Zamira Hajiyeva, a high-spending individual, has handed over assets to taxpayers as part of a settlement valued at £18.5 million.
The wife of the Azerbaijani banker Jahangir Hajiyev, who is currently serving time in prison, has transferred a golf club in Ascot and a home in Knightsbridge to the British government as part of a settlement that is estimated to be worth approximately £18.5 million to the British taxpayers.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) stated that Hajiyev’s ability to acquire the opulent homes was a “direct result of large-scale fraud and embezzlement, false accounting, and money laundering” linked to the theft of an Azerbaijani state-owned bank.
The assets, which the National Crime Agency (NCA) stated were transferred through offshore countries such as Guernsey and the British Virgin Islands, were the first to be subject to “unexplained wealth orders” (UWOs), which were implemented in 2017.
It is possible for law enforcement agencies to use UWOs, which were formerly referred to as “McMafia” laws after a BBC drama, in order to track down assets that may have been gained by corrupt means.
Following a protracted legal fight regarding a UWO that was imposed on Zamira Hajiyeva, Hajiyev’s wife, the NCA announced that it had taken possession of the assets.
A trustee or trustee organization will hold an auction to sell the assets, which have a total estimated value of £26.5 million in previous court hearings.
In accordance with the settlement agreement, the government will receive 70% of the revenues after deducting the NCA’s expenses, and the remaining 70% will go back to Hajiyeva.
The amount that is actually recovered will be determined by the price at which the assets are sold.
Hajiyeva was unsuccessful in her attempt to protect herself from being identified as “Mrs. A,” the controller of offshore firms that were responsible for housing the assets, throughout the course of 2018. The subsequent appeal that she filed against the UWO in the Supreme Court was unsuccessful as well.
The authorities said that Hajiyev had employed numerous members of his family to steal money from his home nation of Azerbaijan. One of these family members was Hajiyeva, whose shopping visits to Harrods cost £1.6 million a year and were exposed in court. The family has refuted all of the accusations.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) announced on Thursday that it had taken possession of two assets, which are believed to be the 170-acre Mill Ride Golf Club in Ascot, Berkshire, and a five-bedroom residence on Walton Street in Knightsbridge, London, which is just 100 yards away from the entrance to the Harrods department store.
When Hajiyev served as chairman of the state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), he committed a number of crimes that led to his conviction in 2016. These offenses included embezzlement, fraud, and abuse of office allegations.
In 2019, he was also found guilty of stealing from the Moscow branch of the International Bank for Agriculture (IBA). Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is where he is currently serving a term of sixteen years in prison.
An acquaintance of Hajiyev’s was channeling monies from the IBA via many accounts in a manner that was compatible with money laundering, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA), which stated that it had uncovered “numerous” examples of such routing.
There were many jurisdictions that are recognized for their financial secrecy, such as the British Virgin Islands, Guernsey, St. Kitts and Nevis, Panama, Cyprus, and Luxembourg, according to the report. The funds were moved through a network of accounts in these jurisdictions.
According to the National Communications Agency (NCA), the monies were then utilized to purchase luxury assets for the family. The agency was not given a clear explanation as to where the money had originated.
The theft of money from the IBA was concealed through the use of loan agreements or promissory notes, which are essentially IOUs. A “significant” amount of the fraud was immediately tracked back to these documents.
It was in March of 2021 when the NCA submitted an application for a property-freezing order over the golf club and the home.
On the subject of Hajiyeva’s awareness of the manner in which the properties were paid for, the agency did not come to any conclusions.
The Guardian and other media outlets prevailed in a legal challenge that required the publication of her buying sprees in 2018, which led to the disclosure of her spending habits being made public.
Between the years 2006 and 2016, it was discovered that she spent more than sixteen million pounds at Harrods alone. With her spending of £24,000 on tea and coffee, £10,000 on fruit and vegetables, and £32,000 on Godiva chocolates, it appeared as though she was treating the department store as if it were her neighborhood grocery business.
Additionally, she spent £4.9 million on Boucheron and Cartier jewelry as well as £300,000 on the French fashion house Celine. Additional expenditures of 251,000 pounds were made in the toy shop, while tens of thousands of pounds were spent at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique on Disney princess experiences.
Hajiyeva has strongly denied any wrongdoing, and her legal team has stated that the lawsuit brought against her husband was motivated by political considerations.
According to Tim Quarrelle, who is the branch commander for asset denial at the National Crime Agency (NCA), “NCA officers worked tirelessly to track the complex movement of these funds across the international banking system, through shell companies in multiple jurisdictions, in order to ascertain their source.”
“This result comes almost six and a half years after we served Mrs. Hajiyeva with the first unexplained wealth order ever granted, and it highlights our commitment to using all of the tools at our disposal to combat the flow of illicit money into and through the United Kingdom,” the statement reads.
According to the attorneys for Hajiyeva, “the settlement did not involve any finding of fact by the court regarding our client’s knowledge or state of mind, and even less involvement, in relation to these properties.”
They stated that Hajiyeva had settled the proceedings because it had been “impossible to defend them” due to the fact that she had been unable to get papers that were “potentially crucial to the case” from her husband while he was incarcerated in Azerbaijan.
They stated that Hajiyeva and her attorneys had been prevented from visiting her husband while he was incarcerated.