The FBI wraps up a years-long manhunt when they find their target, Russian organized crime boss Vyacheslav Ivankov, living in a luxury condo at Trump Tower.
Ivankov, a partner of Semion Mogilevich, is a legendary Russian criminal known in later years as “the Godfather of the Russian mob in America.” Mogilevich is skilled in business, but Ivankov is skilled in torture and murder.
Mogilevich paid off a judge to release Ivankov from a forced labor camp in Russia and sent him to New York in 1992. Ivankov was given a mission: strengthen the Russian mafia in the United States and form alliances with mafia organizations that already infiltrated the country.
Once he settled in to his new country, Ivankov became a regular at Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and communicated frequently with an associate at Trump Plaza. Agents also tracked Ivankov to Boston, Miami, Toronto, and Los Angeles.
Authorities believed his operation was based in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn, ground zero for Russian mafia in the United States. At one point during their search, the New York State Organized Crime Task Force found Ivankov at Trump Taj Mahal but lost track of him. That discovery eventually leads them to Trump Tower.
Inside his condo is an address book with a fax number for the Trump Organization and a phone number for a Trump Tower residence owned by the Trump Org. We don’t know if that residence was home to Donald Trump himself, but the FBI would know.
One of Ivankov’s associates is Semyon Kislin, the Rudy Giuliani donor and electronics store owner who alerted the KGB about Donald Trump in the late 1970s. Another is Felix Komarov, an art dealer who lives in Trump Plaza while aiding Ivankov in a money laundering operation.
External Sources
The Washington Post (Archived)
New York Post – Rudy, Kislin, Ivankov (Archived)
Red Mafiya by Robert I. Freidman
