Ike Kaveladze

Irakly "Ike" Tamazovich Kaveladze (Georgian: ირაკლი კაველაძე; Russian: Ираклий Тамазович Кавеладзе; 16 June 1965 in Georgian SSR) is a Georgian-American business executive. He is senior vice president at Crocus Group [ru], the real estate development company run by Aras Agalarov. He was one of eight people attending a meeting with Donald Trump's election campaign officials in June 2016.^[1][2][3] According to his attorney, Kavaladze is a long-time U.S. citizen and has "never had any engagement with the Russian government in any capacity."^[1]

Irakly "Ike" Kaveladze
Born	1965 (age 57–58) Georgian SSR, USSR
Occupation(s)	Senior Vice President, Crocus Group

Kaveladze was born in the Soviet republic of Georgia on 16 June 1965.^[4][5] He graduated from the Moscow Finance Academy, where he became fluent in English, in 1989 with classmate Mikhail Prokhorov^[6] and received an MBA from the University of New Haven in Connecticut in 2002, according to his website. In 1991, he immigrated to the US where he established the United States office in New York for the American-Soviet joint venture Crocus International,^[6] which later became Crocus Group in 1992, and the firm International Business Creations (IBC),^[7] a company that opened bank accounts with Citibank of New York and the Commercial Bank of San Francisco for companies incorporated in Delaware for Russian brokers.^[a][b] He was associated with the East Industrial Financial Society (Russian: Восточное индустриальное финансовое общество).^[11] In 1996, Kaveladze set up Euro-American Corporate Services Inc. whose services included incorporating companies in Delaware for Russian brokers and setting up bank accounts for them.^[12] From February to October in 2000, a money laundering investigation about suspicious banking activity that involved correspondent bank accounts and wire transfers of funds from Eastern European banks through U.S. banks to other Eastern European banks using firms incorporated in Delaware revealed that Kaveladze had created corporations without knowing who owned them and that more than $1.4 billion had been moved through their accounts.^{[6][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]} In response to a 2020 senate report that mentioned this investigation, a lawyer from the firm representing Kaveladze stated that it "does nothing more than reiterate decades-old claims of money laundering that have been consistently denied and debunked and which, despite extensive investigations, resulted in no finding of any illegality whatsoever."^[19]

On June 9, 2016, he was present at a meeting in Trump Tower between three people associated with the Donald Trump campaign—Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort—and several other people including Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya.^[3] The meeting had been proposed by Azerbaijani singer Emin Agalarov and his father, Moscow-based oligarch Aras Agalarov, Kaveladze's employer.^[2] Kaveladze attended the meeting as a representative of the Agalarov family and to serve as an interpreter if necessary, according to his attorney.^[1]

Kaveladze is the beneficial owner of Corsy International which has an office located at Suite 309 in a building near the Hudson River.^[20][21]

See also

• Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

Notes

1. Kaveladze's partner Boris Avramovich Goldstein (Russian: Борис Аврамович Гольдштейн; born January 1964 in Latvian SSR) graduated from Riga Technical University with a degree in applied mathematics. He is a mathematician and computer scientist, who, during the 1980s, wrote sophisticated software that gave him a large fortune to invest in banking and finance.^[8] He was a former director at his Dalderis Bank (Russian: Далдерис Банк) in Latvia which merged with Sakaru Bank (Russian: Сакару Банк) in 1991 and, through his HT Trading, he held an 18% stake, which was the largest stake in it.^[8] Sakaru failed in 1996 due to alleged embezzelment at the First Russian Bank (PRB) (Russian: Первый Русский Банк (ПРБ)) in Moscow where Sakaru bank had correspondent accounts.^[8] In 1996, he and the Bulgarian banker Peter Nenkov (Russian: Петр Ненков) each purchased a 9% stake at the Commercial Bank of San Francisco.^[8] Boris Goldstein became the head of the international department at the Commercial Bank of San Francisco.^[8][9][10] The Latvian bank Sakaru (Russian: Сакару) had the Latvian SSR KGB officer Edmunds Johansons as its general manager. Johansons was the chairman of the Latvian SSR KGB from March 15, 1990, to August 24, 1991.^[6][11]
2. Andrey Mizerov (Russian: Андрей Мизеров), who founded Sinex Corporation in San Francisco and, through his partner Aleksey Volkov (Russian: Алексей Волков), also established in 1996 the Nauru based Sinex Bank, had accounts at the Commercial Bank of San Francisco which were supporting very large money transfers including money associated with Benex and the Bank of New York.^[9][10]

References

1. Brown, Pamela. "8th person at Trump Tower meeting identified". CNN. Archived from the original on 18 July 2017. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
2. Helderman, Rosalind S. "Eighth person in Trump Tower meeting is identified". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 18 July 2017. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
3. Williams, Katier Bo (18 July 2017). "Eighth person in Trump Jr. meeting ID'd as Russian real estate employee". Archived from the original on 20 May 2018.
4. Fang, Marina (18 July 2017). "Here Is The 8th Person Who Was At Donald Trump Jr.'s Meeting With Russians". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 9 November 2023. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
5. [Kaveladze, Irakli Tamazovich]. fa100.ru (in Russian). 8 November 2023. Archived from the original on 9 November 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
6. Hettena, Seth (May 2018). Trump/Russia. Melville House. pp. 135–139. ISBN 978-1-61219-739-5.
7. ""Норникель" боится скандала. Поэтому заменил кандидата в Stillwater" [Norilsk Nickel is afraid of a scandal. Therefore, I replaced the candidate in Stillwater]. Ведомости (in Russian). 31 March 2003. Archived from the original on 31 March 2003. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
8. Royce, Knut (9 December 1999). "San Francisco bank linked to laundering probe at Bank of New York". Center for Public Integrity (publicintegrity.org). Archived from the original on 7 April 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
9. Grant, Peter (6 December 2022). "Organized Crime, Intelligence Services, and the Bank of New York Money Laundering Scandal". Medium (medium.com). Archived from the original on 21 December 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
10. Higgins, Andrew; Davis, Ann; Beckett, Paul (30 December 1999). "The Improbable Cast of Capitalist Converts Behind the BONY Scandal". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 23 March 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
11. Hast, Robert H. (October 2000). (PDF). Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 December 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2023 – via United States General Accounting Office (www.gao.gov).
12. Bonner, Raymond (29 November 2000). "Laundering of Money Seen as 'Easy'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 July 2017. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
13. Choma, Russ; Friedman, Dan (25 July 2017). . Mother Jones. Archived from the original on 25 July 2017. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
14. Organized Crime, Intelligence Services, and the Bank of New York Money Laundering Scandal
15. San Francisco bank linked to laundering probe at Bank of New York
16. Privatization plays important role in Latvian capital market
17. Крах банка "Балтия"
18. АО САКАРУ БАНКА (Латвия)
19. Alexander, Dan; Behar, Richard (20 August 2020). "Trump's Business Partners Allegedly Involved In Human Trafficking, Mafia Matters, Probable Money Laundering". Forbes. Retrieved 1 April 2021.
20. Cormier, Anthony; Leopold, Jason (12 September 2018). "The Money Trail: A Series Of Suspicious Money Transfers Followed The Trump Tower Meeting. Investigators are focused on two bursts of banking activity — one shortly after the June 2016 meeting, the other immediately after the presidential election". BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on 23 April 2020. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
21. Cobb, Adrienne (September 2018). "What We Learned in the Trump-Russia Investigation: Week of Sept 9 – 15, 2018". WTF. Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2023.