For centuries, London has been one of the world’s top destinations for shopping, dining, and good living. And a development boom over the last few decades has only expanded the range of attractions, OCCRP reports.
Visitors and locals alike have enjoyed cutting-edge “molecular gastronomy” at the Hibiscus restaurant, shopped on charming Sicilian Avenue, or stopped for a Guinness at the gothic-style, 19th-century Bloomsbury Tavern.
Residential developments with names like “The Knightsbridge” and “Thornwood Gardens” have sprung up just steps from Harrods department store and world-famous Hyde Park. When these developments are sold, the tens of millions of pounds that change hands sometimes make national news.
But these impressive buildings in the British capital have one thing in common that no admiring passerby - or even a savvy local real-estate reporter - would ever know: They are or have been owned by some of the people closest to Azerbaijan’s dictatorial president Ilham Aliyev.
Aliyev’s two daughters, his son, his father-in-law, and two of the family’s close business associates have held, at their peak, a staggering £429 million ($694 million) in London real estate - including prominent historical buildings, commercial developments, and luxury apartments in prestigious neighborhoods.
Their ownership of this property empire has been systematically hidden for years behind offshore companies with generic names like Sheldrake Six and Fliptag Investments.
But thanks to the Pandora Papers, a new leak of offshore documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with OCCRP and other media outlets, reporters have been able to pierce the veil of secrecy that surrounds these companies.
In total, OCCRP found 84 previously unknown offshore companies, registered in the British Virgin Islands, that the Aliyevs and their associates have owned since 2006.
The companies appear to be managed as a closely knit system: Again and again, the leaked records show, groups of them filed paperwork or changed directors on the very same day. Their owners and directorships were also frequently shuffled among the same small group of people.
The Pandora Papers is an investigation into millions of records leaked from 14 offshore service providers - the law firms that help anyone looking for secrecy establish secretive companies in far-flung jurisdictions. Media partners from around the world collaborated for months to analyze the data and reveal the stories of the super-rich and the powerful - including more than 30 world leaders - who appear in it. The confidential documents also feature a global cast of fugitives, convicts, celebrities, football stars and government officials.
A number of the companies were incorporated during the first term of Ilham Aliyev’s presidency, which began in 2003. He is now well into his fourth term, the head of an increasingly autocratic regime built on the jailing of journalists, lawyers, and activists, fraudulent elections, and massive corruption.
His son, Heydar, acquired his first offshore company while he was still in grade school. His daughter Arzu, who studied psychology in London, had just turned 19 when she acquired her own.
Though the companies did not declare what they were doing beyond vague statements like “opening an account” or “trading in Azerbaijan and Europe,” one purpose is clear: Many of them held vast amounts of property across the British capital and beyond.
The source of the money used to buy much of this real estate is hidden in paperwork that may never become public. Those funds may or may not be legitimate, and the individuals involved may have little or no knowledge of their origins. Further investigation would be needed before any such conclusions could be reached.
Reporters did find that at least eight of their companies received multi-million-dollar infusions of cash from vast money laundering and transfer systems previously uncovered by OCCRP, including the Azerbaijani, Russian, and Troika Laundromats. The ultimate origins of this money are also unknown; these systems are known to have moved both legitimate and illegitimate funds.
While some of these offshore companies have been closed in recent years, and some of the properties they owned have been sold, as of 2017 the Aliyevs had transferred £125 million ($191 million) in real estate into a secretive trust that was established and controlled by the president’s father-in-law.
One of these properties was sold in 2018, but the Pandora Papers records concerning this set of companies ends that year, and no further information is available.
