US expands laundering, fraud charges against ex-Trump campaign chief

WASHINGTON: Ex-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and his former partner Richard Gates were hit on Thursday with fresh charges of tax and bank fraud, as Russia election meddling special prosecutor Robert Mueller stepped up pressure on the president’s former aides.

Already indicted for money laundering and tax evasion, Manafort and Gates were charged in a separate 32-count indictment with defrauding the US Internal Revenue Service and lying to US banks in order to get some $20 million in loans. As with the indictment of the two released by Mueller on October 30, the new charges were unrelated to the 2016 election campaign of President Donald Trump.

Instead, they grew from the work Manafort and Gates performed for Russia-backed former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych between about 2006 and 2014.Mueller’s team alleges that the two laundered $75 million through offshore accounts, many of them in Cyprus, bringing a large portion of the proceeds into the United States as loans and purchases to avoid income tax.

“Manafort and Gates generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work. From approximately 2006 through the present, Manafort and Gates engaged in a scheme to hide income from United States authorities, while enjoying the use of the money,” the new indictment said.

A spokesman for Manafort said he “is confident that he will be acquitted.”“Paul Manafort is innocent of the allegations set out in the newly filed indictments and he is confident that he will be acquitted of all charges,” the spokesman said in a statement.