THE GRIFT
Trump sons profit handsomely from ‘shady’ money-laundering suspect: reportAlexander Willis
August 9, 2026
RAW STORY
Donald Trump, who at the time was the Republican candidate for US president, speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., July 27, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Wurm/File Photo
A company run by President Donald Trump’s three sons received a mysterious $100 million investment from a crypto fund run by an individual under investigation for money laundering, The New York Times reported Sunday.
In its investigation, the Times uncovered new details about the investor: Guren “Bobby” Zhou, a man with a “shady background” who’s currently under investigation for money laundering in England.
“The curious case of Mr. Zhou illustrates the ease with which buyers with unknown backgrounds and motivations can use the anonymity of cryptocurrency to shower Mr. Trump with money,” the Times’ report reads. “It is not clear how closely World Liberty scrutinized Mr. Zhou’s past, but the money laundering investigation in England was publicly available information, as were portions of Mr. Zhou’s troubled business history.”
In June of 2025, the United Arab Emirates-based Aqua 1 Foundation – run by Zhou – purchased $100 million in digital tokens from World Liberty Financial, an organization run by Trump’s family, along with the family of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special peace envoy. Those familiar with Zhou's “shady” history expressed confusion at how “he was able to access so much money,” the Times noted.
“[Many former associates] describe Mr. Zhou as a high-octane charmer with a British accent, persuasive enough to sell ice in a snowstorm, as one said,” the Times’ report reads. “But all were stunned to learn that after his departure from London, he was able to purchase $100 million in anything.”
Zhou's red flags include the aforementioned active UK money-laundering investigation, an unpaid $5 million debt from his collapsed flooring business, a failed crypto venture that burned through investor funds, and a string of fabricated corporate partnerships he was forced to walk back, the Times learned.
“In any prior era, a windfall for the president of that size from a foreigner with no public signs of access to that level of wealth would have certainly gone against norms and might have spawned a congressional investigation,” the Times’ report reads.
Trump boys' 'shady' Russia deal ties unmasked in explosive new report
Tom Boggioni
August 7, 2026 2:43PM ET
RAW STORY
FILE PHOTO: Donald Trump, who was then a Republican presidential candidate, is flanked by his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. as he speaks during his caucus night watch party in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., January 15, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
A murdered journalist, an organized crime racket, and an alleged scheme to siphon off tens of millions of dollars: These all appear in a new report about a Trump Tower rising in the Caucasus.
The Daily Beast on Friday revealed the dark and tangled history behind a 70-story skyscraper President Donald Trump's sons are building with a company co-owned by an oligarch.
"The president’s sons are trumpeting a new Trump Tower — but not the Moscow oligarch behind one of the companies they named in the deal," wrote the Beast reporter Will Neal. "[That oligarch] has shady ties to Russia."
The development in question is Trump Tower Tbilisi, of which Eric Trump, 42, shared an AI rendering in May with the gushing comment that it "marks our first project in the region."
A joint investigation by The Daily Beast, PunchUp and The Newsground reported one of the groups named on the project, Biograpi Living, is co-owned by Paata Gamgoneishvili — the oligarch in question.
Biograpi Living now insists it has nothing to do with the deal, despite being featured prominently in the Trumps' own announcement.
The White House denied the report had anything to do with Trump
“This has nothing to do with the president,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Beast, "whose investment holdings are held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions."
That didn't stop the Beast from digging into Gamgoneishvili's past.
Among the startling narratives revealed in the report is the brutal rape and murder of Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova.
"Investigative outlet Bivol tied Gamgoneishvili and Isaev in 2019 to the network behind an alleged scheme that siphoned tens of millions of dollars out of the Bulgarian arm of Russian oil giant Lukoil," the Beast reported.
"The year before, a TV journalist who had hosted Bivol’s reporters for a segment about the wider scandal was found murdered. Authorities said her killing was not connected to her work—a conclusion Bivol’s editor disputed."
The Beast also tied Gamgoneishvili, a Moscow trader during the Soviet Union's collapse, to Boris Yeltsin, the former President of Russia.
"Gamgoneishvili backed the then-president through a union of Afghan war veterans and was handed a state medal for it," the Beast reported.
"Yeltsin rewarded the veterans movement with lucrative import perks, and parts of it later curdled into an organized crime racket. Gamgoneishvili ran his own trading business under the union’s wing and rode the same wave to a shopping mall fortune.
"Two of his Moscow malls alone sold to an Austrian fund for around $230 million in 2006."
Tom Boggioni
August 7, 2026 2:43PM ET
RAW STORY
FILE PHOTO: Donald Trump, who was then a Republican presidential candidate, is flanked by his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. as he speaks during his caucus night watch party in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., January 15, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
A murdered journalist, an organized crime racket, and an alleged scheme to siphon off tens of millions of dollars: These all appear in a new report about a Trump Tower rising in the Caucasus.
The Daily Beast on Friday revealed the dark and tangled history behind a 70-story skyscraper President Donald Trump's sons are building with a company co-owned by an oligarch.
"The president’s sons are trumpeting a new Trump Tower — but not the Moscow oligarch behind one of the companies they named in the deal," wrote the Beast reporter Will Neal. "[That oligarch] has shady ties to Russia."
The development in question is Trump Tower Tbilisi, of which Eric Trump, 42, shared an AI rendering in May with the gushing comment that it "marks our first project in the region."
A joint investigation by The Daily Beast, PunchUp and The Newsground reported one of the groups named on the project, Biograpi Living, is co-owned by Paata Gamgoneishvili — the oligarch in question.
Biograpi Living now insists it has nothing to do with the deal, despite being featured prominently in the Trumps' own announcement.
The White House denied the report had anything to do with Trump
“This has nothing to do with the president,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Beast, "whose investment holdings are held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions."
That didn't stop the Beast from digging into Gamgoneishvili's past.
Among the startling narratives revealed in the report is the brutal rape and murder of Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova.
"Investigative outlet Bivol tied Gamgoneishvili and Isaev in 2019 to the network behind an alleged scheme that siphoned tens of millions of dollars out of the Bulgarian arm of Russian oil giant Lukoil," the Beast reported.
"The year before, a TV journalist who had hosted Bivol’s reporters for a segment about the wider scandal was found murdered. Authorities said her killing was not connected to her work—a conclusion Bivol’s editor disputed."
The Beast also tied Gamgoneishvili, a Moscow trader during the Soviet Union's collapse, to Boris Yeltsin, the former President of Russia.
"Gamgoneishvili backed the then-president through a union of Afghan war veterans and was handed a state medal for it," the Beast reported.
"Yeltsin rewarded the veterans movement with lucrative import perks, and parts of it later curdled into an organized crime racket. Gamgoneishvili ran his own trading business under the union’s wing and rode the same wave to a shopping mall fortune.
"Two of his Moscow malls alone sold to an Austrian fund for around $230 million in 2006."
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