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LONDON – The UK has for the first time exercised the power to crack down on corrupt money by ordering the wife of a jailed Azerbaijani banker to explain how she and her husband could get away with it. offer their multi-million pound London mansion.
Zamira Hajiyeva, wife of the former president of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, Jahangir Hajiyev, received two "unexplained wealth orders" in February. Anonymity was granted to her while she was challenging the action, but a judge rejected it last week. The measure allowing him to remain anonymous expired on Wednesday.
The orders are a warning issued by the British authorities to Russian oligarchs, families of former African dictators and other so-called politically exposed persons guaranteeing their money in the UK. They are part of a new legislation aimed at fighting dirty money in the country, targeting political or suspected serious crime relationships including ways to buy property or other assets. are not clear.
The activists sought to urge the government to take further action by publishing lists of properties allegedly belonging to allegedly corrupt individuals and taking journalists on "kleptocracy tours" in the poshest streets of London. In May, a parliamentary committee declared that the government turned a blind eye to the corruption of Russian money, even after the attempted murder in March of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, in England. He called for additional laws and investments in the fight against crime.
The UK's National Crime Agency, which has prosecuted Hajiyeva, estimates that hundreds of billions of pounds of ill-gotten funds circulate annually in the country and its banks.
According to the UK court ruling last week, the Hajiyev bought the house in the upscale Knightsbridge neighborhood in London in 2009 through a British Virgin Islands company, paying about £ 4 million ( $ 5.3 million) on the initial purchase price of £ 11.5 million. A mortgage for the rest has been repaid in five years, the judgment said.
Ms. Hajiyeva told the British court that her husband was a "man with substantial means" at the time of the house purchase, but the court records show that his bank salary was about 70,000 dollars. She added that he also had other business interests and provided a 2011 document from a fund manager, in which the net worth of her husband was close to $ 73 million. She will now have to explain in more detail the source of wealth used to pay for the Knightsbridge home and a golf club located just outside of London.
The NCA stated that the combined cost of the two properties was £ 22 million.
At a court hearing in July, NCA lawyers told the court that Ms. Hajiyeva had a lavish lifestyle in London, spending more than £ 16 million at Harrods department store between 2006 and 2016. These expenses included an article of £ 48,600 from Cartier jeweler and three from Boucheron for £ 121,000, said the NCA in a court file. His lawyers did not return a request for comment on Wednesday.
Mr Hajiyev was President of the IBA between 2001 and 2015. Shortly after his resignation, Azerbaijani prosecutors accused him of fraud and embezzlement. In 2016, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was also sentenced to pay $ 39 million to the bank. According to the British court, Ms. Hajiyeva is wanted by the Azerbaijani authorities in this case.
In May 2017, IBA filed for bankruptcy in the United States as part of a state-led restructuring that sparked a bitter battle against some of the bank's international creditors.
The restructuring was approved later that year.
Ms. Hajiyeva argued that the orders should not apply to her and her husband, IBA being only part of the state. However, documents submitted to the court showed that IBA was established as a state-owned bank and that its participation was over 50% during its term of office.
In his ruling, the judge stated that Mr. Hajiyev was a politically exposed person and that, therefore, his wife too.
Write to Margot Patrick at [email protected]
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