Float like a butterfly: Who’s the Oligarch boxer in Trump wedding bash

He was close enough to the president’s son to lavish him with a Gatsby-like party but not so close apparently that anyone besides the bride and groom knew him.

Umar Kremlev, a Russian businessman with close ties to President Vladimir Putin, recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Trump’s three-day wedding bash in the Bahamas.

Kremlev’s contributions covered some of the biggest expenses, including renting a private island and a fireworks display launched from a barge in the sea, according to ProPublica, which first broke the story of the Kremlin-linked oligarch’s involvement.

The oligarch is the president of the International Boxing Association, an organization that has been criticized for its ties to the Russian government and has lost much of its standing in international sports. In April, Putin awarded Kremlev the "Order of Friendship," the organization announced.

"There are not that many things that can impress a Russian investigative journalist these days, we’ve seen a lot, but this surprised me," Mikhail Rubin, a journalist at independent Russian outlet Proekt, told USA TODAY about seeing Kremlev’s familiar bald head among Trump family members at the wedding party.

He added, "Kremlev is a very specific person"…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/