Family of former Azerbaijani minister discovered to own multi-million real estate of unknown origin

The children of the former Minister of National Security of Azerbaijan own multimillion-dollar real estate in the UK. 

This became known as a result of an investigation conducted by the OCCRP, Finance Uncovered and Transparency International. It is assumed that all this wealth is the result of embezzlement and subsequent money laundering.

However, the lawyers of the Mahmudov family claim that the property was bought with funds received in inheritance, and with personal savings.

Eldar Mahmudov was removed from office in 2015 amid a scandal surrounding the Ministry of National Security, and the ministry itself was liquidated.

The total value of real estate and assets owned by the son and daughter of the former minister exceeds $111 million.

This became clear in November 2019 a group of hackers hacked a client database of a bank in the Cayman Islands (overseas territory of Great Britain). Among the bank’s customers were also the Mahmudov family.

Experts raised doubts about the legality of these transactions back in 2016.

Also at that time, the question was raised about the Eldar Mahmudov’s ‘Britannia Group Ltd’.  The bank was about to conduct an internal investigation, but whether it did so is not known.

Previously, a similar scandal had already erupted around the mother-in-law of the son of Eldar Mahmudov, Zamira Hajiyeva, who spent more than 16 million pounds in London’s Harrods department store, which came from nowhere.

Zamira Hajiyev’s husband (and, accordingly, the father-in-law of Mahmudov’s son) Jahangir Hajiyev headed the International Bank of Azerbaijan, and in 2015 was arrested for embezzlement of state property and is currently serving a prison term.