Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank paid Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to help recover allegedly stolen money, supposedly laundered in the US, the lender’s lawyer Matthew Schwartz said in a statement on February 27, confirming part of Cohen’s testimony to Congress. The bank has spoken with US prosecutors probing Cohen’s activities.

BTA Bank was Kazakhstan’s biggest lender before it defaulted on $12bn of debt in 2009—it accuses fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov of embezzling much of those funds. The bank also accuses Ablyazov and his partners of using real estate projects in Europe and the US, including units at the Trump Soho in New York, to launder $440mn when authorities were probing the alleged thefts. It also accuses Ablyazov’s son-in-law, Ilyas Khrapunov, of allegedly hiding talks on real estate dealings in the US using hundreds of accounts for encrypted emails while facing the money-laundering charges.

BTA entered into a contract with Cohen in 2017, following Trump’s election, but he “did absolutely nothing of value,” Schwartz noted. Cohen was introduced to a BTA official in mid-2017. That introduction resulted in a 12-month contract worth $1.8mn—Cohen got $300,000 over a course of two months before the contract was cancelled, Bloomberg reported on February 28.

"BTA quickly tore up its agreement," said Schwartz, who’s representing BTA in the money laundering lawsuit against Ablyazov. Cohen apparently continued to demand the rest of the agreed-upon $1.8mn payment despite the cancellation of the contract.

Schwartz confirmed the payments from BTA, which were revealed by Cohen for the first time during a February 27 testimony before the US House of Representatives Oversight Committee during which he made a range of accusations against Trump.

BTA said on the same day that it “cooperated fully” with the US government following a raid on Cohen’s home and office in April 2018. Cohen was under investation for financial crimes tied to payments he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in order to cover up her alleged sexual encounter with Trump.