WASHINGTON, D.C. — An American stockbroker who made a fortune within the Russian market within the Nineteen 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 have been investigating the demise of Dan Rapoport, 52, who was discovered exterior an condo constructing in a northwestern district of the U.S. capital, however there have been no rapid 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 useless.
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 cellular phone, a Florida driver’s license, and different gadgets. He was carrying flip-flops.
Brianna Burch, a police spokesperson, advised 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 info to recommend he left a suicide be aware.
It wasn’t clear whether or not Rapoport was residing within the condo 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 town’s medical expert’s places of work. An official with that workplace confirmed that an post-mortem was pending, however had no different info.
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 demise 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 Nineteen Nineties as a wave of privatizations swept throughout the nation.
The sale of former state-owned corporations 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 approach as much as managing associate. He claimed his shoppers 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 trade 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 route Russia had taken and expressed assist for Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, who was jailed final yr.
“Our flight to Washington is in 12 hours. It is unhappy to depart Russia, however for considerate individuals, residing right here has change into 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 information 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 personal 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 useless exterior a Moscow constructing. Investigators mentioned Tkachenko’s physique was discovered on a constructing awning “with accidents typical of a fall from an ideal 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 ceaselessly quoted in Ukrainian media as a senior Pentagon analyst.
