Narco-a-lago: Money Laundering at the Trump Ocean Club Panama

The report alleges that the Trump Ocean Club in Panama was used to launder illicit funds from Colombian narcotics trafficking and Russian criminal networks. It highlights the role of broker Alexandre Henrique Ventura Nogueira in facilitating these sales through anonymous shell companies and 'special purpose vehicles'. The document argues that Donald Trump and his family benefited financially from these transactions while failing to conduct due diligence on buyers, reflecting a broader pattern of licensing his brand to high-risk projects in jurisdictions with weak anti-money laundering controls.

• Proceeds from Colombian narcotics trafficking were laundered through the Trump Ocean Club, and Donald Trump was a financial beneficiary of these activities.
• David Eduardo Helmut Murcia Guzmán, a Colombian fraudster sentenced to nine years in the US for laundering narcotics proceeds, invested in multiple units at the Trump Ocean Club during its pre-construction phase.
• Broker Alexandre Henrique Ventura Nogueira was central to the project's early success, brokering between 350 and 400 units overall and representing nearly a third of the 666 pre-construction sales.
• The project utilized a vast network of anonymous shell companies to hide the identity of buyers; 119 'special purpose vehicles' (SPVs) were created by Ventura Nogueira and his associates in the year before the Bear Stearns bond issuance.
• Approximately 50% of Ventura Nogueira's buyers were Russian, some of whom were later identified as members of the Russian Mafia.
• Donald Trump stood to gain $75.4 million from the Trump Ocean Club by the end of 2010, receiving an upfront $1.2 million licensing fee, 1% of secured financing, and a cut of every unit sold.
• Ivanka Trump was heavily involved in the project, attending at least 10 meetings with broker Ventura Nogueira and developer Roger Khafif, and was described as ultimately responsible for all aspects of the licensing deal for the Trump Organization.
• The report identifies other Trump projects with similar red flags, such as Trump SoHo in New York, linked to Viktor Khrapunov and Felix Sater, and the Trump International Hotel and Tower Baku, linked to the son of an Azerbaijani minister and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
• Panama was a high-risk environment for money laundering during the project's launch, with one lawyer stating that at least 95% of luxury buildings built there in the last 25 years were financed with corrupt money.

APA

Silverstein, K. (n.d.). Narco-a-lago: Money Laundering at the Trump Ocean Club Panama. Global Witness. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/narco-a-lago-money-laundering-at-the-trump-ocean-club-panama/

Chicago

Silverstein, Ken. Narco-a-lago: Money Laundering at the Trump Ocean Club Panama. Global Witness, n.d. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/narco-a-lago-money-laundering-at-the-trump-ocean-club-panama/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Silverstein |first1=Ken |title=Narco-a-lago: Money Laundering at the Trump Ocean Club Panama |publisher=Global Witness |url=https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/narco-a-lago-money-laundering-at-the-trump-ocean-club-panama/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{silversteinndnarcoalago, author = {Silverstein, Ken}, title = {{Narco-a-lago: Money Laundering at the Trump Ocean Club Panama}}, institution = {Global Witness}, url = {https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/corruption-and-money-laundering/narco-a-lago-money-laundering-at-the-trump-ocean-club-panama/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }