Police in Québec are investigating a shooting outside a hotel that injured Valeriy Tarasenko, an entrepreneur with ties to a woman who allegedly posed as an heiress to the Rothschild fortune to infiltrate Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Police were called around 12.45 about a shooting outside of a hotel in Estérel, Quebec.
Radio-Canada reported that three people opened fire on three others in the parking lot, before leaving in a black SUV.
Estérel mayor Frank Pappas told CTV after speaking with police and viewing surveillance video he believed the shooting, which left Mr Tarasenko with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, he believed the violence was a targeted attack.
The Ukrainian man wasn’t a guest at the hotel.
Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police, are now investigating. The Independent has contacted the agency for more information.
Mr Tarasenko, a businessman with assets in Canada and Florida, has ties to Inna Yashchyshyn, the alleged fake heiress who reportedly infiltrated Mr Trump’s Florida golf club and home.
Ms Yashchyshyn, who is also Ukrainian, allegedly conned her way into Donald Trump’s good graces, and mingled with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, by pretending to be part of the Rothschild banking family, the Pittsburg Post-Gazette and Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported in August.
The woman was photographed with both men, and was spending time in Mar-a-Lago at the same time federal officials say Donald Trump was storing highly classified White House documents with poor security at the Florida compound.
Federal officials in the US, as well as Canadian authorities are investigating Ms Yashchyshyn. A group of Democratic US Senators have also called for a probe into the fake heiress.
Ms Yashchyshyn told The New York Post in September she didn’t do anything wrong, and that the claims she was a scammer originated with Mr Tarasenko, who she described in court documents as an abusive former lover.
“What boils my blood most is people even thinking I’m Russian or a Russian agent,” the woman told the paper. “Russian people don’t exist to me since they invaded my country and killed my family and took homes.”
In the same report, Mr Tarasenko said Ms Yashchyshyn had only been a nanny to his children, and accused her of being a “brilliant con artist.” In court papers, he’s previously alleged she was an “active member of an international criminal organisation.”
