Ronn Torossian’s Ties to Turkey and #TrumpRussia Part II:
Natasha Bertrand wrote a fantastic story about Ronn Torossian today that everyone should read. It delves into his supposed discomfort with Manafort & Gates’ desire to not file a FARA for work representing Ukrainian interests.
That supposed discomfort is quite intriguing when seen in the light of Torossian’s May 2017 FARA filing representing Turkey, with a contract that went back to August 2016. I wrote about that FARA on September 4th, and some of Torossian’s connections to #TrumpRussia.
Ms. Bertrand’s Torossian scoop inspired me to write about more of my research on Torossian. Please note that all of my research is done using Open Source information.
Another Kushner Connection:
As noted in Part I, Ronn Torossian has published opinion pieces in The Observer, which is owned by Jared Kushner. Torossian has another, more complex connection to Jared Kushner. It involves Kushner’s relationship with Rabbi David Chananya Pinto. Jared Kushner is on the board of two Kushner family foundations, who “have given over $210,000 in grants to [Rabbi David Chananya] Pinto’s New York City study center.”
Rabbi David Chananya Pinto’s nephew, Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, was a celebrity in Israel, and a well-connected multimillionaire.
“In New York, Pinto’s close followers include leading Jewish real estate magnates like Ofer Yardeni and Charlie Kushner, politicians like Anthony Weiner and Eric Cantor, Jewish leaders including celebrity rabbi Marc Schneier and Malcolm Hoenlein (the head of the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations), and even LeBron James.”
He had some unsavory connections as well:
“But for a holy man, Pinto is surrounded by shady criminal elements, including outright crooks. In Israel, these include Yossi Harari, the head of the Ramat Amidar underworld gang, and mobster Shalom Domrani.
In the United States, they include Michael Grimm, the former Staten Island congressman convicted of tax evasion and perjury. Pinto was not directly implicated in Grimm’s crimes, but his close associates were; allegedly, they solicited donations for Grimm’s election campaign from Pinto’s network of followers in excess of legally allowable amounts.
There were also dubious characters within Pinto’s own organization. In 2011, The Jewish Daily Forward discovered that a top aide, Ben Zion Suky, had been a pornographer.”
Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto was Ronn Torossian’s rabbi. Until Ronn Torossian helped to take him down.
Torossian’s ties to JetSmarter, the mob-connected “Uber for planes”
Ronn Torossian is “a partner, Chief Marketing Officer and advisory board member of JetSmarter,” according to his LinkedIn profile.
Ben Popper and Colin Lecher wrote an excellent story about JetSmarter on March 28, 2017. It is worth your time, as it delves into customer complaints, lawsuits, and consternation by competitors about its finances. In June, 2017, Ben Popper also wrote about how Jetsmarter has been accused of not paying its employees. Louise Mensch touched on many of the mob connections to JetSmarter in her August 15, 2017 blog post, PIMPOTUS — Trump Models and Russia’s Human Traffickers.
I’d like to give you some of the family history of JetSmarter’s CEO, which has not been reported on in any mainstream media outlets. The CEO of JetSmarter is Sergey Petrossov. Most press coverage of him treats him as a wunderkind entrepreneur, and he may be one- but his family history matters.
Here’s why:
Sergey Petrossov’s father is Vatchagan Petrossov. Robert Friedman’s ESSENTIAL BOOK on the Russian Mafia’s infiltration of America, Red Mafiya, desribes Vatchagan Petrossov thusly:
“Petrossov almost didn’t get into the United States in the first place. He was twice banned from obtaining a US visa at the American embassy in Moscow, and put on a list of rejected applicants. V.B. Rushailo, chief of the MVD’s organized crime section in Moscow, sent a letter to US officials stating that Petrssov was considered a dangerous thief-in-law. So Petrossove traveled to Riga, Latvia, and applied for a visa with a clean passport, without mentioning his previous conviction, which is required under US law, whether it has been expunged or not. A frustrated State Department source says Petrossov slipped through the American security net because the Riga embassy was using an outmoded computer system…
Petrossov managed to sidestep an attempt in 1997 to deport him on visa fraud for failing to disclose his criminal past, which a confidential FBI document says included fifteen years in the Gulag for rape and inciting a riot. According to law enforcement sources, his lawyer convinced a judge not to give credence to the accusations of a corrupt communist regime, claiming that his client was set up by a prostitute, and that, morevoer his record was expunged by a Soviet court in 1989.”
Vatchagan Petrossov settled in Denver, Colorado, where he built a restaurant which was popular with ex-pat Russians. He was suspected of laundering money via the construction of and operation of the restaurant.
Per Red Mafiya, “Petrossov, asserts a classified FBI report, was allegedly Ivankov’s “strategic advisor” and involved with him in drug traffickng and extortion.” Ivankov frequently travelled to Denver, where he stayed at Petrossov’s home, even using his address to apply for Colorado driver’s license.”
The Ivankov mentioned is Vyacheslav Ivankov, aka Yaponchik, the Russian mobster who briefly lived in Trump Tower and spent time at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino. Ivankov was an associate of the boss of the Russian mafia, Semion Mogilevich. Ivankov and Vatchagan Petrossov were so close that Petrossov named Ivankov godfather to one of his two sons.
Given Ronn Torossian’s ties to Manafort, Gates, Turkey, and various Ukrainian oligarchs, it’s worth noting he’s working for the son of a “thief-in-law” who was advisor to Vyacheslav “Yaponchik” Ivankov. Because in the mob, family is everything.
Coming up in Part III: Torossian’s work in Russia; Torossian’s ties to Felix Sater, Arthur Finkelstein, George Birnbaum, and Roger Stone; and a look at Ronn’s opinion pieces on Saudi Arabia and Qatar (especially when viewed in the light of the Saudi Royal Family’s investment in JetSmarter).
