An Austrian billionaire who allegedly once worked with East German Stasi spies links to a network tied to several Trump family deals

New research reveals multiple ways firms and people associated with Martin Schlaff are linked to business deals involving Eric and Donald Trump Jr.

This year Eric and Donald Trump Jr. joined the advisory board of a financial services firm Dominari Holdings, that rents space in Trump Tower in New York City. They both invested in Dominari with three other Trump Organization executives, and all five combined own over 20% of Dominari common stock. Don Jr. invested in drone company Unusual Machines which is closely tied to Dominari. Eric, Don Jr. and Dominari launched American Data Centers which is doing several mergers to form American Bitcoin. Dominari is brokering a deal with a Trump crypto investor, Justin Sun, to take his company Tron public through a merger with SRM Entertainment, which is also affiliated with Dominari.

I have published many stories on this network and recently revealed that Barry Honig and a few associates charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 for a $27 million stock fraud, were key investors in Dominari in 2013-2014 when the company was named Spherix Inc.

Alpha Capital Anstalt is a Leichtenstein-based hedge fund that was charged in 2018 with Barry Honig and others in the $27 million stock fraud scheme. Alpha Capital settled the charges and agreed to pay disgorgement of $708,470.08 with prejudgment interest of $149,788.44. Alpha Capital, along with Barry Honig and others in his network were key investors in Dominari Holdings in 2013-2014 and some current investors have links to Alpha Capital going back several decades.

What makes the Alpha Capital Anstalt connection to Dominari and Trump family deals notable is that Alpha Capital has been reported to be an investment vehicle for Austrian billionaire Martin Schlaff – who began his career in East Germany, working with Stasi spies, and allegedly helped the East Germans move tens of millions of marks out of the country before the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Schlaff was operating in East Germany at the same time and with some of the same people Vladimir Putin was associated with when he was stationed in Dresden for the KGB during the same period.

This story expands upon prior reporting on Eric and Donald Trump Jr., their work with Dominari Holdings and links to the the Barry Honig network – providing context and new reporting on Alpha Capital Anstalt, Austrian billionaire Martin Schlaff, and some other business deals associated with Schlaff.

Note that there is no indication of any criminal or illegal activity or any wrongdoing related to any of the people or entities covered here, except where specifically noted (such as the SEC charges) or cited from other sources.

Martin Schlaff reportedly worked with the East German Stasi and helped move money out the country before the collapse of Communism

In 2006 the Wall Street Journal described how Martin Schlaff’s early career involved working with East German Stasi spies:

Mr. Schlaff profited during the Cold War by moving Western computers to East Germany for the Stasi spy service despite Western trade embargoes. Now, the elegantly dressed, moustachioed Austrian — nicknamed “The Count” by the Stasi — specializes in delivering troubled Eastern European companies into Western hands.

This 2010 Haaretz article described the book Seduced by Secrets: Inside the Stasis Spy-tech World, by historian Kristie Macrakis and a meeting Martin Schlaff attended with three East German businessmen – who were actually senior officials in the Stasi – and subsequent business they pursued together. In 1998 a special Bundestag committee of inquiry report found that East Germany transferred tens of millions of marks to Schlaff through accounts in Liechtenstein. The report also said Schlaff provided money to buy a building that served as a guest house for Stasi spy chief Markus Wolf.

In 1999 Markus Wolf published an opinion piece in the New York Times about Vladimir Putin who had just become Russia’s new Prime Minister essentially saying former spy Putin would make a good prime minister. On a side note related to another part of this story – Franz Wolf, the son of Stasi spy chief Markus Wolf – was a financial executive at Alfa Bank, where Martin Schlaff owned a 9.9% stake from 2017 to 2021.

In the book Putin’s People Catherine Belton described Vladimir Putin’s time with the KGB in Dresden Germany in the mid to late 1980s and his work with the German Stasi secret police. With the pending collapse of Communism, the Stasi started moving cash through a web of firms into the West to maintain their operations, and Putin’s Dresden was a central hub. Martin Schlaff was a key figure in moving money out of the country working with Stasi commander Herbert Kohler.

Kohler worked closely with an Austrian businessman named Martin Schlaff, who’d been recruited in the early eighties by the Stasi. Schlaff was tasked with smuggling embargoed components for the construction a hard-disc factory in Thuringen, near Dresden. Between the end of 1986 and the end of 1988 his firms received more than 130 million marks from the East German government for the top-secret project, which was one of the most expensive ever run by the Stasi. But the plan was never finished. Many of the components never arrived, while hundreds of millions of marks intended for the plant, and from other illicit deals, disappeared into Schlaff front companies in Liechtnstein, Switzerland and Singapore.

These financial transfers took place at the time Putin was serving as the main liaison officer between the KGB and the Stasi in Dresden, in particular with Kohler’s HVA.

Haaretz reported that in the late 1990s Germany filed a civil suit against Martin Schlaff and his Swiss partner Konrad Ackerman “for having received what they alleged were tens of millions of marks from the East German state” in a fictitious deal. The Swiss court rejected the case and Schlaff said in an interview “I was not an agent of the Stasi and I had no special relationship with them.”

Konrad Ackerman (also spelled Ackermann), Martin Schlaff’s business partners in East Germany, is a Director of Alpha Capital Anstalt in a large number of SEC filings from the mid 2000s through the present.

Martin Schlaff’s Mobiltel deal with reputed Russian mafia figure Michael Cherney and Schlaff’s Gazprom ties

In 2002 Martin Schlaff, Austrian investment banker Herbert Cordt and a consortium that included Austrian bank BAWAG, purchased Bulgarian company Mobiltel from Mikhail Cherney (aka Michael Cherney/Chernoy) a reputed Russian mafia figure.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

In 2002, Mr. Schlaff and a partnership bought Bulgaria’s Mobitel from Mikhail Cherney, a Russian aluminum magnate barred from entering Bulgaria and the U.S. because of alleged links to Russian organized crime. Mr. Cherney never has been charged by authorities in either country with any crime, and he denies any connections to organized crime.

Mikhail Cherney sold Mobiltel in 2002 for $650 million to the Schlaff, Cordt, BAWAG consortium, and a few years later in July 2005, Telekom Austria bought Mobiltel for $1.6 billion.

Cherney and Schlaff were also connected to bribery allegations in Israel.

A 2011 Jerusalem Post story on a legal dispute involving Michael Cherney noted that Cherney had recently been implicated in indictment charges being prepared against then Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and said:

The charges Lieberman faces, pending a hearing, include allegedly taking bribes of around NIS 10m. from Cherney and Austrian businessman Martin Schlaff.

This Times of Israel story on the investigation into alleged bribery of Avigdor Lieberman described five businessmen involved: Michael Cherney, Martin Schlaff, Robert Novikowsky, Daniel Gitenstein and Dan Getler. The story also described Martin Schlaff’s ties to Gazprom. A former deputy state prosecutor said:

“Martin Schlaff and Robert Novikowsky are figures that are connected to Putin. They work on behalf of a Russian company, Gazprom. This case involves connections that go far beyond the focus of the criminal allegations that were investigated. These are people and processes and phenomena that it’s not always easy to discover the full truth about.”

Martin Schlaff and the Oasis Casino in Jericho, Palestine

A 2010 The Jerusalem Post article ‘Who is Martin Schlaff?‘ described various investigations into his work with the Stasi, alleged political bribery in Israel, and Schlaff’s investment in the Oasis Casino in Jericho.

In 1998, Schlaff joined Yasser Arafat in opening the Oasis casino in Jericho. The casino quickly became a major hit with Israelis, who could not legally gamble within the Green Line. Despite its initial success, the Oasis closed its doors in 2000 following widespread violence in the West Bank with the outbreak of the second intifada.

Schlaff has been the subject of a number of police investigations in Israel that focused on his relationship with Lieberman and former prime minister Ariel Sharon. Among the allegations, police suspect Schlaff operated a number of shell companies to illegally fund Lieberman’s 2006 election campaign, and that he paid off a debt accrued by Sharon during his campaign for the Likud primary in 1999.

The casino was owned by Austrian company Casino-Austria, and Schlaff financed the casino through Austria’s BAWAG bank, which was also involved in the alleged bribery cases.

Austrian bank BAWAG’s $675 million settlement with the SEC for role in 2005 Refco scandal

Martin Schlaff was one of BAWAG’s largest customers. Over the years Schlaff’s Mobiltel deal, his investment in the Jericho casino, and his involvement in Alpha Capital Anstalt have all involved BAWAG bank, which is also called BAWAG PSK Bank of Austria, and Bank fur Arbeit und Wirtschaft.

According to the New York Times in 2000 BAWAG used offshore companies and accounts at Refco Group Ltd, a New York based financial firm and futures broker, to mask almost €1 billion in losses. BAWAG owned 10% of Refco from 1999 to 2004.

In 2006 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged BAWAG with aiding and abetting a fraud by Refco to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars of debt. BAWAG agreed to pay $675 million to settle the charges.

In 2007, after the Refco scandal, Austria’s BAWAG bank was sold to the U.S. fund Cerberus Capital Management for $3.4 billion. Cerberus sold its stake in BAWAG in 2019. Cerberus is led by Stephen Feinberg, who is now the Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration.

Martin Schlaff is linked to Alpha Capital Anstalt and per some reports and documents may be a controlling owner

In 2006 The Street reported Austria’s BAWAG bank had become one of the biggest players in the U.S. PIPE market – private investment in public equity – in other words providing private financing to publicly listed companies. BAWAG was a key investor in four hedge funds in Liechtenstein including Alpha Capital and BAWAG also had a financial interest in New York-based LH Financial, a big player in a lot of relatively small (under $5 million) PIPE deals. LH Financial was founded in 1997 by Solomon Obstfeld.

The story described Martin Schlaff’s ties to these entities:

LH Financial also has ties to Martin Schlaff, an Austrian billionaire who is one of BAWAG’s biggest individual customers. Schlaff is a partner with BAWAG in the Alpha Capital hedge fund, along with other business ventures. A relative of Schlaff’s briefly worked at LH Financial.

Other articles below describe Schlaff as one of owners of Alpha Capital Anstalt and two items I found for companies listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange indicate that Schlaff may be a controlling shareholder.

A Globes 2010 article notes: “Sources inform ”Globes” that one of Alpha Capital’s owners is none other Austrian billionaire, Martin Schlaff.”

A 2017 Haaretz article says “Collplant, which is developing tissue-repair products based on plant-based recombinant human collagen technology, had declined to name the investor in its original September 11 announcement but earlier this week confirmed it was Alpha Capital Anstalt, which is controlled by Schlaff.”

This 2019 press release by Imaging3, Inc. related to a lawsuit with Alpha Capital Anstalt and Brio Capital Master Fund described the owners of Alpha Capital as BAWAG, Martin Schlaff and others.

A 2021 Icecure Medical Ltd filing for the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has Martin Schlaff listed as the controlling shareholder for Alpha Capital Anstalt.

This 2023 Envizion document filed with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has a footnote that (using Google translate) describes the lender Alpha Capital Anstalt and says “to the best of the Company’s knowledge, Mr. Martin Schlaff is the ultimate beneficiary of the Lender, and it is controlled by its board of directors, Dr. Nicola, Konrad Ackerman and Mag. Lucas Mair–Feuerstein.”

It is not fully clear exactly how Martin Schlaff is connected and invested in Alpha Capital Anstalt or LH Financial in New York – but it appears that he is closely linked to both and may be a key financier. This is significant because Alpha Capital has been involved with financing a very broad array of U.S. companies for several decades, including several firms that Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are now working with.

How entities and people associated with Martin Schlaff are connected to Dominari Holdings and Eric and Don Jr.

While researching Alpha Capital Anstalt, I reviewed a 2016 filing for Stemcells, Inc. that listed Schlaff’s former business partner in East Germany Konrad Ackerman as well as Dr. Nicola Feuerstein as Alpha Capital directors. The filing also described Board Director Solomon Mayer as the designated director of Alpha Capital and as the President of Chailife Line (also known as Chai Lifeline).

The name Chai Lifeline rang a bell for me because they are listed in this 2025 filing for Dominari Holdings as the owners of 100% of the Series D-1 Preferred Stock. Outside of officers and directors, they are part of a stockholders list of only 8 entities, that includes Don Jr. and Eric Trump. Chai Lifeline seems to first appear as an investor in this 2017 filing for Spherix Incorporated, which was a prior name of Dominari Holdings.

Note that the reporting that follows on Chai Lifeline is not related to the mission or work of the organization which appears to be valuable and impactful. The reporting is related their stake as a small investor in Dominari Holdings and links to people and entities connected to Martin Schlaff. As noted previously there is no indication of any kind of wrongdoing. The focus is exclusively on showing the linkages among business networks previously and currently connected to Trump family deals.

The links from a small Dominari investor to Martin Schlaff

The current Board Co-Chair of Chai Lifeline appears to have been involved in 2001 with an $88 million financial transaction involving Martin Schlaff and Austria’s BAWAG bank. Another Director of Chai Lifeline is a senior executive of LH Financial which is tied to Schlaff and Alpha Capital Anstalt and covered further on.

A Co-Chairman of Chai Lifeline named Sol Mayer appears to have a long history with Martin Schlaff. Several sources linked below described “Shloime Meier” or “Sol Mayer” and his involvement in an $88 million financial transaction Martin Schlaff helped arrange with BAWAG bank in 2001.

This Transborder Corruption Archive document (using Google translate) described how around 2000-2001 Helmut Elsner the CEO of BAWAG had a deficit of tens of millions of dollars at some Liechtenstein foundations connected to activity in the Caribbean. An investigation by the Austrian parliament into BAWAG and CEO Elsner also looked at how Martin Schlaff (who was not charged) helped BAWAG address its financial deficit.

Reportedly Martin Schlaff helped Elsner with a plan to find four companies in New York to take out loans and then forward the money to the ailing BAWAG foundations. The commission for the deal would be $1 million. The document said Shloime Meier aka ‘Sol Mayer’ – who was trusted by Schlaff – provided the four companies:

BAWAG sent $88 million to four companies owned by Shloime Meier (or “Sol Mayer”) Nu Tech Inc., Advanced Integrated Technology Development Inc., USA Premium, and S&H Trading.

A Profil piece summarized what Martin Schlaff said to the Office of Internal Affairs in 2006 about the BAWAG debt and the involvement of “Shlomie Meier”:

As Martin Schlaff was to explain to the Office of Internal Affairs (BIA) in 2006, his close friend Elsner, and subsequently Nakowitz, approached him with a delicate request. Whether he, Schlaff, or someone close to him could provide a company that would take out a loan from Bawag to forward this money to the ailing foundations. They also wanted to show their gratitude with a kind of commission. Schlaff told the BIA: “I turned it down twice because I didn’t want my reputation to suffer.” But Schlaff offered Elsner a way out: “There is one person in the world to whom I would grant the kind of income Elsner described as risk-free and effort-free, and that is Shloime Meier.”

At the time, Meier owned a trading house in New York and conducted business between Brazil and the USA. His interest, it was said, was in a charity for children with cancer, the “Chai Lifeline,” for which he wanted to raise one million dollars… That was a good thing. Elsner offered exactly that amount for the favor… Meier therefore took out loans from Bawag for four US companies. On January 5, 2001, a total of $88 million flowed across the Atlantic.

Sol Mayer was involved in Bawag transactions with Martin Schlaff in 2001. From 2003 through 2024 several SEC filings list Solomon Mayer as a board director of companies where Alpha Capital Anstalt, which has been closely associated with Schlaff and BAWAG, provided financing. This 2017 filing on the merger of WPCS International and DropCar, Inc. listed Alpha Capital as an investor and Solomon Mayer as a Director. His bio in the filing says he was President and CEO of Mooney Aviation Company since 1999.

A 2003 filing for similarly named Mooney Aerospace Group listed Sol Mayer as a Director and Alpha Capital as a 9.9% owner, and a 2005 filing shows Alpha Capital became a 16.72% owner. A 2006 filing for Mooney Aerospace listed Mayer as a director along with David Schlaff. Austrian billionaire Martin Schlaff has a son named David. The filing said David Schlaff worked at LH Financial.

Another director of Mooney in 2006 was Herbert Cordt who was Martin Schlaff’s business partner in the Mobiltel deal with Mikhail Chernoy. Herbert Cordt is currently the Board Chair of RHI Magnesita, where David Schlaff is a director, and the largest shareholder is MSP Stiftung which is controlled by Martin Schlaff.

Links with another Martin Schlaff affiliated company LH Financial, now called LHX Corp

As noted earlier LH Financial, which has ties to Martin Schlaff, was founded by Solomon Obstfeld. A 2019 Daily News story reported that Solomon Obstfeld, who ran LH Financial, had plunged to his death from the 19th floor of the Jumeirah Essex House in New York City. The story referred to Martin Schlaff as Obstfeld’s boss and they were partners in several projects. Obstfeld had also been involved with a business deal with Martin’s brother James Schlaff.

A 2025 filing for Traillblazer Merger Corp notes that the Chairman of the Board of Trailblazer is Joseph Hammer who has served as the Chief Investment Officer of LHX and previously LH Financial. Joseph Hammer is also the Chairman of the Executive Committee of Chai Lifeline.

Trailblazer CEO and director Arie Rabinowitz is the founder of LHX Corp. The Trailblazer website says LHX is the family office for a single family which has the primary investment vehicle Alpha Capital Anstalt. The management and staff of LHX were previously employed by LH Financial. There is no direct reporting that the ‘single family’ that LHX works for is Martin Schlaff’s family – based on the many linkages this seems like a possibility.

Trailblazer plans to merge with Cyabra Strategy

This Trailblazer Merger Corporation filing notes that in July 2024 they entered into a merger agreement with Israeli company Cyabra Strategy Ltd. According to Cyabra’s website the firm uses AI to detect misinformation.

Mike Pompeo, the former CIA Director and Secretary of State in Trump’s first administration, is a Director of Cyabra and is listed as part of the combined company’s Board.

Alpha Capital Anstalt holds 80% of the membership interest in the deal sponsor and provided $3 million in financing to Cyabra as part of the agreement.

The list of beneficial owners shows Trailblazer Sponsor Group (of which Alpha Capital is majority owner) with 47.1% of the shares. The list also includes Kerry Proper and Antonio Ruiz-Giminez as owners of 14.7%.

I recognized these names because Proper (also spelled Propper) and Ruiz-Giminez run a firm ATW Partners, that financed a deal for Freight Technologies to buy $20 million of Trump’s meme coin. I reported here that in 2022 a key Freight Technologies investor was Andrew Intrater, the cousin of Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and another key investor was based in Russia.

And Cyabra had been on my radar because a 2018 The Times of Israel reported that four Cyabra employees had previously worked at Psy-Group, a since shuttered Israeli intelligence company that had been under FBI scrutiny in the Mueller investigation.

The New York Times reported that before the November 2016 presidential election, Erik Prince had arranged a meeting for Psy-Group with Donald Trump Jr., Stephen Miller and George Nader. Psy-Group had proposed a multi-million dollar social media manipulation effort and later Nader paid Psy-Group $2 million. After the news became public the company shuttered, but not before several executives moved on to join Cyabra.

Mike Pompeo is also director with several companies tied to Russian oligarchs

In addition to Mike Pompeo’s position as a Board Director of Cyabra Strategy, he has had several other recent roles, some with ties to Russian oligarchs.

Earlier this year The New York Post reported Mike Pompeo had joined the board of Kyivstar in Ukraine in 2023 and the board of Kyivstar parent company VEON in 2024. Filings show Pompeo was to be paid $50,000 per month or $600,000 per year for strategy and advice, and he received stock warrants worth $16 million and a $3 million bonus. The article noted Kyivstar is “planning to list on the Nasdaq by the end of this year with a planned valuation of $2.2 billion.”

A June 2025 VEON filing shows that the largest shareholder of 45% of VEON is L1T VIP Holdings, S.a.r.l. also called LetterOne, a firm co-founded by Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, who own 37.86% and 12.13% respectively. Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven have both been sanctioned in the U.S. and elsewhere. VEON and LetterOne have tried to distance themselves from Fridman and Aven (who have actively fought the sanctions), but it appears they are both still passive (nonvoting) investors in LetterOne and indirectly major shareholders of VEON.

As noted earlier, there is an interesting tangent about Fridman and Aven and Martin Schlaff. Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven were co-founders of Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private bank (note: no known connection to Alpha Capital Anstalt). In 2017 Martin Schlaff’s MSP Stiftung became a 9.99% owner of Alfa Bank. The corporate ownership structure was: Mikhail Fridman (29.62%), German Khan (18.89%), Alexey Kuzmichev (14.7%), Petr Aven (11, 17%), and Marin Schalff’s MSP Stiftung (9.9%). Schlaff sold his stake in 2020.

The New York Post story also reported about some of Mike Pompeo’s other recent business activity:

The former CIA director has also bagged top jobs with copper mining giant ACG Metals — run by UK-Russian national Artem Volynets and which has significant interests in Turkey — and Gor Investment, a shadowy firm from the gas-rich dictatorship of Uzbekistan that has former Energy Secretary Rick Perry on its board.

Earlier this year Mike Pompeo joined the board of ACG Metals. Artem Volynets who now runs ACG Metals was previously an executive of Russian company UC Rusal and the CEO of parent company En+ Group from 2010 to 2013 when it was controlled by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Prior to that he was an executive of SUAL, a company founded by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik.

Mike Pompeo is a director of Gor Investment Limited along with former Trump Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. This article notes that Ovik Mkrtchyan founded Gor Investment and several stories describe alleged links to corruption networks.

Eric, Don Jr., Dominari, Alpha Capital and Martin Schlaff

To bring everything full circle – back to Eric and Donald Trump Jr. and their work with Dominari Holdings – I was interested in learning more about Alpha Capital Anstalt because they were a 2013-2014 investor in Dominari when it was named Spherix, and Alpha Capital had been charged along with Barry Honig in a $27 million stock fraud, and Honig’s network has multiple current links to Eric and Don Jr. and Dominari.

Martin Schlaff has been identified as one of the owners of Alpha Capital Anstalt, and in a few places noted earlier, as the primary beneficiary. While Alpha Capital Anstalt has been involved in many many deals, they have been closely linked to the Barry Honig network, which my reporting shows is closely linked to Eric, Don Jr., and several Dominari deals. Schlaff also has ties going back decades with a Co-Chair of Dominari investor Chai Lifeline, which has another director who helps run LH Financial.

I have written about another investor in Dominari Holdings – Peter Benz – who has over 5% ownership, along with Eric and Don Jr., and who is linked to other Dominari deals. A search of SEC filings shows that Peter Benz has co-invested in over a dozen deals with Alpha Capital Anstalt going back to 2002. This filing from 2002 has a long list of stockholders that includes Alpha Capital and Peter Benz’s Bi-Coastal Consulting. Benz not only co-invested with Alpha Capital but his firm Viking Asset Management and Longview Funds he managed were sometimes the largest investors with Alpha Capital. He also invested in many deals with Barry Honig and his network and he has worked closely with Philip Frost who was also charged in the Honig scheme.

This story is much too long already – the downside of self-publishing and not having an editor to stop me from cramming in all the details. But there’s a bit more to this story. Peter Benz co-founded Viking Asset Management with Merrick Okamoto, who was the CEO of Marathon Digital a firm where Barry Honig, Alpha Capital, Benz etc had been investors. In 2021 Okamoto was given $199 million in salary and stock awards. At Marathon Okamoto worked with Michael Ho who later sued Marathon for a breached contract and won the case for $138 million (Marathon is appealing). Michael Ho is now partnering with Eric Trump, Don Jr., Dominari to launch American Bitcoin.

The overlapping network is not only confusing, but very odd. This story provides the background on Austrian billionaire Martin Schlaff and shows past and new reporting on his links to Alpha Capital and LH Financial, the Barry Honig network and the network linked to Dominari, Eric and Don Jr.

The mainstream media has barely covered this story. Hopefully they will begin to and will fill in more of the picture.