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outside of that early-80’s wash of Roy Cohn and the ready-mix concrete guys

The article goes significantly farther than ready-mix concrete. Trump was in tight with the Gambino family, among other mob affiliates and organizations.

I read that Giuliani’s ‘cleanup’ of Italian mobsters allowed in the russians which was duly appreciated. Early 80s is the same time the Kremlin started to keep tabs on Trump, giving him a tour and business opportunities then.

It ties out with a shift in policy from Cold Era Italy being a major bridge between NATO agencies in the West and their informants/operators in the East. Post-collapse, Sicily was old news since you could march your goons directly into St. Petersburg and Moscow to commence the looting.

But Trump's roll as a money launderer and fixer remains consistent during the transition.

So while there certainly were ties to Italian mafia, his later business and almost all of his political life is awash in russian mob ties.

His primary ties were to US and German lenders, with black market business interests using his properties to clean their ill-gotten gains. The flood of money and refugees coming out of Eastern Europe following the post-Soviet crash changed the composition of his criminal clients. His roll in legitimizing the looting through financialization did not.