Brasilia – Brazil Prosecutor Says Trump Franchise May Have Benefited From Corruption

    10

    A building under construction as part of Rio's Porto Maravilha (Marvelous Port) project is pictured in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 19, 2016. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes Brasilia – A Brazilian prosecutor investigating potentially corrupt investments made by state pension funds said the real estate company run by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to have benefited “suspiciously” from a massive redevelopment of Rio de Janeiro’s port ahead of the Olympics.

    Join our WhatsApp group

    Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email


    The development, known as Porto Maravilha, or Marvelous Port in Portuguese, cost 8 billion reais ($2.5 billion) and developed run-down docklands into a plaza, museums, corporate and residential real estate. As part of the project, five 38-story buildings were meant to be erected under the Trump brand.

    Public prosecutor Alselmo Lopes said in a court filing made public on Thursday that he is investigating the Porto Maravilha deal, in which the national employee severance fund FGTS, managed by state-bank Caixa Economica Federal [CEF.UL], paid up-front for building rights which it then sold on.

    The structuring of the Porto Maravilha deal “favored, in a suspicious way, the Trump Organization economic group”, among others, Lopes said. The prosecutor gave no further details and was not immediately reachable for comment.

    His spokeswoman, Dionne Tiago, said Lopes would not explain the basis for his suspicions until next week.

    None of the five people Lopes sought to charge in the court filing for siphoning off 8 billion reais from the Caixa’s pension fund were related to the Trump Organization.

    The Trump Organization, which sold naming rights for the Rio towers but did not provide any funding for the project, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    A senior executive involved in the Trump Towers Rio dismissed the prosecutor’s charge as baseless.

    “Any allegations that the Porto Maravilha Investment Fund of Caixa Econômica Federal has favored in a suspicious way the Trump Organization economic group are completely unfounded,” the executive, who asked not to be named, said by email.

    Not long after plans for the towers were first announced, Donald Trump tweeted in January 2013: “The Trump Organization is going revolutionize Rio de Janeiro’s downtown port area with Trump Towers. Construction begins soon!”

    Two of the five Trump Towers were supposed to be ready by the Olympics, but ground has yet to be broken. Developers say the project is still going ahead and has not been scrapped.

    Trump Towers Rio on its website claims it is the first project in Brazil to bear the name of the U.S. real estate magnate and the largest urban office development in the BRICS group of leading emerging market countries.


    Listen to the VINnews podcast on:

    iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podbean | Amazon

    Follow VINnews for Breaking News Updates


    Connect with VINnews

    Join our WhatsApp group


    10 Comments
    Most Voted
    Newest Oldest
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    YidNotASheep
    YidNotASheep
    7 years ago

    This has been going on since 2013 but it only came to light 2 weeks before the election. I am SURE there are no politics involved in the timing of this…
    /cough cough…

    Trump4Prez
    Trump4Prez
    7 years ago

    No money.

    No money for the building.

    No money for the campaign.

    TRump is broke.

    Don’t be a chump … … …

    adar29
    adar29
    7 years ago

    It’s a leftist country. Of course will be against Trump. Same for Ecuador. Why did you think all of the sudden after years of let wikileaks stick it to the man! Power to the people! They decided to cut the guys internet??? Because all these leftist countries are afraid of Trump. And they should be because he is not going to tolerate any shenanigans from any one except from his own that we will have to put up with. With Hillary will be a free for all. And we still have to put up with her shenanigans.

    ayinglefunadorf
    ayinglefunadorf
    7 years ago

    Go Trump, sue the prosecutor. He works for Hillary too.

    yonasonw
    Member
    yonasonw
    7 years ago

    Let’s see…Trump:

    Calls for “the Wall;’

    Proposes deporting all Muslims in the United States;

    Declares a sitting jurist unqualified to judge him on account of his Mexican heritage;

    Creates conspiracy mob hysteria over “rigged elections,” without any evidence to support his charges…and not withstanding that elections are decentralized and in the majority of States are run by Republicans;

    Calls for cancelling the election and declaring him the winner;

    Retaliates against those who opposes him with personal attack, be they women who report sexual assault by Trump, or the parents of a Muslim American war dead;

    Lies about supporting the War in Iraq…despite tapes documenting that support;

    Questions continuing this country’s NATO obligations;

    Proposes on tape to give nuclear weapons to Japan and South Korea;

    Offers a tax policy that even the Wall Street Journal condemns as fiscally irresponsible;

    Brags about his sexual predation;

    Concludes that all matter of Democrat initiatives are “Disasters,” but without any specificity;

    On fact-check sites runs away as the high-scoring BS artist;

    …and TrumpForPrez now wants to talk substance!

    yonasonw
    Member
    yonasonw
    7 years ago

    …and as to Herr TrumpForPrez’ question about Syria:

    If Hillary Clinton were President over the past two years, all indications are that long ago, long before the Russians were there, we would have had a no-fly zone over Syria….and that if she drew a “red line” it would not have been the rhetorical BS that it was with Obama.

    Clinton is a serious student and practitioner of realpolitik, and is much stronger on military and foreign relations than is our current President, who I think is weak.

    Trump on the other hand, is a student of absolutely nothing…his own people can’t sit him down even to do serious debate preparation, much less to bone up on serious policy questions…he clearly didn’t even bother to do opposition research on himself, a must do for all candidates in political campaigns.

    It’s all fly off the cuff with Trump…and often terribly ignorant and dangerous.

    Trump is a spoiled rich kid with a horribly inflated sense of self-entitlement…after all, he is quoted as saying to women before fondling them “…don’t you know who I am…?