WASHINGTON, D.C. — An American stockbroker who made a fortune within the Russian market within the Nineties and 2000s and later co-founded a fancy Moscow nightclub earlier than leaving the nation died after being discovered mendacity on a sidewalk in Washington, police mentioned.
Police mentioned they had been investigating the loss of life of Dan Rapoport, 52, who was discovered exterior an house constructing in a northwestern district of the U.S. capital, however there have been no speedy indications of foul play.
A preliminary police report mentioned officers responded to a report of a “jumper” on the night of August 14, and the person, later recognized as Rapoport, was taken to a close-by hospital, the place he was declared lifeless.
The police report mentioned officers discovered $2,620 in money on Rapoport after they found his physique on the sidewalk, together with headphones, a cracked mobile phone, a Florida driver’s license, and different objects. He was sporting flip-flops.
Brianna Burch, a police spokesperson, instructed RFE/RL that there didn’t look like anybody with Rapoport on the time and there have been no listed witnesses. She mentioned she didn’t have data to counsel he left a suicide be aware.
It wasn’t clear whether or not Rapoport was dwelling within the house constructing. He had lately moved again to Washington after spending a number of years working in finance in Ukraine.
A police spokeswoman referred additional questions from RFE/RL to the town’s health worker’s places of work. An official with that workplace confirmed that an post-mortem was pending, however had no different data.
The FBI didn’t instantly reply to queries about whether or not it was concerned within the investigation.
Rapoport’s spouse, Alonya, a local of Ukraine, didn’t instantly reply to a Fb message, however she confirmed his loss of life in a Fb submit.
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A local of Latvia and a fluent Russian speaker, Rapoport emigrated together with his household to the US in 1980. After commencement from a U.S. college, he moved to Russia within the early Nineties as a wave of privatizations swept throughout the nation.
The sale of former state-owned firms created a booming inventory market, minting a brand new technology of millionaires, Russian and overseas.
Rapoport was revered inside Russian monetary circles, the place he labored for greater than a decade at an area brokerage referred to as CenterInvest, making his method as much as managing associate. He claimed his purchasers included a number of the nation’s wealthiest tycoons.
In 2007, he opened a swanky nightclub in downtown Moscow referred to as Soho Rooms, which grew to become the go-to location for Moscow’s elite, Russian and overseas alike.
In 2012, he left Russia and returned to the US, saying the inventory brokerage business that had made him a fortune “had died” as fee charges shrunk with enhancements in know-how.
However in a media interview previous to his departure, he additionally criticized the course Russia had taken and expressed help for Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, who was jailed final 12 months.
“Our flight to Washington is in 12 hours. It is unhappy to go away Russia, however for considerate folks, dwelling right here has turn out to be insufferable and disgusting,” Rapoport wrote on his Fb web page on June 13, 2012.
He moved to Washington, the place he mentioned his mother and father lived, and arrange an organization referred to as Rapoport Capital to advise and help know-how start-ups in addition to enterprise capital funds on fundraising choices.
The corporate’s web site mentioned it was registered in Washington, D.C., although public data say the corporate was registered in St. Petersburg, Florida, in February 2022.
An e-mail despatched to the corporate’s web site was not instantly responded to.
In 2016, 4 years after leaving Russia, Rapaport arrange an workplace in Kyiv and opened a non-public fairness fund. In social media posts, he was a vocal supporter of Ukraine, and an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rapoport gained a level of publicity in January 2017, after The New York Occasions reported that the daughter and son-in-law of newly elected President Donald Trump had bought a mansion owned by him and his first spouse. The mansion was situated in an unique neighborhood of the U.S. capital.
Later that very same month, Raporport’s co-founder of the Soho Rooms nightclub, Sergei Tkachenko, was discovered lifeless exterior a Moscow constructing. Investigators mentioned Tkachenko’s physique was discovered on a constructing awning “with accidents typical of a fall from a terrific peak.”
In 2018, the open-source investigative group Bellingcat reported that Rapoport had been the creator of a fictional persona named David Jewberg, who was steadily quoted in Ukrainian media as a senior Pentagon analyst.
