Felix Sater has been described as a career criminal due to his links to
organized crime. In 1991, Sater got into an argument with a commodities broker at the El Rio Grande restaurant and bar in
Midtown Manhattan. He stabbed the man's cheek and neck with the stem of a cocktail glass, breaking his jaw, lacerating his face, and severing nerves, creating a wound that would require 110 stitches to treat. Sater was convicted of first degree
assault, and spent 15 months in minimum security Edgecombe Correctional Facility in New York City before being
paroled. In 1998, Sater was convicted of fraud in connection to a $40 million
penny stock pump and dump scheme conducted by the
Russian Mafia she stated that Sater provided "information crucial to national security and the conviction of over 20 individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud and members of
Cosa Nostra. In 2006 there was a lawsuit that alleged that Sater made a death threat against a Bayrock investor named Ernie Menez. Sater threatened to have a man electrically shock Menez's genitals, cut off his legs, and have him put in the trunk of a car. Sater possibly did this because of Menez finding out about his past convictions and links to
organized crime. The
Financial Times, citing five sources with knowledge of the matter, reported that Sater had agreed to cooperate with investigators looking into an international
money laundering scheme involving
Viktor Khrapunov, a former government minister in
Kazakhstan. Khrapunov, who now lives in Switzerland, has been accused by the Kazakhstani government of
embezzling millions of dollars and is wanted by
Interpol. Ablyazov's alleged fraud is one of the biggest cases of financial fraud in history. In 2020, there was a civil lawsuit accusing Felix Sater and his partner Daniel Ridloff of using Trump properties such as
Bayrock to launder millions of dollars in stolen funds. Sater denied the allegations and had attempted to settle the suit. In October 2025, Sater was found liable during a retrial and was ordered to pay $52 million in damages.
Role in the manhunt for Osama bin Laden In December 2017, Sater was questioned by a congressional committee in an out-of-state interview about
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. In his opening statement to that interview, Sater claimed to be a confidential source for the U.S. Government who played an important role in providing intelligence related to the
Northern Alliance and
Taliban, and locating and disrupting
Al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan as well as locating
Osama bin Laden prior to the
September 11 attacks. Sater further claimed that he had been in a position to kill bin Laden in 1998 during a raid on a terrorist training camp inside Afghanistan and regretted his decision not to, a claim that was later confirmed by investigative journalists
Jason Leopold and
Anthony Cormier via U.S. intelligence officials with knowledge of the incident. In 2019, as part of a broader discussion with the House Intelligence Committee about his years-long cooperation with the FBI, CIA, and Defense Intelligence Agency, Sater formally testified to assisting the U.S. Government locate Osama Bin Laden. Judge
I. Leo Glasser confirmed that Sater helped the U.S. government track down bin Laden as he provided the telephone number of Osama bin Laden. Sater had been in a position to access information related to bin Laden's phone numbers and whereabouts due to having been involved with a telecommunications company with ties to the
GRU in the mid-1990s that operated in former Soviet bloc countries and sold transmission data to
AT&T. ==Involvement with Trump Organization during presidential campaign==