Baku’s Man in America https://www.occrp.org/en/azerbaijanilaundromat/bakus-man-in-america

Adil Baguirov, a business owner based in Dayton, Ohio and a vocal member of the Azerbaijani diaspora, received the $253,150 transfer just months after a non-profit organization he runs, the Houston-based US Azeris Network, helped host a conference in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, that was attended by 10 members of Congress. The junket was widely criticized, and investigated by the House Ethics Committee, for being secretly funded by Azerbaijan’s state oil company.

Aliyev Blames ‘Armenian Lobby’ for Report on $3 Billion Slush Fund

BAKU—Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday blamed the “Armenian Lobby” for a new investigative report detailing how Azerbaijani elite used an estimated $2.8 billion slush fund to influence and lobby lawmakers in Europe and pay for extravagant purchases.

Aliyev, through his press secretary, said that American philanthropist George Soros and his henchmen—the “Armenian Lobby”—concocted the report released by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project on Monday to smear Azerbaijan.

The report details how thousands of payments from Azerbaijan were channeled through four shell companies in the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2014 to buy the “silence” of politicians and officials.

“Neither the president, nor members of his family have any relation to the charges contained in the report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project,” said Aliyev’s press office statement. “The dirty deeds of George Soros need to be investigated,” it said. “The Armenian lobby working in concert with him has been waging a smear campaign against the president of Azerbaijan and members of his family.”

The OCCRP and several press outlets in Europe, Russia and the United States collaborated on the report, entitled “The Azerbaijani Laundromat,” which states that “there is ample evidence of its [the sluch fund’s] connection to the family of President Ilham Aliyev.” The report that has created shockwaves across Great Britain has prompted some members of parliament to call Prime Minister Theresa May to order an investigation into how companies registered there were able to operate such a huge money laundering scheme on behalf of Azerbaijan’s ruling elite.

Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader, led calls for an inquiry, saying this was what happens “when the corporate landscape is too lightly regulated,” reported the Guardian.

“We need a full investigation to see that dirty money has not been used to buy influence in the UK. The Azerbaijani government is guilty of systematic human rights abuses and it would appear the regime has been making payments on an industrial scale,” Farron was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

The OCCRP collaborated with the Danish newspaper Berlingske, which received a trove of leaked bank records that revealed the $2.8 billion slush fund, through which vast sums of money were laundered through a series of shell companies.

From 2012 to 2014, when the Azerbaijani government was rounding up opposition activists and journalists, members of the country’s ruling part were using the secret slush fund to pay off European politicians, buy luxury items, launder money and pay for high-end private schools in the United States.

“Meanwhile, at least three European politicians, a journalist who wrote stories friendly to the regime, and businessmen who praised the government were among the recipients of Azerbaijani Laundromat money. In some cases, these prominent individuals were able to mobilize important international organizations, such as UNESCO and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, to score PR victories for the regime,” said the OCCRP.

The report also details more than 16,000 transactions were carried out by the four shell companies registered in the UK and pits Danske Bank, a major European financial institution and the largest bank in Denmark, at the center of the scandal.

The OCCRP said that Danske Bank “turned a blind eye to transactions that should have raised red flags. The bank’s Estonian branch handled the accounts of all four Azerbaijani Laundromat companies, allowing the billions to pass through it without investigating their propriety.”

“A majority of the payments went to other secretive shell companies similarly registered in the UK, indicating that the full extent of the scheme may be much larger than is currently known. Large amounts also went to companies in the UAE and Turkey,” added OCCRP.

Read the entire article The Azerbaijani Laundromat

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May 2015 article: http://www.spaopportunities.com/detail.cfm?pagetype=news&codeID=314552

Azerbaijani skincare company Gazelli has plans to launch a three-treatment room spa location in London in Q3 this year. This ‘Gazelli House’ project represents one of many luxury skincare-branded spa openings this year, including the upcoming House of Elemis; the recently launched Caudalie day spa in the US; and the Parisian Charme d’Orient spa boutique.

The Gazelli House London is a three-storey townhouse facility and will feature three treatment-rooms on the ground floor – fitted with treatment beds by Gharieni – for clients to learn from skin specialists based on the teachings of Dr Zarifa Hamzayeva, co-founder of Gazelli. The other co-founder of the business is Jamila Askarova, Hamzayeva’s first daughter.

On the second floor of the house will be a ‘living room’ for events, which will involve a choice of educational seminars, interactive workshops, lectures and film screenings.

This level of the house will also welcome a variety of artists to exhibit their works. The incorporation of art into this spa’s social hub is related to Hamzayeva’s second daughter’s curation of contemporary art. Mila Askarova, the second daughter, runs a commercial art organisation called Gazelli Art House with branches in both London’s Mayfair and Baku in Azerbaijan.

The top floor, dubbed ‘sky parlour’, will offer tailored consultations with resident and visiting experts and will feature sessions on topics including colour therapy, sound healing, yoga, hypnotherapy, nutrition and ayurveda.

Gazelli has a number of spa partners around the world, including the two London locations Josh Wood Atelier in Holland Park and Urban Retreat at Harrods. There is also a 2,500sq m (26,910sq ft) flagship Gazelli spa in Baku and the Raffles Istanbul, which launched in September 2014, has taken on the skincare brand in its spa.

Mila credits her mother Dr Hamzayeva (Dr Z) as inspiring her love of the arts from an early age.

Aliyev's Azerbaijani Empire Grows, As Daughter Joins The Game

BAKU -- On the drive between Baku's international airport and the capital center, travelers are met by a brigade of sleek roadside signs advertising a company called SW Holding.

But as innocuous as the posters may appear, they represent a company that enjoys a near-complete monopoly over every aspect of airline service.

Mid-flight meals? Served by Sky Catering, which is owned by SW Holding.

Taxi service? Run by Airport Gate, also owned by SW Holding.

Technical upkeep of the national carrier's planes and helicopters? Silkway Technics. It -- and multiple other companies controlling everything from traveler assistance to ticket sales to duty-free stores -- are all owned by SW Holding.

The holding company is so expansive it even includes its own Silk Way Bank. According to an investigation by RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service using documents obtained by the State Committee on Financial Securities, the bank's owners include two women with close ties to the country's leadership. One is Zarifa Hamzayeva, the wife of the president of Azerbaijan's AZAL state airline company. And the other is Arzu Aliyeva, the 21-year-old daughter of the country's president, Ilham Aliyev. (The remaining owner and current majority stakeholder is Silkway Airlines LLC, which is registered abroad.)

The rise of SW Holding, which has seamlessly absorbed many of AZAL's former businesses, has raised questions about dubious privatization practices in Aliyev's Azerbaijan. It also serves to underscore how the political elite continues to use close friends and family members to preserve its hold on the country's most valuable assets -- despite Azerbaijani laws that list nepotism by state officials as an offense punishable by up to 12 years in jail.

Ilham Aliyev likes to keep things in the family. It's a trend started by his father, Heydar, who ruled the country for 30 years before effectively handing the reins to his son before dying of a heart condition in 2003. Aliyev's wife, Mehriban Aliyeva, is a parliament deputy and a prominent political figure in her own right.

According to a report in "The Washington Post," the couple's preteen son, Heydar, last year became the legal owner of nine luxury mansions in Dubai purchased for some $44 million. Their daughters, Arzu and Leyla, also have Dubai property registered under the names. In total, the children's property holdings are estimated at $75 million.

As president, Aliyev earns an official salary of close to $230,000 a year. But Aliyev, who prior to office served as vice president of SOCAR, Azerbaijan's state oil company, has kept a tight grip on the resources of his oil-rich country, and his holdings are believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars. Neither he nor his wife have declared their net worth, in defiance of Azerbaijani law.

The law also prohibits public officials from owning businesses. Family members, however, face no such restriction. It is unclear where Arzu Aliyeva -- who until now was best known for her role in an Azerbaijani tourism ad aired on CNN -- may have acquired the estimated 6.4 million manats ($7.8 million) she used to acquire her initial stake of 29.08 percent -- or how she would pull together the additional 4.5 million manats that she and Hamzayeva would both need to achieve matching blocking stakes.

A promotional video for Azerbaijan features Arzu Aliyeva:

Hamzayeva is the owner of Gazelly, a successful cosmetics business, but experts say it is unlikely her profits are large enough to allow multimillion-dollar bank investments.

In an interview with RFE/RL, presidential press secretary Azer Gasimov confirmed that Arzu Aliyeva was one of the owners of the Silk Way Bank. As an Azerbaijani citizen who had reached the age of majority, Aliyeva was fully within her rights to establish her own business, he said.

This is not the first case where the head of state-run agencies have used close relatives to privatize the most profitable parts of their businesses. RFE/RL has previously reported on ZGAN Holding -- a private company run by Anar Mammadov, the son of Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov -- which was awarded several multimillion-dollar construction contracts with the ministry after a murky bidding process.

Questions have also been raised about Tale and Nijat Heydarov, the sons of Kemaladdin Heydarov, the current minister for emergency situations and the former head of the state customs committee. The Heydarov brothers are the owners of United Enterprises International, a group of companies engaging in everything from caviar sales to the ownership of the Gabala soccer club, which is peppered with foreign players recruited from abroad.