Escort who claimed she had dirt on Trump arrested in Moscow
Anastasia Vashukevich, the escort who claimed she had dirt on President Trump was arrested in Moscow for prostitution.
A Belarusian model who claimed to have proof of President Trump’s campaign colluding with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election has been arrested in Moscow following her deportation from Thailand.
Anastasia Vashukevich was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Thursday on charges of inducement to prostitution. Three other people deported along with her were also charged with the same crime.
THAILAND DEPORTS BELARUSIAN WHO OFFERED DIRT ON ALLEGED TRUMP-RUSSIA TIES
Those arrested are facing up to six years in prison if convicted of the charges.
The model had been held in a Thai prison since February last year over accusations she solicited and conspired to hold a sex-training seminar in the country. She was given a suspended sentence on Tuesday and ordered to be deported after pleading guilty to the charges.
She made headlines when she made a shock claim that she has recordings of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska talking about interfering in the U.S. presidential elections. She never released the recordings.
BELARUSIAN SEX WORKER ALLEGES TRUMP-RUSSIA TIE WITHOUT PROOF
In this Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, file photo, Anastasia Vashukevich, leaves the Pattaya Provincial Court in Chonburi province, Thailand. A model from Belarus who claimed last year that she had evidence of Russian involvement in helping elect Donald Trump president has pleaded guilty in a Thai court in a case related to holding a sex training seminar and will be deported. A lawyer representing Anastasia Vashukevich said she and seven co-defendants would be freed Tuesday Jan. 15, 2019, and deported. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)
The oligarch is known to be a close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and once worked with Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, who was convicted last year over tax and bank fraud and has since been cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team.
Vashukevich last year, through an intermediary, asked the U.S. government to secure her freedom and give political asylum in exchange for the recordings but later withdrew her proposal, saying she and the Russian oligarch struck a deal.
Her name first came up in political circles last year after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny published an investigation stemming from her social media activity. The report revealed links between Deripaska and a top Kremlin official, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko.
The woman reportedly worked as an escort and was captured in a video aboard Deripaska’s yacht in 2016.
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Deripaska, who is worth over $5 billion, is one of the Russian figures who was the target of U.S. sanctions in response to the Russian government’s actions such as the 2014 annexation of Crimea, support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and attempting to interfere in elections across the world.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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