Felix Sater and Donald Trump. Credit: screen grab from BBC Panorama

However we decide to account for Donald Trump’s astonishing rise and fall, we now know that he was certainly no stranger to a sprawling netherworld of Russian gangsters and oligarchs.

Now there are stunning new allegations in federal court documents that this Russian criminal network with worldwide reach hired Felix Sater, one of Trump’s closest associates, to hide a fortune stolen in Kazakhstan.

The central Asian country was once part of the Soviet Union. The stolen fortune cited in the lawsuit is the tip of the iceberg. Keep reading.

Stolen money amounting to $440 million was invested in America and run through trust funds maintained by Moses & Singer. The New York City law firm has long represented Sater, a Soviet-born American.

The documents alleging Sater’s illicit conduct are listed in the lawsuit brought by the city of Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, and the looted BTA Bank in that city.

Some of the $440 million was intended to finance a Trump tower in Moscow, court papers show.

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