Panama Papers: New Details about Aliyev’s Family Offshore Activities

• 05.11.2016, 19:27
•  Region,  World

occrp.org

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has published new information on the property of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s family. So, Aliyev’s daughters - Leyla and Arzu –have a penthouse worth $26 mln in downtown London, which was purchased in 2006 via an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

Aliyev family's ties with the offshore companies are not new either for Azerbaijani, or the international communities. The information leakage of Panama law firm just revealed new details about the Aliyev clan offshore empire and nothing more.

According to the published documents, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's family has a secret off-shore to manage their property in London and other assets. OCCRP has identified over $140 million in luxury apartments the family maintains around the globe and these are just the known properties.

As for the family's offshore activities providing income, then Panamagate reveals, that in 2005 Aliyev gave the British company and three offshores the  right to exploit 6 gold mines in Azerbaijan, but, in reality, the mines have become the properties of Aliyev family. 

In attachments to a "High Importance" email sent to Mossack Fonseca in February 2005 by a lawyer representing the Azeris, documents proposed that then six-year-old Heydar Aliyev, the president’s son who is known in the files as "A1," be made the beneficiary of 20 percent of the foundation’s proceeds. The plan also proposed that the president’s two daughters, Leyla, then 19 and Arzu, then 17, would hold 15 percent each. And this is not all, Panama Papers write. 

In this regard, the National Front of Azerbaijan's democratic forces appealed to the General Prosecutor calling for investigation of the Panama documents related with Azerbaijan and inform the public about its outcome. However, it is not realistic to expect, that such an investigation will begin in Azerbaijan. Although it has already been stated in Baku that Azerbaijan's laws allow president's children to have commercial companies, the results of the investigation will prove at least one illegal side of the Aliyevs offshore activities - tax evasion is a crime even in such an authoritarian country like Azerbaijan.