes in Medicaid, Title IV-A, B, & E.

Shirley Moore was the first in California to pull the corporate and land records to find out that there are separate corporations that own the functions of the courts, where the checks are made out to the corporation, and not the government.

Then, he also failed to recognize MAXIMUS, the privatized contract administrator of child support for California.

https://www.facebook.com/eric.scharfenb ... 862349479/

Did you know MAXIMUS also funds political campaigns with child support?

So, in essence, this father should ask Bob Goodlatte to give all that Title IV-D campaign money back to the children...

This is just an example of the amount of money MAXIMUS wastes in pervasive, privatized contracts, specifically targeting "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth) that end up engaging in complex financial fraud schemes to fund political campaigns and trust funds.

The following article is an example out of Wisconsin. MAXIMUS Awarded $11.7 Million Enrollment Broker Contract for Wisconsin Department of Health Services https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 85030.html

.. SEC filings for the MAXIMUS empire. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edga ... getcompany

..asset management of MAXIMUS, called ALPHAROCK. http://alpharock.com/max-shishlyannikov/

Everyone meet Max Shishlyannikov, the man who invests your child support payments, including the arrears and administrative fees, into political campaigns and real estate and whatever other dark projects they are into.

Sometimes MAXIMUS will just keep the child support a parent pays.

Sometimes MAXIMUS will even get contracts to administer other child welfare programs, like foster care and adoption, and skim, oops, I meant to say "optimize profits" from Medicaid.

Mr. Maxim Edward Shishlyannikov is the Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Orbis Asset Management, and has served in these roles since 2015.

Orbis Asset Management aims at providing attractive risk return opportunities to investors in the alternative space. Orbis Asset Management is a member of the Allrise Group.

Mr. Shishlyannikov also serves as Chief Executive Officer of George Washington Lending, Inc. – a company engaged in providing private financing opportunities to the real estate developers.

George Washington Lending, Inc. funded more than 300 re-development projects in California, Nevada, and New Jersey and currently managing loan portfolio totaling over $70 million.

Mr. Shishlyannikov co-founded and directed ATM Financial, Inc. building in only 2 years a full-service mortgage organization with offices in Oakdale, Pleasanton, Sacramento, and San Francisco.

ATM delivered its clients a full range of mortgage products through 78 mortgage professionals. Prior to co-founding ATM Financial, Inc., Mr. Shishlyannikov worked at Bonus Financial Management, a Moscow-based investment banking partnership.

Serving as the Head of Fixed Income, Max increased partnership revenues by 120% and within a year was promoted to CFO and Partner.

Two years later he launched Bonus Financial Management operations in the United States, creating and leading ELPOINT in San Francisco.

As a General Partner, Max raised more than $150 million as VC capital and participated in two reverse mergers of Russian chemical companies with US shell companies.

Maxim Edward Shishlyannikov received his MBA and BS in Accounting and Finance from State Financial Academy of Moscow, as well as BA in Philosophy from Moscow State University.

I wonder how much TARP MAXIMUS snatched through child support.

I wonder how many political campaigns were funded through child support.

We should go ask Bob Goodlatte because he should know why Judiciary refused to address the issues.

[MercurysBall2]

Max Shishlyannikov is currently CEO at Daylighting Systems Inc.
website : https://daylighting.com/

Address: 1716 W Roosevelt St, Phoenix, Arizona 85007, US

Phoenix area again. I looked it up on Google maps.. and noticed The Light of the World Church nearby https://www.google.com/maps/dir/The+Lig ... 588713!3e3

They've been in the news - for guess what... https://ktar.com/story/2972514/get-firs ... n-phoenix/

2020:

PHOENIX – A decade after construction began, the eye-catching domed church south of Interstate 10 in Phoenix was unveiled over the weekend.

The Light of the World church at 1206 N. Laurel Ave. opened its doors to the public during a grand opening event Sunday.

Light of the World — La Luz del Mundo in Spanish — is a Mexico-based megachurch with a controversial leader.

Naason Joaquin Garcia, considered the church’s apostle, pleaded not guilty last year in Los Angeles to charges of child rape and human trafficking. He is being held without bail.

For years, motorists driving along I-10 between 19th and Seventh avenues west of downtown Phoenix couldn’t help but notice the structure’s metallic dome.

Check out the images of the 'church' .. it's bizarre..

[MercurysBall2]

Aaand we have tunnels: https://archive.ph/hwxOV

The Hermosa Provincia temple in Mexico is a symbol of the power of the church, but it is also a monument to the most terrible secrets and accusations against its leader, Naasón Joaquín, who is awaiting trial in the United States on charges of sexual abuse, possession of child pornography and human trafficking


Hundreds of thousands of the faithful stood before him, dressed in white and weeping inconsolably. “Open their eyes so they can see Your glory,” declared Naasón Joaquín, leader of La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World) church, as he raised his arms in the center of the atrium.
Joaquín was holding forth in “the largest religious temple in Latin America,” a pyramid structure 83 meters high made from 5,000 tons of steel, and that took almost a decade to build.

Behind him, the advent of “the greatest feast on Earth” – the Holy Supper – was announced by the chanting of the choir. It is the religious organization’s most important celebration, to which the parishioners are summoned every August 14 inside the church’s flagship temple in Hermosa Provincia (Beautiful Province), in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, drawn by the promise of eternal salvation.
Beneath the temple, which embodies La Luz del Mundo’s power, lies a series of tunnels or passages as they have been described by former members of the congregation, though the church itself describes the space as a basement.

A secret place, this underground warren is the alleged scene of the terrible crimes that the leaders of the religious organization are accused of. “I have seen the tunnels and I can vouch for the fact they exist,” says Sochil Martín, a former assistant to Naasón Joaquín who reported him for multiple cases of sexual abuse. In that same underground network, another former collaborator, Alondra Ocampo, was raped as a child, according to her lawyer.

That Holy Supper in August 2018, was the last one led by Naasón Joaquín, known as the Apostle of Jesus Christ to his followers. Ten months later, he was arrested at the airport in Los Angeles after landing there in a private jet. Joaquín was dressed in a suit; in one hand he held his phone and, in the other, a briefcase. Inside his luggage, the authorities found an iPad containing a video of a naked 14-year-old boy, masked and receiving oral sex. The woman performing the fellatio, according to testimonies presented by the prosecution, was the teenager’s aunt. Other images of minors having sex were found on Joaquín’s electronic devices. Claiming to have more than five million followers in nearly 60 countries and proclaiming himself to be God’s representative on Earth, Joaquín was about to stand trial in California on charges of more than 30 crimes, including possession of child pornography, sexual abuse and human trafficking.

During the hearings, the prosecution claimed that Joaquín surrounded himself with a group of teenage girls who were selected to perform domestic chores for him. According to the prosecution, women who served as assistants were in charge of recruiting the minors, both at the Guadalajara headquarters and in Los Angeles. They would then put together a dossier with information about the candidates: their names, their photographs, their family tree and their families’ involvement in the congregation. The leader would instruct his close circle on how to approach them and explain what he was looking for in the girls. “The younger the better,” Joaquín said, according to the testimony of one former recruiter quoted in the trial. “They are purer and have more love for me.” Eliezer Gutiérrez Avelar, the minister in charge of public relations for La Luz del Mundo, maintains that the accusations are “false and unfounded,” as does the church itself.

Three weeks before Joaquín’s arrest, on May 15, 2019, La Luz del Mundo had been in the news on account of its political power. Thanks to contacts in the Mexican Senate, the apostle had received a unique tribute for his 50th birthday: the party was not held in the Hermosa Provincia temple but in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, a landmark venue reserved for cultural events that does not usually celebrate any kind of religious act. According to Gutiérrez Avelar, what took place in the Bellas Artes “was a 100% cultural event” and “no religious activity was carried out.”

In the midst of public scrutiny, the cult leader flew to El Salvador to meet with President Nayib Bukele and together lay the first stone of La Luz del Mundo City, an architectural project covering more than 100 hectares of El Salvador’s capital. That month of May, Naasón Joaquín appeared to be at the height of his influence in Mexico and Central America. Less than a month later, he was sleeping behind bars in the United States.

...Ocampo’s family joined the church a year after she was born. Her lawyer says that when she was eight or nine years old, her parents took her to a large celebration at the Hermosa Provincia temple. The children were separated from their families and divided into groups by sex and age. One of La Luz del Mundo’s workers approached her and told her she had been chosen to meet Samuel Joaquín, Naasón’s father, who headed the organization for more than 50 years. Ocampo was taken through a “secret tunnel” and on meeting the apostle Samuel, she was told she was “special” and that he had selected her “as his wife. “He then raped her,” says Thiagarajah.

After the rape, Ocampo was told that what happened had been a “blessing,” but that she should keep it a secret because “other people wouldn’t understand” – instructions she would later impart to the girls under her care. According to Thiagarajah, the abuse continued for years throughout her childhood and adult life. Meanwhile, the church spokesman insists that these accusations are “unfounded” and “deeply offensive to the church’s members.” As far as Naasón Joaquín’s lawyers are concerned, Ocampo is only seeking to curry favor with the prosecution.

This is not the first time the leadership of La Luz del Mundo has had to wrestle with such accusations: the temple where Ocampo’s lawyer claims his client was raped by the apostle Samuel was built after the congregation became splintered in the 1940s, when a quarter of the flock left the church, alleging that the apostle Aarón – Samuel’s father and Naasón’s grandfather – had amassed wealth at the expense of the church’s poorest members, and had raped Guadalupe Avelar, a 13-year-old girl. For the organization, the accusations, past and present, are simply a sign that its leaders have been “attacked and persecuted for their beliefs for generations.”

La Luz del Mundo was founded in December 1926, after Eusebio Joaquín had a “revelation” telling him to restore the original Church, far from the “deviations” of the Catholics after the death of Jesus.
Influenced by the arrival of Protestant preachers in the north of the country, Eusebio Joaquín, who had fought in the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), left military life for his religious calling and adopted the name of Aarón, the apostle of Jesus Christ. Partly due to its former participation in the Protestant-style Iglesia Cristiana Espiritual – Spiritual Christian Church – and also due to the Pentecostal tone of the religious services, La Luz del Mundo is often mistakenly described as an evangelical church....

...When Naasón Joaquín was arrested in L.A. and the charges against him began to emerge, the underbelly of Hermosa Provincia was also exposed: several media outlets published stories about the tunnels under the temple in Guadalajara. “The architecture of the church of Hermosa Provincia has been well documented for decades,” says Gutiérrez Avelar. “The insistence on asking this question only evidences a desire to present La Luz del Mundo as something secret or occult.”
It is common for centers of power with hierarchical structures to have underground channels allowing its leaders to move under the surface. A former collaborator of Samuel Joaquín who spoke with EL PAÍS on condition of anonymity says that Naasón’s father ordered a tunnel system built that would allow him to move between key spots of Hermosa Provincia far from the gaze of his followers.

According to this witness, the tunnel network had different access routes connecting, in one case, the apostle’s personal residence with the apostolic house, which served as one of his offices. From his desk, he could go down into a basement and walk down another tunnel to the back of the temple. From there, Samuel could look through a glass that was only visible on one side and observe what went on inside the meeting room for his ministers, who were in charge of running the church’s affairs. “He used to go there because it was important to watch that area,” said the source. “When somebody suggested installing a security camera, he said that he wanted to be there in case he heard something he didn’t like, so he could walk in and take charge of the situation.”

According to this source, the tunnel and passageway network had one main purpose: to serve as “escape routes.” Noting that this is not very different to what the headquarters of other religions do, the source adds: “Hermosa Provincia is a bunker.”

“Not just anyone could go into the tunnels. There were very few of us who had access,” said Sochil Martin, a former assistant who reported being physically and sexually abused by Samuel and Naasón Joaquín for 22 years, in an interview with EL PAÍS in early 2020.
“Hundreds, if not thousands of children have suffered the same fate as myself,” said Martin after filing civil charges against Naasón Joaquín in February of last year. Even before the latest scandal that is putting the current church leader on the stand, his father Samuel Joaquín had already been singled out by the media over sexual abuse in 1997. The main difference is that Samuel was denounced in Mexico, and Naasón in the United States. La Luz del Mundo holds that showcasing these accusations “is nothing more than an attempt to try the Apostle Naasón and our religious denomination in the media before the trial begins.”

“In the 1990s, the relationship between La Luz del Mundo and the [then-ruling] Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was extremely close. Those were days when the public prosecution office was basically in the employ of the executive,” says Masferrer. “If the political power said that accusations should not go through a judicial process, then no action was taken.”

After decades of nurturing its relationship with the PRI, the victory of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in 2000 led La Luz del Mundo to diversify its political contacts. Guests at the celebration of the Holy Supper, one of the church’s most important annual rituals, have included Margarita Zavala, the wife of former president Felipe Calderón and herself an independent candidate in the 2018 election; Jaime Rodríguez Calderón, or El Bronco, another independent candidate at the last election, and Enrique Alfaro, former mayor of Guadalajara and current governor of the state of Jalisco with a party named Citizen Movement, to name a few.

The congregation’s political network spilled beyond the borders of Mexico: in April 2019 the church leader was honored with a resolution from the Senate of Texas “on the grand occasion of his 50th birthday,” just two months before his arrest in California. Following his arrest, Costa Rica lawmaker María Vita Monge, the first female member of La Luz to make it into Congress in her country, shared the following thoughts on social media: “It was he who taught me that ‘a good Christian is a good citizen,’ and I am fully confident that justice will be done.” The secretary of state for Honduras, Ebal Díaz, who has admitted that he is the pastor of “a small community,” was more cautious in his public statements about his faith following the arrest. And the church has a longstanding relationship with Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, dating back to the days when he was the mayor of the capital (2015-2018).

...And in the United States, the church purchased land in the city of Flowery Branch, in the outskirts of Atlanta (Georgia).

In Mexico, two members of the Chamber of Deputies came out in defense of their religious leader: Emmanuel Reyes, who ran with the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) but is now with the ruling Morena and Kehila Ku, of Citizen Movement. “If there is a bloc representing a church inside Mexico’s parliament, it is La Luz del Mundo. They are the sole confessional bloc,” says Masferrer. EL PAÍS sent interview requests to Reyes and to Israel Zamora, the first member of La Luz to reach the Mexican Senate, and allegedly the person behind the tribute to Joaquín held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, but received no reply. Ku declined to talk to this newspaper, citing a busy agenda.

“It is a religious, political and business structure,” adds Masferrer. After the California Attorney General provided ample descriptions of Naasón Joaquín’s lavish lifestyle, Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit froze church accounts and assets worth nearly 390 million pesos (over $19 million) in March of last year. The announcement of economic sanctions was made as the Mexican Attorney General simultaneously announced a public investigation into human trafficking within the church...