An investigation by the New York Times disclosed the tip of this rotten iceberg in 2015. Reporters spent more than a year piercing some of the many shell corporations set up to obscure luxury condo purchases on Central Park South in Manhattan. Along with chief executives and celebrities buying primo properties, the Times found miscreants and crooks.
At the Trump International, on the southwest corner of Central Park, the Times noted that more than half of all condo sales were to hidden buyers. A more recent study by USA Today found that the number of veiled transactions involving the Trump Organization took a big jump as the boss man’s political fortunes rose. Since Trump captured the Republican nomination last summer, the share of hidden buyers of his branded properties has climbed to 70 percent, the newspaper found.
The president may be waking to the possibility that Mueller will drag this unseemly marketplace into the glare of public scrutiny. In a revealing interview with the Times last month, Trump signaled that he expects investigators to find some transactions that will undercut his claims to do no business with Russia. “I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something,” he said. “I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows?”
