![]() ![]() Their corporate partners were anonymous tax haven entities based in the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles and Belize. The four front companies at the centre of the scheme (Metastar Invest, Hilux Services, Polux Management and LCM Alliance) were all limited partnerships registered in the UK. ![]() The recipients also included prominent Azerbaijanis with government positions or connections, like the family of Yaqub Eyyubov – Azerbaijan's first deputy prime minister, Ali Nagiyev – a government representative responsible for battling corruption and Orkhan Sultanov – head of foreign intelligence of Azerbaijan. ![]() Another portion came from Rosoboronexport – a state-owned Russian arms exporter. Some of the money came from companies with ties to the regime like: Baktelekom MMC, connected to former minister Goknur Baki, Azarbaycan Metanol Kompani, Arash Medical Production and offshore entities. It had a major impact in Denmark due to Danske Bank's implication in the scheme, Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen reacted to the stories publicly, telling Denmark's TV2: "It makes me sad and angry." Laundered money Īlmost half of the money ($1,452,918,429) came from an account held in the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) by a shell company linked to the Aliyev family, $8.5 million came directly from government ministries and organisations such as the MODIAR, Ministry of Emergency Situations, Special State Protection Service. This was Berlingske's first sizeable international cooperative investigation. The scheme allowed Azerbaijan's ruling elite to funnel out at least $2.9 billion to purportedly buy silence on human right violations in Azerbaijan, promote Azeri government views and create a positive image of Azerbaijan abroad. The analysed documents revealed a large number of obscure transactions indirectly linked to "influential persons" in Azerbaijan that mainly used four UK-based shell companies and the Danske Bank branch in Estonia to transfer millions to accounts of companies and individuals across the world. Internal bank documents detailing over 16,000 transactions between 20 were initially obtained through a leak by Berlingske Danish newspaper and then shared with their media partners. The scheme was uncovered through a joint investigation by OCCRP, Berlingske (Denmark), The Guardian (UK), Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Le Monde (France), Tages-Anzeiger and Tribune de Genève (Switzerland), De Tijd (Belgium), Novaya Gazeta (Russia), Dossier (Austria), Atlatszo (Hungary), Delo (Slovenia), RISE Project (Romania), Bivol (Bulgaria), Aripaev (Estonia), Czech Center for Investigative Journalism (Czech Republic), and Barron's (US), which published a series of articles revealing the results of their investigations in September 2017. The money was used to pay off European politicians in an attempt to whitewash Azerbaijan's reputation abroad. The investigations exposed that during two years between 20 about USD $2.9 billion was siphoned through European companies and banks. The Azerbaijani laundromat is a complex money-laundering scheme organized by Azerbaijan that was revealed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in September 2017. ![]()
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