Bombshell documents lay bare Hunter Biden's shady overseas business

EXCLUSIVE: Explosive emails, photos and documents lay bare Hunter Biden’s shady overseas business dealings that compromise the President and come dangerously close to violating foreign lobbying act

Hunter Biden’s ‘sweetheart’ deal with prosecutors fell apart this week as it emerged he is still under investigation, potentially for illegal foreign lobbying
DailyMail.com can reveal a trove of evidence that shows Hunter’s potential foreign influence violations that span China, Russia, Ukraine, Mexico and more
The new legal peril for Hunter comes on the day former partner Devon Archer is set to testify before the House of alleged links between then VP Joe Biden and son’s murky web of international business contacts

After Hunter Biden’s plea deal dramatically fell apart in court this week, the Department of Justice made clear it is still looking into potential foreign lobbying and money laundering charges against him.

And now after a painstaking investigation using documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, interviews with sources and subpoenaed records obtained by DailyMail.com, we can reveal exactly what evidence may be used against the First Son.

The information lays out a laundry list of potential foreign influence violations that span China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Kazakhstan, Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The new legal peril for Hunter, 53, comes on the day his former partner Devon Archer is set to testify before the House Oversight Committee where he is expected to tell of alleged links between then Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter’s murky web of international business contacts.

Hunter’s lawyers thought he would be let off the hook when he appeared in court in Delaware last week but Trump-appointed federal Judge Maryellen Noreika threw out a plea deal that had been slammed as a ‘slap on the wrist’.

That meant a separate diversion deal that would have ensured no further prosecutions on issues probed by Delaware prosecutor David Weiss also fell by the wayside.

In a dramatic collapse of their ‘sweetheart’ deal with Delaware prosecutors in court Wednesday, it emerged that US Attorney David Weiss is still investigating the First Son, potentially for illegal foreign lobbying and money laundering.

When asked by the judge, Justice Department lawyers confirmed they were looking at potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a law to limit foreign influence on US officials that has already ensnared several former officials in Donald Trump’s administration.

DailyMail.com has uncovered evidence of Hunter’s overseas business dealings that come dangerously close to violating the anti-foreign lobbying act – with some even involving his father, Joe Biden.

Hunter Biden’s ‘sweetheart’ deal with prosecutors fell apart this week as it emerged he is still under investigation, potentially for illegal foreign lobbying

Amid all the shocking messages involving Joe Biden, possibly the most important email of the 154,000 on Hunter’s abandoned laptop is the infamous ‘big guy’ email, suggesting that the president may have been involved in, and set to profit from, an alleged Chinese influence operation

Online Gambling in Latin America

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com last November, a whistleblower claimed he was on a 2012 phone call with then-Vice President Joe and Hunter discussing a Latin American online gambling business.

‘With the direct observations I had, it’s obvious Joe was participating in the business,’ the source said. ‘He wasn’t passive, he was talking about it. If I had to describe him, he was like a member of the Board of Directors’

DailyMail.com obtained business records, an archive of the gambling website, and emails from Hunter’s laptop referencing the South American web gambling operation.

Attorney Jeff Cooper, who was Hunter’s business partner in the gambling venture, a Biden family friend and a longtime major donor for the president, was allegedly on the call.

Attorney Jeff Cooper, who was Hunter’s business partner in the gambling venture, a Biden family friend and a longtime major donor for the president, was allegedly on the call. Another one of Hunter’s friends and business partners, Devon Archer, is set to testify to the House Oversight Committee on Monday with similar claims.

Cooper said the whistleblower’s claim was a ‘complete fabrication’.

But another of Hunter’s friends and business partners, Devon Archer, is set to testify to the House Oversight Committee on Monday with similar claims.

Sources close to Archer say he is preparing to tell Congress that on at least two dozen occasions, Hunter had Joe on speakerphone at his meetings with foreign potential business partners including from Ukraine and Romania, touting the then-VP’s alleged involvement in his son’s deals.

If the claims are true, Hunter’s payment by foreign companies to allegedly wield influence with his father while Joe was a government official, could land the First Son with FARA violation charges – among other potential crimes.

The whistleblower said he has not testified to a Delaware grand jury, but has given evidence to lawmakers investigating the Biden family.

Mexican Billionaires

Emails and photos from Hunter’s abandoned laptop obtained by DailyMail.com revealed that Hunter arranged for his Mexican billionaire business partners to visit the White House multiple times and even meet his father.

In one February 2016 email, Hunter spelled out a shocking apparent quid pro quo with Interjet airline owner Miguel Aleman Magnani, before flying to Mexico with his business partner Cooper and then-VP Joe on Air Force 2 for a meeting with him.

‘We have so many great things to do together and I want you at the plane when [the] VP lands with your Mom and Dad,’ Hunter wrote.

‘I haven’t heard from you since I got you a mtg for Carlos and your Dad,’ referring to Mexican oil baron Carlos Slim and Magnani’s billionaire media magnate father Miguel Alemán Velasco, who he brought to the White House for a meeting with the VP the year before.

‘We have been talking about business deals and partnerships for 7 years. And I really appreciate you letting me stay at your resort villa…but I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing WHite House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration and then you go completely silent.’

Orchestrating the meeting between the Latin oligarchs and VP Joe without telling the DoJ could breach FARA rules – especially if Hunter was trying to lobby his father on his foreign partners’ behalf.

Emails and photos from Hunter’s abandoned laptop obtained by DailyMail.com revealed that Hunter arranged for his Mexican billionaire business partners Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco to visit the White House multiple times and even meet his father

Photos on Hunter’s laptop dated November 19, 2015, show the six men smiling at a meeting in Joe Biden’s DC residence. Emails show the men also met Joe at the White House

Burisma

Hunter joined the board of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma in 2014, while Joe was VP with responsibility for US relations with Ukraine.

Joe publicly boasted about getting the country’s chief prosecutor Victor Shokin fired. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky for corruption.

Hunter and Joe were allegedly paid a $10 million bribe by Zlochevsky to kill the criminal investigation.

A longtime paid FBI informant told their handler they were present when Zlochevsky discussed the alleged bribe in a meeting around 2015, according to an FBI record published by Congress.

A source close to the Biden federal probe told DailyMail.com that elements of the informant’s story were corroborated by the Bureau, such as travel records matching the description of the alleged meeting with Zlochevsky.

All the evidence was passed to Weiss’ prosecution team in Delaware in 2020. It is unclear whether they investigated the claims further.

Joe publicly boasted about getting the country’s chief prosecutor Victor Shokin fired. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky (pictured) for corruption

Hunter orchestrated a meeting between Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi (pictured) and his father at a 2015 dinner at Cafe Milano in Washington DC, his laptop emails show

In 2015 Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi wrote to Hunter thanking him for introducing him to his father in DC

Two IRS whistleblowers who ran the five-year criminal tax probe into Hunter testified to Congress that there were potential FARA violations arising from Hunter’s work with Burisma in 2014 and 2015.

But IRS Criminal Investigation Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and his subordinate Joseph Ziegler claimed investigators were blocked from pursuing those leads by DoJ officials.

Hunter orchestrated a meeting between Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi and his father at a 2015 dinner at Cafe Milano in Washington DC, his laptop emails show.

The First Son also helped Burisma hire a Democrat-linked lobby firm, Blue Star Strategies, to improve Burisma’s image in DC.

In sworn testimony to Congress, Blue Star CEO Karen Tramontano (pictured) said Hunter did not direct any of her firm’s work for Burisma and played down her relationship with him

Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi detailed in a November 2015 email how he wanted ‘a list of deliverables’ from Blue Star, including ‘high-ranking US officials in Ukraine (US Ambassador) and in US publicly or in private communication/comment expressing their ‘positive opinion’ and support of [company owner] Nikolay/Burisma’.

The DoJ investigated Blue Star over its work for the Ukrainian gas firm. Although prosecutors failed to charge the DC consultants, they were forced last year to belatedly file a FARA registration acknowledging their lobbying of US officials for the foreign company.

In sworn testimony to Congress, Blue Star CEO Karen Tramontano said Hunter did not direct any of her firm’s work for Burisma and played down her relationship with him.

But emails from Hunter’s laptop show he was the point man for Blue Star’s hiring by Burisma in 2015, and he had been close with Tramontano for years. She even discussed registering her investment banking license with Hunter’s firm in 2014.

A lawyer for fellow Burisma board member Devon Archer told DailyMail.com that his client has testified to a grand jury about Burisma, revealing Delaware prosecutors have obtained evidence about Hunter’s dealings with the Ukrainian firm from first-hand witnesses.

Archer had a meeting with Joe Biden at the White House in April 2014, days before he joined Burisma’s board. He will likely be asked by lawmakers during his Congressional interview on Monday what was discussed in that meeting.

Hunter Biden’s friend and business partner Devon Archer, 49, is expected to testify Monday before the House Oversight Committee about their businesses. Devon Archer, far left, is seen playing golf in the Hamptons with Hunter (far right) and Joe (next to Hunter)

The ‘f***ing spy chief of China’

Hunter was promised $10 million by Chinese oil giant CEFC in an energy deal he struck with them in 2017. He and his partners received over $5 million, bank records show.

In a conversation recorded in an audio file on his laptop, Hunter described CEFC secretary general Patrick Ho as the ‘f***ing spy chief of China’, betraying his knowledge of the company’s close links with the Beijing government.

The feds knew too. A 2018 court filing following Ho’s November 2017 arrest revealed they had obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to monitor his communications.

Hunter’s name even came up in emails used as evidence in Ho’s criminal case, but the Southern District of New York prosecutor asked to redact them because it ‘could introduce a political dimension to this case that we don’t think is worth dealing with,’ according to a 2018 court transcript.

July 2017 Whatsapp texts obtained by the IRS whistleblowers and published by the House Ways and Means Committee last month revealed Hunter told his Chinese oil giant business partners that he was sitting next to Joe when he demanded they follow through on his multi-million-dollar deal, and that his father was involved.

He also bragged about CEFC only taking the deal due to his father’s involvement, in texts with his business partners leaked in 2020.

CEFC’s chairman Ye Jianming (left) was arrested in China and his lieutenant Patrick Ho(right) had been convicted in the US of bribery. Hunter accidentally recorded himself referring to Ho as the ‘spy chief of China’

The president’s son was staying at the guest house of Biden’s Delaware home when he wrote to Communist Party official Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017, threatening him to follow his ‘orders’

IRS whistleblower Shapley said there were potential FARA violations in Hunter’s work for CEFC, but that again investigators were blocked from digging.

Hunter was texting Chinese Communist Party official Henry Zhao

‘We’re talking about a lot of things there. There’s FARA in play. And the FBI is considering a lot of national security type issues here. And we were precluded from doing anything,’ he told the House Ways and Means Committee lawyers during his interview.

Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have already uncovered a CEFC plot to influence US policy, according to their 2017 indictment of Patrick Ho and November 2022 charges against CEFC advisor Dr. Gal Luft.

Israeli-American Luft is accused of violating FARA by plotting with Ho to ghost-write a series of newspaper articles for ex-CIA director James Woolsey promoting closer ties between the US and China.

His indictment also acknowledges that Luft met with prosecutors and FBI agents in Brussels, Belgium, in March 2019.

Luft claims he told the law enforcement officials at that meeting about Hunter’s lucrative partnership with CEFC – including allegedly funneling sensitive information to the Chinese company about a federal probe into its executives, leaked by a former top FBI official.

A Romanian Criminal

Hunter and ex-FBI director Louis Freeh teamed up in 2016 to represent Gabriel Popoviciu, a Romanian real estate tycoon later convicted of bribery.

Hunter’s work, which earned him $3million according to subpoenaed bank records, involved an apparent attempt to get US officials to encourage Romanian prosecutors to go easy on Popoviciu.

Hunter even met with then US ambassador to Romania, Hans Klemm, to discuss Popoviciu’s case, the First Son’s emails show.

Romanian real estate tycoon Gabriel Popoviciu was convicted in his home country in 2016 of bribing a university official to buy a 550-acre plot of government-owned land for a drastically reduced price. Hunter and ex-FBI director Louis Freeh teamed to represent Popoviciu

Emails show Hunter brought in political heavyweight and family friend Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI, to use his U.S. law enforcement contacts for Popoviciu’s advantage, and was offered a referral fee as a result

Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI and close family friend of the Bidens

A source on Popoviciu’s legal team told DailyMail.com that ‘at no point did we ever ask the U.S. Ambassador (or anyone else at the Embassy) to make any statement about the case, or to intervene in any way.’

Freeh also approached US government officials about the case.

He emailed Hunter on July 8, 2016 that he had spoken with the head of the FBI’s criminal division about Popoviciu – and offered to pay Hunter a referral fee for involving him.

Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), anyone advocating for foreign entities to US government officials, or acting as a publicist for a foreign entity in the US, must add themselves to a Department of Justice public register.

However, an exception applies for attorneys representing a client in a foreign court case, who are not required to register under FARA.

The source from Popoviciu’s legal team said the exception applied in this case.

A Fast Car from Kazakhstan

Kazakh businessman Kenes Rakishev sent Hunter $142,000 to buy a Fisker sports car, April 2014 bank records show.

The transaction has reportedly been scrutinized by the Delaware probe, and was among gifts that the IRS viewed as unreported income according to tax probe whistleblower Ziegler.

Rakishev, worth a reported $330 million, had close family connections to the kleptocratic regime of his homeland’s despotic former president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Between 2012 and 2014, Hunter helped him secure personal investments in the US – including a $1 million backing of a film by US climate change envoy John Kerry’s daughter Alexandra Forbes Kerry, according to a cache of Rakishev’s leaked emails obtained by DailyMail.com.

In 2013 the Kazakh was embroiled in a DoJ investigation of alleged breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related to ‘an investment in the oil and gas industry in Kazakhstan’, but was not charged.

Rakishev appears to have helped Hunter forge a relationship with the Kazakh prime minister.

An undated photo from Rakishev’s emails shows him posing with Hunter and Joe Biden, alongside the then-Kazakh PM Karim Massimov, who was charged with treason in 2022.

Emails obtained by DailyMail.com show Hunter Biden had worked with former Kazakh prime minister Karim Massimov (pictured far right with Hunter and President Joe Biden in an undated photo) to try to pull off a $120M pipeline deal. Businessman Kenes Rakishev (far left) appears to have helped Hunter forge a relationship with the Kazakh prime minister

An April 2014 email shows Hunter’s Chinese business partners i contacted him and Devon Archer to say CNOOC was interested in working with Burisma. ‘If we can connect the dots here between CNOOC and Burisma we can do only that, forever,’ Archer wrote to Hunter in April 2014, excited at the potential windfall from the proposed deal

White House records show Joe also met with two Chinese energy executives whose company owned car firm Fisker. After the July 2014 meeting, one wrote Hunter a groveling email offering to get his sports car gifted by Rakishev serviced.

Hunter would later attempt to broker a Chinese energy deal with Massimov, on Burisma’s behalf.

The First Son’s work in Kazakhstan was a confluence of several of his overseas ventures. In 2014, he and Archer attempted to get Massimov to agree to the oil pipeline deal involving Burisma and Chinese oil giant CNOOC that would be strategically beneficial to the Chinese.

CNOOC was sanctioned by the State Department in 2021 for allegedly aggressive actions in the South China Sea.

‘If we can connect the dots here between CNOOC and Burisma we can do only that, forever,’ Archer wrote to Hunter in April 2014, excited at the potential windfall from the proposed deal.

For one meeting with his Kazakh business partners in 2014 he inexplicably ditched his Secret Service detail which usually traveled with him while his father was vice president.

The Secret Service refused to provide full records to Congress about Hunter’s trips they requested in 2021.

From Russia With Cash

Elena Baturina, the billionaire widow of a Moscow mayor, invested $40 million in Hunter’s real estate firm Rosemont Realty, and wired $3.5 million to a bank account linked to Hunter.

Her brother told DailyMail.com it was ‘a payment to enter the American market.’

Hunter’s financial relationship with the Russian oligarch was highlighted as alarming in a 2020 Senate report on Hunter’s foreign business dealings.

Yelena Baturina is the billionaire widow of corrupt Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and was at one time the richest woman in Russia with a current net worth of $1.4billion. Pictured with Luzhkov in 2007

Documents in Russian show Elena Baturina invested $40 million in Hunter’s real estate firm Rosemont Realty, and wired $3.5 million to a bank account linked to Hunter

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (left) and Yuri Luzhkov’s widow Baturina attended a farewell ceremony for Luzhkov together

On February 14, 2014, Baturina wired $3.5 million in a series of payments to Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC marked for ‘Consultancy Agreement DD12.02.2014’.

The transactions were flagged in suspicious activity reports filed to the US Treasury Department.

Hunter’s lawyer George Mesires previously denied the money went to Hunter.

‘Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a co-founder of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false,’ he told CNN in September 2020.

But Hunter’s emails show he joined the firm’s advisory board in 2010 and was a part owner.

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