Nxivm leader, Keith Raniere “lost” $65.6 million of the Seagram’s heiresses, Clare and Sara Bronfman’s money in the commodities market from 2005-2007.
In fact, I was fired as Nxivm’s consultant right after I uncovered this fact. This was right after I recovered $26 million for the sisters in Los Angeles real estate.
Clare Bronfman said she did not know how the commodities money was invested. She trusted Keith. She and her sister told me they knew their powerful father, Edgar Bronfman Sr., had manipulated the commodities market to make them lose their money – to hurt Keith and to drive a wedge between them and Keith.
Clare added that the World Jewish Congress and the Illuminati worked with their father to make sure Keith was stopped. Otherwise, Keith would “break the bank”. He would upset the entire world markets because he was so good at investing.
I suspected she believed what she told me.
I told her I wanted to investigate. I asked for her commodities records.
She had none.
I said, “You have nothing to show – not one receipt or record – for the $65 million you lost? Do you even know what commodities you invested in? Such as corn or orange juice or…”
“I trust Keith. He had a plan to control much of the world’s wealth but my dad stopped it. But it worked out well because Keith learned a very valuable lesson on how secret and powerful organizations control world markets. In our next investment, Keith will use this data to correct things.”
“But your next investment after the commodities was the real estate investment in Los Angeles and, except for me, you would have lost most of your money in that also.”
“My sister and I are grateful to you for that. But that was not Keith’s fault [Keith had guided the LA real estate investment also]. I am not saying I know this for certain but I think my father manipulated the Los Angeles real estate market causing it to decline. He will do anything to stop Keith.”
I said, “Would you ask Keith to share the commodities records so I can see if your commodities broker cheated you? Maybe it was not your father, but someone else caused you to lose $65 million. You don’t even know what you invested in. I want to see actual trades so I can see if they correspond to the market. Did you really lose the money because of the trades Keith made? Did your dad adjust the markets or did someone else swindle you? How do you even know the money was actually invested in commodities?”
“I’ll ask Keith,” she said.
Within 24 hours I was fired as their consultant.
As I reflect on this, it seems that there are three possible scenarios to explain what happened to the $65.6 million.
Raniere invested the Bronfman’s $65.6 million through a series of bad commodities investments and lost their money.
The Bronfman sister’s father really used his immense wealth and influence to conspire with the commodities clearing houses to cause drops in prices in commodities Raniere invested in – as Raniere claimed.
Raniere stole the money.
One source told me: “It’s not hard to lose money on purpose in commodities futures. Raniere could steal millions while making it look like the Bronfmans lost the millions. Here’s how: Raniere sets up company A, and tells the girls about it. He also sets up company B, through a different broker, and doesn’t tell anyone about it.
“He uses company A to take a losing position in the market, like a contract to deliver frozen orange juice concentrate 6 months in the future at well below expected market price.
“He then uses company B to secretly buy that contract. In 6 months, company B demands delivery from company A. Company A needs cash to do that. So he asks the girls to ‘loan’ him money, so company A can deliver to company B. Company B puts the profit in an offshore account that he has access to.
“The net result is it looks like he has lost money in the market, and has records to prove it. But actually, he just paid the money to himself and hid it offshore.
“I’m oversimplifying because if company A only contracted with company B, he could get caught. So there could be many company Bs. Even better, company B only buys 10% of the losing market position, with other legitimate companies buying the rest. Company B gets lost in the noise. Only 10% of the girls’ money goes into his offshore account, but that’s still plenty, and the chance of getting caught is minimal.”
Using this method, Raniere could deliberately lose the Bronfman’s money and steal as much or as little as he liked.
The record shows Bronfmans lost $65.6 million. An investigation is warranted.
Keith Raniere (above) advised the Bronfmans to invest in the commodities futures market. He also handled the investments directly with the broker. He lost $65.6 million of their money.
Some might say, who cares if two dunces lost $65 million.
Besides, Raniere is likely to be sentenced to prison for decades and Clare Bronfman is going to prison or a couple of years.
But she might still face more charges in the NDNY.
This commodities scheme might be a fertile field to charge Sara Bronfman with racketeering.
That because the two sisters booked the loss as a “loan” to Raniere’s company First Principles – and even claimed they had earned interest on the loan so that their father would not find out about it.
I saw their records. At the time, I did not realize that they had given the money as a gift to Keith, not lent him the money.
This was an attempt on their part to defraud the IRS.
Rather than making Keith liable for a huge gift tax [in the millions] as regards the $65 million, the Bronfman’s actually paid tax on non-existent [phantom] interest [Keith did not pay any interest to them].
Yet the Bronfman’s actually claimed they received something like $200,000 per year from their “loan” of $65 million to First Principles.
Clare told me that she had to make it look good for her father and the trustees – so she showed they were making $200,000 per year in income. They really weren’t. It was a lie.
At the time, I thought it was just a foolish lie – their paying income tax on income they were not actually receiving. It was only later that I realized that they conspired with Keith so that he could evade as much as $10 million in gift taxes. They knew he had no plans to pay them back.
While the statute of limitations may have expired on the tax fraud aspect of this, it could, I suspect, be included as a predicate act in new racketeering charges that can include Sara Bronfman.
Since Sara has considerable assets that could be seized – and she played one of the greatest roles in the racketeering enterprise – she could be a worthy target for the DOJ NDNY.
Stay tuned.
