
Convicted felon and U.S. President Donald Trump and his family keep ramping up their greed and opportunism. One thing you can give to the Trump family is that they have no shortage of creative and tacky ways to exploit Trump’s presidency to enrich themselves and their billionaire friends.
I have been closely covering Trump’s crypto grifts, including his meme coin, the Trump-sponsored World Liberty Financial crypto project, and the many business schemes of Don Jr. and Eric Trump and their partner Dominari Holdings (here, here, and here). Although you would barely know it based on mainstream media reporting, the connections from Trump’s network to people affiliated with Russia continue to show up.
I recently reported that Russian-American businessman Anton Postolnikov, who loaned $8 million to Trump Media in 2021-2022, also sent $10.8 million to a firm that appears to have several links to Don Jr. and Eric Trump’s new business partners.
While researching Trump’s meme coin I found another interesting connection to Russia – and to a name that was frequently in the news a few years ago – Andrew Intrater, the U.S. cousin of Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.
Andrew Intrater was in the news in 2017 because he donated to and attended Trump’s first inauguration with Putin ally Viktor Vekselberg. Andrew Intrater later hired and paid $500,000 to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. The payments to Cohen were made from Intrater’s firm Columbus Nova which, according to old press releases was founded in 2000 as “the U.S.-based affiliate of the Renova Group” run by Viktor Vekselberg.
Andrew Intrater was in the news again in 2023 because he was a donor of former politician and convicted felon George Santos. I wrote this piece about PPP loans received by Andrew Intrater around the same time he was donating to Santos.
So, it was a funny surprise while researching Freight Technologies – a firm that recently announced plans to buy millions of dollars of Trump’s meme coin – to find that several years ago one of their largest shareholders was Andrew Intrater and another large shareholder had an address in Russia.
Note: there is no indication of any wrong-doing, illegal or criminal behavior by Andew Intrater, Freight Technologies or any of the people or entities mentioned in this article. However, there is some indication that many of the people covered in the news about Trump’s links to Russia in his first term are still active in the network of businesses and deals that are enriching Trump and his family during his second term.
The not-so-impressive Trump meme coin dinner
There is a large list of tacky and unethical ways Trump is making money off his presidency. Vying for a top spot is the announcement Trump made last month that the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP meme coin could buy access to a dinner with Trump on May 22, 2025 at his private club in Washington D.C., and the top bidders would get a tour of the White House. The highest bidder would get a private dinner with the U.S. president.

The New York Times reported that the top holder on the $TRUMP meme coin leaderboard “Sun,” was in fact billionaire China-born crypto mogul Justin Sun – whom I covered here and who had previously invested $75 million in another Trump crypto project, World Liberty Financial. In 2023 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Justin Sun and his companies with fraud and other securities law violations, but earlier this year the SEC, under Trump, paused the charges.
According to some attendees of the dinner which took place last week, “the food sucked” and Trump made a very brief appearance and then left without taking photos or questions with the guests.
Reporting on crypto dinner attendees sheds light on many of the people trying to buy access and influence with Trump, including many wealthy foreign investors. The dinner attendees combined spent $148 million.
One story about a company that was on the leaderboard, but did not make cutoff to be included on the list of attendees, caught my eye.
Texas-based company Freight Technologies announced they planned to spend up to $20 million on Trump’s meme coin
At the end of April, Texas-based Freight Technologies issued a press release announcing the company had secured up to $20 million with an institutional investor and the capital was earmarked to purchase the $TRUMP meme coin. Freight Technologies CEO Javier Selgas said:
We believe that the addition of the Official Trump tokens are an excellent way to diversify our crypto treasury, and also an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the US.
The Washington Post reported:
Freight Technologies, a logistics firm focused on U.S.-Mexico border shipments, said last month that it would raise up to $20 million from an investment firm, ATW Partners, to buy Trump coins in hopes they could offer the firm an “effective way to advocate” on trade.
After the announcement the Freight Technologies stock surged and more than doubled in price.
This SEC filing shows the Freight Technologies Trumpcoin securities purchase agreement listing the name for the ‘buyer’ Antonio Ruiz-Giminez, who is a co-founder of investment firm ATW Partners.
I was curious to learn more about Freight Technologies and who had financed them in recent years and a review of SEC filings showed that Andrew Intrater and several entities linked to him were among the largest shareholders in 2022.
Two of the largest shareholders of Freight Technologies in 2022 were Andrew Intrater and a shareholder from Russia
According to their SEC filings, Freight Technologies had started as a holding company established in the British Virgin Islands in 2015 called “China Internet Nationwide Financial Services Inc.” In 2020 the name was changed to “Hudson Capital Inc” and traded on Nasdaq. In 2022 the company sold their wholly-owned Hong Kong subsidiary and exited financial services to focus on freight management in North America. In 2022 the company did a reverse merger and the name was changed from Hudson Capital, Inc. to Freight Technologies, Inc. (symbol FRGT).
This Freight Technologies 2022 prospectus has information on selling shareholders of 19.7 million ordinary shares. The prospectus registers shares that ‘could’ be sold and notes that the “selling shareholders may sell all, some or none of their shares in this offering.” So there is no indication in the 2022 filing about whether or not the shares were sold or held.
The list of selling shareholders shows that ATW Partners controlled by Antonio Ruiz-Giminez – the firm behind the $20 million agreement for the Trumpcoin – had a maximum of slightly over 1.9 million shares to be sold, just under 10% of the total.
The Freight Technologies 2022 prospectus also shows that Andrew Intrater was a selling shareholder with a very large number of shares in the company.
The list of shares to be sold shows over 1.5 million shares for Andrew Intrater. It also lists over 940,000 shares for JADI Trust which, per the footnotes, is controlled by Andrew Intrater. The list also includes 785,000 shares for FEA FR8 LLC, which is also controlled by Intrater.
There are over 3.2 million combined shares listed for Andrew Intrater, JADI Trust and FEA FR8 LLC, which represent 16.8% of the 19.7 million listed in the prospectus.

I searched subsequent Freight Technologies filings for Intrater, JADI Trust and FEA FR8 LLC and did not find filings showing that the shares were sold.
One of the largest selling shareholders was Yuri Kokush who had an address in Moscow, Russia
Another name on the list of selling shareholders with a significant number of shares, listed directly below ATW Partners, was Yuri Kokush with over 2.6 million shares to be sold, 13.4% of the total in the prospectus.
This 2021 SEC filing for Hudson Capital (the prior name of Freight Technologies) includes a footnote for Yuri Kokush showing that his address was in Moscow, Russia.
There is a similarly named Yuri Kokush affiliated with a company called Marpai, Inc.
Several SEC filings reference a 2020 purchase agreement and convertible promissory notes between Marpai Health and Yuri Kokush and separately between Marpai and Intrater’s JADI Trust. The Chairman of Marpai Health is Yaron Eitan, who had been a partner at Columbus Nova and reportedly managed many investments for Viktor Vekselberg.
Yuri Kokush is also listed on an SEC filing for Nano Dimension along with Yaron Eitan and Andrew Intrater, who were both directors of Nano Dimension before it was acquired by Deep Cube.
Yaron Eitan also happens to be listed as a selling shareholder in the 2022 Freight Technologies prospectus.
There is a Yuri Kokush who runs a road pavement company in Russia called RAD Inc. and who, per several websites, may be affiliated with Columbus Nova, the firm run by Andrew Intrater and affiliated with Viktor Vekselberg.

There is a Yuri Kokush shown in a photograph of a reception of the Russian Jewish Congress along with Alfa Bank founder Mikhail Fridman and Renova Group founder Viktor Vekselberg. However, it is not confirmed this is the same person.
Another large 2022 Freight Technologies shareholder is affiliated with several entities linked to the Trump Media SPAC deal
One of the Freight Technologies selling shareholders in 2022 was SPAChub Global LLC with 909,091 shares or 4.1% of the total. SPAChub Global LLC is controlled by Suying Liu. A prior filing for Hudson Capital listed Suying Liu and SPAC Global, LLC with 12.6% of their class of shares.
Suying Liu has been on my radar for a while and was included on this chart I published in 2021. The section on ARC Group, a Shanghai firm that advised DWAC which later merged with Trump Media, shows Mountain Crest Acquisition and Suyung Liu – a variation of the spelling of Suying Liu. This filing notes that Suying Liu, Chairman of Mountain Crest, was previously Head of Corporate Strategy at Hudson Capital (later renamed Freight Technologies) and a director of PLBY Group.
I had started researching Suying Liu and his involvement in PLBY Group, the owner of Playboy Magazine, because of some other interesting links. One of the largest investors is György Gattyán who built a fortune in Hungary in the porn industry. The Chairman of the Board of PLBY Group is Suhail Rizvi, who has financial ties to Shahal Khan and BurTech Acquisition Corp – another company featured on my chart because the former CEO of DWAC, Patrick Orlando, had previously been an advisor and part owner of BurTech. Khan and BurTech have other interesting connections reported here by Jacqueline Sweet about the firm that paid FBI informant Alexander Smirnov who lied to the FBI about Biden family bribery in Ukraine.
In 2022 Andrew Intrater and several of his companies were significant shareholders in Freight Technologies – along with ATW Partners which recently agreed to fund the purchase of up to $20 million of Trump’s meme coin.
There is no indication that either Andrew Intrater or Yuri Kokush is still a significant investor in Freight Technologies and there is no indication they have any connection to the ATW Partners Trump meme coin deal.
However, it is quite a coincidence that the small company Freight Technologies (which said it expected to make a gross profit of up to $3 million in 2025 with losses up to -$5.5 million) has announced a not insignificant plan backed by ATW Partners to invest up to $20 million in Trump’s meme coin. And two of Freight Technologies largest funders a few years ago had notable links to Russia and to Viktor Vekselbeg. And another prior investor is connected to the network that was involved in the Trump Media deal.
Following the money reveals that there are overlapping people that keep showing up related to the Trump family businesses, from the DWAC merger with Trump Media, to the work that Eric and Don Jr. are doing with Dominari Holdings, to the many people involved with and investing in the array of Trump related crypto ventures.
One more example that shows how these stories overlap – I reported here on how Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are working with Dominari Holdings and how multiple people involved with Dominari deals are linked to a $27 million stock scheme that the SEC said was run by Barry Honig. Last week the SEC announced a judgement for Elliot Maza that was related to the Honig case. I looked into Elliot Maza and he is listed as significant owner of Aspargo UK Ltd, as sole admin for Aspargo Espana and in this filing Maza is associated with Aspargo Labs Italia. The affiliated company Aspargo Labs is run by Michael Demurjian who was previously COO and director of Tyme Technologies. I had mentioned Tyme Technologies in this article from 2023 – because one of the investors was Cova Funding – run by Andrew Intrater. Another investor in Tyme was Midland Fundco, which appears to be connected to Midland Resources owned by Alex Schnaider, who I covered extensively here in this 2021 story on the Trump Toronoto deal.