Though the Trump Tower in New York is probably much more well-known than any other property that carries the name of the indicted and twice-impeached former president/sex offender, all of the attention this week has been on Trump Towers located at Sunny Isles Beach in Florida.
On Thursday, according to The Miami Herald, FBI agents raided Trump Tower III in Florida, which just so happens to be owned by two Russians.
A squad of FBI special agents, assisted by local police, descended on Trump Tower III at 15811 Collins Ave. to carry out a search of unit 4102. It’s owned by a shell company, MIC-USA LLC, that is controlled by two Russian businessmen, Oleg Sergeyevich Patsulya and Agunda Konstantinovna Makeeva, according to state corporation records.
On Friday, a spokesman for the FBI’s Miami field office said it “was conducting court-ordered law enforcement activity in the vicinity of that location,” but provided no other information.
Sunny Isles Beach has been called “Little Moscow” because it serves as a home to a large number of Russian expatriates, some of whom expressed worries when Russia invaded Ukraine last year. In response, the U.S. government began cracking down with sanctions against oligarchs who are believed to hide their wealth by purchasing real estate in South Florida and other U.S. locations.
Trump agreed to have his name placed on the three Sunny Isles Beach condos before he became president in 2016. It was believed doing so would help promote sales of the units.
The Herald also reports that “MIC-USA … acquired the three-bedroom, three-bath condo residence at Trump Tower III for $1.65 million a decade ago, according to Miami-Dade property records.
In 2020, BAC Florida Bank, which provided financing for the purchase, sued Patsulya and Makeeva, claiming they defaulted on their $975,000 mortgage. The dispute was resolved later that year, though it’s not clear how from the court records. MIC-USA, controlled by the two Russians, continued to own the 41st-floor unit at Trump Tower III.
Though he has denied any connections to Russia, the former president’s son, Eric, said in 2014 that the Trump Organization got significant funding from Russian sources, according to The Hill:
”I said, ‘Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years,’” the writers told WBUR.
“And this is what he said. He said, ‘Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’ I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.’”
