Trump's Trading Card Grift is Worse than You Think

Shell companies, rubbing elbows with international criminals, and worse in his scam of scams

When Trump posted his “big announcement” that he was selling his own NFT trading cards, the whole world burst out laughing. Members of the MAGA cult had thought he was going to declare his candidacy for Speaker of the House or maybe reveal the identity of his Vice-Presidential selection in his third run for the White House. QAnon cultists felt sure he was going to identify members of the Deep State, or the arrest and execution of Democrats, or that the military had installed him as President.

Nope. Trading cards.

Funny, yes. But it is far, far worse than you think. And to understand why, we have to begin tracing the web of corporations involved in producing these worthless digital cards. They lead to some sleazy places.

Before we start down the rabbit hole of partnerships, corporations and other entities that lead to criminals and fraudsters, I need to address one question up front: What exactly are buyers of the Trump Trading Cards purchasing? Yes, they are NFTs, but unlike others of these digital art pieces, the people foolish enough to purchase a Trump Trading Card don’t actually own the things they paid for, at least not in the traditional sense. If any buyer decides to sell their Trump card in a secondary market, they don’t get all the proceeds. The fine print reveals that 10% of every secondary market sales goes right back to Trump and his fellow grifters. For more details, buyers are told to click the link to terms and conditions. Buyers have to confirm they read the terms and conditions but…the terms and conditions are nowhere to be found. When you click the link to the terms, this pops up:

Trump himself is not producing the cards, any more than he has developed any real estate projects since 2010. Instead, he has reached a licensing agreement with a company called NFT International LLC. All his licensing agreements, dating back decades (Real estate, Trump Steaks, Trump University etc.) have all had the same terms: The licensor pays Trump a bunch of cash up front, then he gets a share of the revenue produced by whatever the grifty product is. That number has ranged from 10% to 50%, and there is no reason to expect that this time it is any less - in fact, it is almost certainly more.

So, let’s begin delving into the shady world of NFT International. Start with the simple part: NFT International is licensing Trump’s name and likeness from a company called CIC Digital LLC, a limited liability corporation formed just nine months ago and registered in Delaware. Many corporate entities and partnerships form in Delaware because the state offers unique legal protections that are not as well established in other states: Primarily, privacy is protected. Any business entity filed in Delaware does not have to disclose its officers and directors to the public or the state, which allows for complete anonymity. Even better for Trump, the state allows for a slimmed down corporate structure, where just one person to hold the role of officer, director, and shareholder. Trump has hundreds of LLC’s that were revealed in his financial disclosure when he ran for president, almost all of them created in Delaware and with him as the sole officer, director, and shareholder. If he has created CIC using his standard practice, that means Trump is completely in control of the partnership. This also creates a legal protection for Trump and his companies, because as a partnership, no one filing suit can “pierce the corporate veil” as the term goes, and reach Trump’s pockets or that of his company, the Trump Corporation.

The registered agent for CIC - the entity that registered the partnership with the state - is also hidden from view. It is called “National Registered Agents, Inc.” and its ownership is also undisclosed. However, it has registered and incorporated many business entities, including an Austrian aerial camera company, an Arizona computer security business, a dental partnership, a real estate partnership and scores more.

But the fun really starts with unraveling NFT International. It is spread out all over the place. Anyone who purchases one of the Trump Trading Cards (and perhaps feels like they have been scammed - which they have) would obviously reach out to NFT International through its contact listing on the Collecttrumpcards.com website. The address they will receive is 6300 Sagewood Drive, Suite 427, Park City, UT. But that's not where NFT International really is. In fact, there are no offices there. Rather, the address provided to purchasers as the contact site for NFT International is a mailbox at a UPS Store in a strip mall. A nice strip mall, but a strip mall, nonetheless.

So where is NFT International? Not even close to Park City. Instead, according to its partnership registered (in Delaware of course), it is registered 480 miles away in Cheyenne, Wyoming, at the address 1712 Pioneer Avenue.

When I saw the Pioneer Avenue address, my mouth dropped. I know that address. I have seen it before. It is connected to some of the sleaziest entities to be found in this country, including international criminals.

NFT International was set up by Wyoming Corporate Services, a company that registers shell companies. Wyoming Corporate says it acts legally but has no idea who is running the secret entities that it registers. “We recognize that business entities (whether aged, shell or traditional) may be used for both good and ill,” the owner of Wyoming Corporate Services, Gerald Pitts wrote in an email to Reuters in 2011.

Oh, but it gets worse. So much worse. The final address of NFT International - along with scores of other companies - is 2710 Thomes Avenue, Cheyenne, Wyoming. And here it is.

Among the many companies based at 2710 Thomes Avenue and registered by through Wyoming Corporate Services at this tiny brick house are forty established by Pitts in which he is listed as a director, president, or principal. Those companies have been named as defendants in more than a dozen civil lawsuits charging that they had failed to pay taxes and engaged in both securities fraud and trademark infringement.

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. While NYM contracted to and confirmed it had sold the military parts conforming with Pentagon specifications, it didn’t. Instead, in more than three dozen military contracts, according to court documents, it provided parts produced by a Turkish company owned by Hace Galip Dedekarginoglu - also the owner of NYM.

The scheme cost the military about $160,000, which Dedekarginoglu agreed to repay in addition to other fines. He also agreed to a $200,000 fine to avoid a civil lawsuit. Meanwhile, another principal in NYM, pleaded guilty to wire fraud based on another tactic in the NYM scam. Through Kan, NYM bought parts from preferred Department of Defense contractors and then sent them to Turkey so they could be reproduced more cheaply.

Another man of sparkling character connected to the address of NFT International is 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.

Another man linked to 2710 Thomes 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. That business, the lawsuit charged, offered subprime credit cards that required an upfront fee debited from customers’ bank accounts, but the cards were never delivered.

Now, none of this means that NFT International is crooked. But think about it - Trump is the former President of the United States. He has already pocketed a bunch of cash from an entity that somehow chose to do business with an entity connected to international fraud and scams. You would think that Trump, supposed billionaire and onetime leader of the free world, would have enough ability to conduct a little due diligence on the companies he does business with, or at least would make sure he avoided dealing with one that travels through so many scummy trails.

Wait. We know Trump. He is the grifters of all grifters. There is no reason to think he would have done anything differently than he has.