British court confiscates £5.6 million from Azerbaijani MP's family
Azerbaijani MP’s family to forfeit 5.6 million in UK
The UK court told members of the family of Azerbaijani MP Javanshir Feyziyev to forfeit 5.6 million GBP [about $7.5 million] to the National Crime Agency. The agency managed to prove in court that the funds in question were “dirty money” brought into the country unlawfully.
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According to the Evening Standard, UK law enforcement agencies accused Parvana Feyzieva, the wife of Azerbaijani MP Javanshir Feyziyev, Orkhan Feyziyev, the couple’s son, and Elman Javanshir, the nephew of a member of the Milli Majlis, of making a profit from corruption funds.
The source notes that funds in the amount of 15.3 GBP [approximately $20.7 million] were found in the accounts of these people, but the prosecution was able to prove the presence of elements of a crime in only about a third of these funds.
The purpose of transferring money from accounts owned by Feyziev himself to the accounts of his family members was to obtain the status of a first-degree investor in the UK, the material says. This status gives foreigners the right to reside in the UK. The Azerbaijani MP’s family owns a house on Cumberland Terrace next to Regent’s Park in London.
NCA lawyer Collingwood Thompson told the court that the money laundering operation used to channel the money to the Feyziyev family accounts included the use of a series of false documents and contracts, as well as the use of a “cloned” company and other shell companies to move money via banks in Estonia and Latvia.
The lawyer added that that the money in the accounts of Dr Feyziyev’s wife, son and nephew was likely to be the proceeds of “corruption, theft, fraud and money laundering”.
“The money came from the MP’s account at ABLV Bank in Latvia, which in turn received transfers of almost $34.5 million from another account at the same bank owned by Avromed, which he co-founded”, the lawyer explained.
He added that examples of suspicious methods used to transfer money included transactions that did not make “commercial sense”. Thus, large payments to Avromed’s account at ABLV Bank in Latvia were received for the alleged delivery of goods, which were soon followed by transfers of similar amounts to Feyziev’s personal account, and then to his family members.
“How the hell can a company make money by giving it away?”, Thompson added. The explanation, he claims, is that no business was actually taking place and that the Avromed accounts were simply being used to transfer illegal money through the banking system.
Who is Javanshir Feyziev?
The 58-year-old politician was elected three times in a row (in 2010, 2015 and 2020) as a deputy of the Milli Majlis, the Azerbaijani parliament. He is a member of the parliamentary committee on international relations and inter-parliamentary relations.
He is also a Ph.D., member of the Board of the Press Council and a member of the Writers’ Union of Azerbaijan.
Despite the fact that, according to the laws of Azerbaijan, deputies are prohibited from doing business, Feyziev is known in the country for actually owning the pharmaceutical company Avromed, although the company itself denies it. Later, the deputy admitted that until 2010 he worked as a director of the company, but in 2016 he sold his part of the shares.
Not so long ago, in 2019, the name of Javanshir Feyziyev appeared in a scandalous case of buying luxurious real estate in the center of Baku.
