was required to declare his income and assets under Russian federal law, according to a representative of the Bashkortostan regional parliament. A copy of the income declaration Gataullin filed for in 2013, when he was still owner of the second Trump unit, contains no mention of the apartment.

Gataullin did not respond to messages sent to his company in Bashkortostan.

More recently, Gataullin has been actively investing in the Miami area. His VVG Real Estate has spent at least $28 million on property in Broward County between 2012 and 2016. It also bought and sold six properties in Miami Dade County between 2015 and 2016 for a total profit of $238,400, property records show.

VVG is also the registered licensee on a small motel close to the beach in Hollywood. Anemployee there told Reuters that Gataullin “appears and disappears like a ghost” and was currently in Russia. A secretary at Gataullin’s holding company in Russia told Reuters on March 17 that he is not in Russia.

The American experience has been a mixed one for some of the Trump buyers. Among them is Pavel Uglanov, a businessman who served as a deputy minister for industry and energy in the regional government of Saratov, in central Russia, from 2010 to 2011.

Uglanov bought unit 3704 of Trump Hollywood in Hollywood, Florida, for $1.8 million in 2012. He sold the 3-bed, 3,395 square foot apartment for $2.9 million two years later.

Back in Russia, Uglanov made unsuccessful runs for the Saratov city assembly in 2006 and 2011, the second time as a member