The dictator’s daughter, who was also a pop star and diplomat, spent $240 million on property from London to Hong Kong, according to a report previously released by the BBC.

Gulnara Karimova used British companies to buy houses and a plane with funds obtained through bribery and corruption, according to a study by Freedom For Eurasia.

He adds that accounting firms in London and the British Virgin Islands represented the interests of British companies involved in the transactions.

This story, according to the BBC, raises new doubts about the UK’s efforts to combat illicit wealth.

The report says British authorities have long been accused of not doing enough to ensure that criminals from abroad do not use British assets to launder money.

The report says the ease with which Karimova has acquired British property is “alarming.”

There is no indication that individuals operating in companies associated with her were aware of any connection to her and were unaware that the source of the funds might be suspicious. No one providing these services in the UK has been investigated or fined, according to the BBC.

For a time, Gulnara Karimova was a candidate to succeed her father, Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan as president of the Central Asian state from 1989 until his death in 2016. and was ambassador to Spain.

But then, in 2014, he disappeared from view. It was later revealed that she was arrested on corruption charges while her father was still in power and was convicted in December 2017. In 2019, she was imprisoned for violating the conditions of house arrest, according to the BBC.

Prosecutors accused her of being part of a criminal gang that controls over $1 billion in assets in 12 countries, including the UK, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. “The Karimova case is one of the biggest bribery and corruption cases in history,” Tom Mayne, one of the researchers behind the Freedom for Eurasia report and a research fellow at the University of Oxford, told the British Network.

However, Karimova and her accomplices have already sold part of the property allegedly acquired with suspicious funds.

Freedom For Eurasia searched property and land registry records to identify at least 14 properties it believes were purchased prior to her arrest with allegedly suspicious funds in countries as diverse as the UK, Switzerland, France, Dubai and Hong Kong .

The report, which will be published on Tuesday, March 14, under the title “Who contributed to the Uzbek princess?”, focuses, according to the BBC, on five properties bought in and around London currently valued at around £50m, including three flats in Belgravia, west of Buckingham, a house in Mayfair and a £18m mansion in Surrey. million pounds sterling with private property. lake.

Two Belgravia apartments were sold in 2013 before Karimova’s arrest. In 2017, a house in Mayfair, a mansion in Surrey and a third apartment in Belgravia were confiscated by anti-corruption authorities.

The Freedom for Eurasia report also cites companies in London and the British Virgin Islands that Karimova or her associates are said to have used to allow them to invest in real estate and a private jet.

Karimova’s friend Rustam Madumarov and others now believed to be her accomplices were listed in official documents as “beneficial owners” – the legal term for the person who ultimately controls – companies based in the UK, Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands. But the report says they were just proxies for Karimova, who used the companies to launder hundreds of millions of dollars.

Accounting services for two British companies associated with Karimova – Panally Ltd and Odenton Management Ltd – were provided by SH Landes LLP, formerly based in New Oxford Street in London, reports the BBC.

At the end of July 2010, SH Landes attempted to register or acquire another company. The goal was to buy a private jet for around $40 million, with Madumarov named as the beneficial owner. In fact, according to the report, Karimova actually lagged behind the market.

When asked then about the source of funds, Madumarov S.Kh. Landes replied: “We believe that the question of his personal wealth is inappropriate in this case.” Apparently, because the money for the purchase of the aircraft was not allocated from Madumarov’s personal funds.

The London-based company later claimed that Madumarov’s wealth came in part from Uzdonrobita, an Uzbek mobile communications company. Questions have already been raised about the company’s possible relationship with Karimova. Back in 2004, a Moscow Times article claimed that Karimova withdrew about $20 million from Uzdunrobita using fake accounts. The former adviser also accused Karimova of “blackmail”.

Because this was a major transaction involving high-risk country Uzbekistan, the report alleges that SH Landes should have acted with “special diligence”, i.e. thorough background checks, to ensure the source of the funds was legitimate and did not discourage criminal activity. .

SH Landes also released Panally Ltd’s 2012 financials. The report says they were signed in September 2013 by a close associate of Karimova named Gayan Avagyan, then 30 years old.

Last year, the BBC published allegations that Avakyan was the registered beneficial owner of Takilant, a Gibraltar-registered company at the center of a “multi-million dollar fraud and corruption scandal in Uzbekistan.”

In a BBC statement, the head of the accounting firm said: “SH Landes LLP has never worked for Gulnara Karimova. SH Landes LLP represented the interests of Rustam Madumarov. SH Landes LLP is conducting due diligence on all of its customers and the relevant regulatory authorities have been notified and informed.”

Tom Maine of Freedom For Eurasia said the seeming ease with which Karimova was able to buy so much property in the UK was worrying.

“It took the authorities until 2017 to do something – years after other countries had already frozen bank accounts and property belonging to her,” he added.

Source: BBC