Trump's trading card grift is worse than you think.

December 21, 2022

So, writing about my own substack post is a little….odd. But I decided yesterday to trace down Trump’s business partners in his sleazy trading card grift, and even I was shocked at what I found (and kind of surprised no other news outlet has.)

Start with my favorite part: People who buy these NTFs don’t even fully own them. They are denied all sorts of rights of ownership, but the best: If they find someone to sell the digital cards to, they have to kick back 10% of the sale price to Trump and his fellow grifters. 

But going on from there: Trump himself is not producing these NFTs. Instead, in March he set up an entity — called CIC — which holds the rights to his image and name for NFT licensing. Then he licensed it to a group called NFT International, LLC (also set up in March.) The layers and layers of business covers are quite — well, unimpressive, just low-level New Jersey scuzzy type of sleaze. But sleazy nonetheless.

I traced NFT International to a mailbox at a UPS Store in a strip mall in Utah, but then from there to an office building in Wyoming, and finally to a tiny brick house (shown above) in Cheyenne. That house is the corporate “home” for scores of business entities, including a huge number of fraudsters and international criminals.

THE COMPANIES REGISTERED BY WYOMING CORPORATE AT 1712 PIONEER, ENDING UP WITH THE FINAL ADDRESS AT 2710 THOMES AVENUE, INCLUDES A NUMBER OPERATED BY A ROGUE’S GALLERY OF CRIMINALS. THEY HAVE INCLUDED A NEW JERSEY COMPANY (STRANGELY CALLED NEW YORK MACHINERY) THAT SOLD MILITARY CAR AND TRACTOR TRAILER PARTS TO THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT….FORMER UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER PAVLO LAZARENKO, WHO WAS ONCE RANKED THE EIGHTH-MOST CORRUPT OFFICIAL IN THE WORLD BY WATCHDOG GROUP TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL. IN 2004, HE WAS SENTENCED TO EIGHT YEARS IN PRISON IN CALIFORNIA FOR MONEY-LAUNDERING AND EXTORTION, A SCAM THAT USED SHELL COMPANIES AND OFFSHORE BANK ACCOUNTS TO HIDE STOLEN UKRAINIAN GOVERNMENT FUNDS….ALSO SET UP THERE IS IRA N. RUBIN – JUST ONE MORE CON ARTIST. IN 2006, THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION WENT TO FEDERAL COURT IN TAMPA, FLORIDA AND SUED RUBIN FOR FRAUD. ACCORDING TO THE LAWSUIT, RUBIN USED AT LEAST 18 DIFFERENT FRONT COMPANIES TO HIDE HIS ROLE AS A CREDIT-CARD PROCESSOR FOR TELEMARKETING SCAMS.

The story goes on and on, but no surprise: For his “but wait…there’s more!” deal, Trump got into bed with some of the sleaziest of the sleazy.

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