SO, LET’S GET this straight. Donald Trump Jr, whose fortune has surged by hundreds of millions amid a boom in crypto and other White House-adjacent businesses since his dad returned to the White House, had a substantial part of his lavish Bahamas wedding celebrations paid for by a Russian oligarch and close friend of Putin’s?

Yep. Umar Kremlev, convicted criminal, oligarch and member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, picked up the tab for a significant part of the wedding celebrations.

Trump Jr’s bride, Bettina Anderson, is the daughter of the late Palm Beach banker Harry Loy Anderson Jr, who handled Jeffrey Epstein’s accounts and once vouched for the late paedophile as “a gentleman of the highest integrity”.

President of the International Boxing Association Umar Kremlev (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (centre) in 2024. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Their early summer wedding, a gathering of about 50 people took place on two private Caribbean islands over three days, played out like a Temu version of John F. Kennedy Jr’s 1996 island wedding to Carolyn Bessette.

Except for the price tag.

According to ProPublica, a non-profit investigative news outlet that consistently scoops far bigger and better funded rivals when it comes to national security and other scandals, Kremlev stumped up for a bill running to ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses’ including the $100,000-a-night hire of the private island where guests stayed and celebrations were held, and a fireworks display that is estimated to have cost $70,000 (€61,000).

A notorious cheapskate, Trump Jr famously bartered a free engagement ring for his first wife, Vanessa Haydon – in exchange for an agreement to stage a photo op of him proposing to his future wife. The deal went down outside in a New Jersey strip mall, outside the jewellery shop that agreed to forfeit the sale price.

The couple's early summer wedding, a gathering of about 50 people took place on two private Caribbean islands over three days. Instagram / IvankaTrump Instagram / IvankaTrump / IvankaTrump

Early this year, a Forbes analysis of his wealth noted it had surged from an estimated $40 million (€34.67 million) in 2024 to as much as $500........

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